Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Beginners, see how good you are at tuning A4 aurally.

I would also appreciate any feedback by the pros. Bugs, and the like.

Here is the link:

http://howtotunepianos.com/video-lessons/test-yourself-on-tuning-a4-using-the-f2-check-note/

Have fun.

(See if you can find some of my trickiness.)

Very nice test!

I would set A4 for the PTG test by using two (digital) forks, one at A=444 and one at A=436 and tune A4 equal beating. I was informed this would be acceptable for the test.

Kees

Yay, got 100% the first time. Fun easy little test.

Very nice. That would serve to temper the temperature effect.

Ditto, a nice little test!
And ditto, I managed to get 100% first-time around.

Re. trickiness: On one occasion, I got the impression that A4 wasn't raised, but lowered. On another occasion, I got the impression that A4 wasn't lowered, but left unchanged.

A humble comment from a beginner about choosing a suitable beat speed. I normally set F2 significantly sharper than the typical ET 7 bps, to make it easier for myself. Aiming for 1c accuracy, I need to get the two beat speeds within ¼ bps. I find it much easier to distinguish, say, 3 from 3¼ from 3½ bps, or even better, 2 from 2¼ from 2½ bps, than to distinguish 7 from 7¼ from 7½ bps.

The slower the beat, the easier it is (for me) to pick out a small difference.

Just my 0.9 cents...

I know my opinion is not so well appreciated by you Mark, but as you asked for, here it is:

First time I did the test: 48%. I did not understand what I was suposed to do! My fault. I believed I were asked to say if A4 was flat or sharp, then I realised that A4 was changing as I raised or lower it, I was lost in space, so I got it all wrong.

Second time: 100%, I understood I was tuning.


My opinion on the test: good test but it is some how artificial. That is not the way I tune A4.

In this test we retune A4, without listening to it! And after we have retuned it, we listen. I never do that when tuning! I never tune or retune a note without listening to it or to an interval that includes the note I am tuning.

When I am tuning I always play A4 with the fork while I am moving the tuning hammer, until it sounds good, then I test with F2. If it's not good enough then I retune A4, again by listening with F2 while I move the tuning pin. In verticals, with no sostenuto, I use a little screwdriver to lift the F2 damper, so I can play F2 with my right hand, then play A4 with my right hand and move the tuning hammer with my left hand (I am left handed), hearing how the beat rate changes. In a grand I use the sostenuto pedal to keep F2 sounding while I play A4 and tune with my left hand.

In other words, when I move the tuning pin I am always hearing at A4, with the fork or with F2. So I can hear how the beat rate changes.

In this test we have not this kind of moving (changing) beat rate feedback.

Do you remember my analogy with the snake? The snake is camouflaged and we can not see it... until it moves.

So I hear at the beats with the fork or with F2 while A4 is moving.

And, like Mark R., I also like to retune F2 sharper to have a slower beat rate.

The best I can do is 9cents sharp. However I only used the last section of the video where the fork and the note are played. Reason: I can not make head or tail of the use of the lower sounds!

Got 100% the first time.

However, unfortunately, the wording is poor, unfocused, with cumbersome needless differential equations and weird nomenclature.

Here is how Bill Bremmer explains it:

"Sound the A-440 pitch source, a tuning fork or audible electronic tone and try to match the A4 string to it exactly, no beats.

When satisfied with that, sound the note F2 and A4 together. You may use the Sostenuto pedal to hold these two dampers open. (If the piano has no Sostenuto pedal, you may use the damper pedal in the same way as the Sostenuto, sound the notes first, then press the pedal).

Listen to the rapid beat between F2 and A4. Make sure, first of all, that the F2-A4 interval is a wide M17th. If you are unsure, adjust the F2 until the F2-A4 Major 17th (M17th) is beatless and then flatten F2 until the M17th has a very rapid but still discernable beat. Now compare that rapid beat with the beating between F2 and your pitch source. If they seem exactly the same, it proves that A4 is tuned perfectly to the pitch source.

If there is a difference, some adjustment must be made.
If you hear a slight discrepancy, all you have to do is adjust your A4 up or down by the slightest amount to make the F2-A4 test match exactly. If the piano's F2-A4 is slightly faster than the piano/pitch source F2-A4, the piano's A4 is slightly sharp and conversely, if the piano's F2-A4 is slightly slower than the piano/pitch source F2-A4, the piano's A4 is slightly flat.

At the PTG Tuning Exam, you are allowed 5 minutes for this procedure but luckily, if you should fail, you will be given a second chance. The tolerance is very small and the rules are strict. Even just one full beat per second is a failing score. In many circumstances, an absolutely perfect A4 at 440 may not be required but in high profile circumstances such as live concerts or recordings, it is and that is why the Exam places such high importance on it."


Hope that helps.

Gadzar, your comments are always appreciated; they are more helpful than if you agreed with everything I said.

The way you tune, I call "Direct Tuning", listening directly to the interval being tuned. The way the program is set up, I call "Indirect Tuning", listening to other intervals in order to make a judgement on the quality of the interval being tuned.

So, if you tune A4 directly, then listen indirectly and find it needs to be improved, the implication is that indirect tuning is more accurate, in that single example, anyway.

Here is how I use Direct Tuning: (Not movable direct tuning like you do, but immovable. I.e. listening to the interval directly after it has been moved.)

Set the note using check notes so the beats agree with some criteria. (F2A4 = F2Fork, in this case.)
Then play A4Fork. The sound of the direct interval must be beatless. Not just beatless, but sound like a single string.
If it does not sound like the single string, then you were wrong when you said F2A4 = F2Fork. Go back and re-listen.

It is this re-listening, determined by the student, using my method without me there, that guides the student toward improving their beat speed recognition and beat speed difference sensitivity, independently, after my instruction, without me there.

Also, direct tuning uses what I call Conceptual Comparison, that is, comparing the sound you hear from the piano, to the concept of the sound you are striving for, that exists only in your head.

Conceptual Comparison can be very fast and natural. The problem is, it takes very long to develop the concepts; the idea of what sounds good.

Comparing two actual physical sounds and deciding where the pitch should be from their relationship, I call Direct Comparison. (Internal Direct = the piano tells you. External Direct = another source tells you.)

Direct Comparison is better for a student than Conceptual Comparison, IMHO. (They may not even have a concept yet.)

Indirect Tuning (using checks) seems more accurate to me, especially when using my bisecting window temperament sequence, in my experience.

When tuning A4 to the fork directly, the window is "this sounds too flat" and "this sounds to sharp".

The Bisecting Window temperament sequence has more objective criteria.

Even the F2 test is not objective. "This sounds too fast" and "this sounds too slow". Abstractly speaking, we can never get F2A4 to equal F2Fork.

Also, you can't use listen to the interval directly while changing it, with the Double String Unison method.
High accuracy can be obtained when using check notes, producing great sounding intervals, which the student creates themselves, then listens to, all without me there.

It is this listening that is training their concept of what a good interval sounds like, so then they have the choice of tuning your way after that, if they want.

They can't do that until the have developed the concept.

Double string unison and high accuracy techniques allow them to create great intervals, listen to them, and develop their concept faster than without, in my experience as a piano tuning instructor.

Thank you for sharing so precisely, how it is that you tune. It is a great resource for others reading.

What?!

I do use check notes!

You always misinterpret what I say, to "prove" your way is better than mine.

I was talking about your test. I don't even know how you tune A4.

All tuners I know, including myself, do use a test note, most of them F2 and some B1, to tune A4.

I give up to try to talk with you. You post your stuff and ask us our opinion. But if I suggest you another way then you say I am wrong!

So be it, you are always right and I am always wrong and your way is the best ever.

By your way, I meant listening to a single string A4 as it beats with the fork, and adjusting the A4 so you can hear "the snake in the grass", as opposed to my way which uses double string unison.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Yes, I agree. But the problem with using narrow check intervals is that there is a danger that one of the intervals is narrow. So I usually advise tuning the check note pure with the previously tuned note, then flattening it so that the check interval produces a "healthy" beat; not too fast, not too slow.

Once the interval being tuned is very close to pure, the check note can be raised to improve sensitivity.

The F2Fork was about 7bps.

The misunderstandig continues.

All I said in my previous post was referring to your test. In your test you never mention DSU.

And when you retune a note with your DSU technique, you are hearing at two strings, aren't you?

So you are hearing a string changing its pitch while the other rests unchanged. And it is this little change in tone (this is not really a beat) that gives you a high accuracy, am I wrong?

That means you are "hearing the snake moving in the grass", just as I do when hearing a single string A4 with F2 or with the fork.

Is it that you do not hear the beating, or you can't hear the difference, or you don't understand how it works?

Using F2 is more accurate than just listening to A4Fork directly, as you saw. The trick is to develop your beat recognition and beat speed difference sensitivity.

Two points in response:

I always start by making A4 as beatless against the fork as possible, then do the fine-tuning against F2, and end off by double-checking that A4 is still beatless against the fork. In my opinion, even a beginner should be able to tune A4 directly to the fork within, say, 1 bps (4 cents). Once this has been achieved, it is not necessary to have the M17 beat at 7 bps, and to try and differentiate between 7 and 7¼ beats while fine-tuning. For me, "healthy" lies at about 2 to 3 bps. That's still sufficiently fast, because even if I've tuned A4 one bps flat, it will still beat at 1 to 2 bps (wide) with F2.

Secondly, I think the risk of getting one M17 wide and the other narrow, is almost non-existent, because then A4 and the fork would beat against one another at double the beat rate of the M17. So, even if the M17 beats really slowly with both A4 and the fork, say only 1 bps, then A4 against the fork would beat at 2 bps, which I'm sure a beginner would hear.

That's why I always end off, after having matched F2A4 with F2-fork, by re-checking that A4 is beatless against the fork. If both A4 and the fork beat against F2 at, say, 3 bps, but they are beatless against one another, then both M17s are definitely wide.

Yes. I understand completely what you are saying. The risk is more in interval checks like the 6:3.

BTW, try this out next time you get a beatless A4Fork.

Play A4, then add the fork to it. Do it again. Repeat multiple times. Each time, listen to the loudness of the combined A4Fork. Try to get A4 and the fork at the same loudness. Listen individually to gauge how loud to play each.

You should hear a variation in the combined loudness. Sometimes the fork seems to add to the loudness. Sometimes; subtract.

What is happening:
When A4 and the fork are in phase, the peaks line up and produce a louder waveform. When they are 180 degrees out of phase, peaks line up with valleys and cancellation occurs.

The tone, louder or softer, continues to decay evenly. As you know, it is a unique sound, and it confirms that A4 = Fork.

And we all know that B1 can be used in the same way as F2 to judge the accuracy of our A4 to the fork, right? Right?

Then again, a narrow M3 beating at the same speed as a wide M3 sounds very much different in quality and intonation and is immediately apparent to me at least.

1.I can't hear the beats.
2. I do not understant how it works.
If I, on my piano, I play F2 and A4 together I hear a very strange "beat" . I would describe it like a "creepy" oo-wha ! About one per sec ?
Plainly A4 is on of the higher harmonics of F2 ??

I really wold appreciate your explanation. I do tune own piano and do repairs to same.

Mark Cerisano, RPT,

Here is a beginner asking to learn to hear beats in RBIs, let us see how good you are teaching him with your superior methods...