Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum The Challenge of Aural Piano Tuning

Many technicians use ETD's and many want to be better aural tuners.

I have done some research in this area and this is what I have found. I hope it is useful to some.

All intervals change speed chromatically about 6% in Equal Temperament. We are born with the ability to hear these small beat speed differences. It is not something we need to learn. With very little instruction, people have been able to hear beat speed differences of 2% and 3% within minutes.

However, being able to hear these beat speeds clearly takes practice. Experienced aural piano tuners can hear beating partials at will. They can hear a beating unison for example, and pick out which partials are beating and be able to make a qualitative judgement on the speed.

Honing the ear to be able to do that takes focused practice and time; the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Just tuning is not good enough. You need to be focusing on hearing beating partials, and not just beating partials in general, but specific partials.

Because Open Unison tuning techniques are one way to get really good results, just trying to hear beat speeds as they change while tuning one string, is not good enough.

Open Unison requires one to be able to judge the sound of the Open Unison or complete trichord, and that means "no changing the pitch" while listening for the beat speed.

In my experience, all the other challenges like theory, procedure, sequences, even stability, are relatively easy to teach and learn, compared to the skill of being able to filter out unwanted frequencies, and focus on the quiet beating of a single out of tune coincidental partial.

My unisons became better when I try to tune e.g. the third or fourth partial of a note. In the treble I tune as soon as possible after the hammer stroke. I try to get rid of the beginning "miau" till it is completely gone.
In the bass I have better unisons when I tune the decay of the tone. I clean up the decay and if it's all quite and calm, I am happy with it. I think I can hear much more partials during the decay of a note.
Easy said: there is a moment, when everything fits together. Sometimes earlier sometimes later in the sounding note.

Probably it is not tuning partials, it is more observing the movements in the tone.
Listen to changes.

Yes, very similar thing. Tone = relative presence of partials.

Good pianos get the unison in the "slot" and it stays there.

Poor pianos have false beats, tone problems, etc, that contribute to the moving single string. With a moving single string, by tone or pitch, getting the sweet spot to stay is virtually impossible.

It can also be compared to learning how to use a chisel in woodworking. The first time you try it you quickly realize how much wood CAN be removed with a single stroke, however that is rarely what you really WANT to do. With patient practice and attention to detail, your mind and muscles learn to respond instantly to what the wood is telling you..."lower the angle, change the speed, change direction, turn it over, etc." until you learn to take off a nearly transparent shaving of wood and produce a surface that looks like it was done with a hand plane.

Of course it helps to have an experienced hand over you also, but it requires developing a sensitivity in certain areas that is beyond what most people experience. It totally astounds me to see what people can learn to do with their hands and minds together.

As alluded to, there are different things that (with time and practice) you can learn to listen for in a unison. Some shoot for "dead-on" accuracy listening high up in the partial spectrum. Others choose to listen to the rate and form of the decay (these are completely different modes of listening) and adjust the sound of the unison accordingly. Some deliberately induce a slight waver into it (not my style, but it can have its place).

Each one can produce pleasing results. The expert learns to do it all depending on the circumstances at hand, and do it well.

I am a proponent of learning to do it the hard way (aurally) because introducing the ETD too early short-circuits the vital ear/mind/muscle development that must take place. Yes, it is slower this way, but better IMHO.

Practice, practice, practice...listen and THINK!

Pwg

In regard to learning aural tuning it is something that I believe every tuner should do.
Learn it at least to the point where you can pass the PTG tuning exam aurally.
This will grade you on pitch, intervals, stability, unisins, the use of a pitch source and more.
All necessary skills.
Later if you want to supplement your aural skills with an ETD your choice of which one and how you use it will be done with some wisdom and experience and your skills will be happy and your clients will be happy.
Want to take a short cut? it is much more likely your reputation will suffer.

On the stability end of tuning the focus is on unisons so Ill ask everyone reading this thread that has tuned for performance: what was your most challenging event?

Mine was a couple years ago at Mondavi UC Davis with Setwart Goodyear where he performed all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in one show.

I did some work for Ben Folds. He bangs the crap out of the piano!

Looooong vacations I found to be bad as well on the process; the ear 'grows cold'.
I was actually away from tuning for 2 years (a hospital stay, and recoup, and other events), and it took quite a while to get the ear 'warmed up' again... Just like anything not practiced routinely- or any muscle not exercised- the ability fades until brought back to life through use.

I guess that also qualifies as my most difficult challenge after learning and becoming a tuner--- the return after the absence (that first piano).

Created after His image, and in His likeness--- the possibilities are mindboggling (and perhaps endless?).

Yes, truly endless.

Pwg

Tuned a nearly brand new 7 footer that was "the apple of the eye" of the high school because of a certain name that "designed" it... The pinblock was very, very tight and the rendering was very very light in the middle, making stability a real problem. Also the action was HEAVY. I had mentioned this to a few of the regular players and they said they liked it that way. (!) I once watched as a visiting jazz student tried it out before an event and after the first phrase she picked up her hands and shook them.

Anyhoo, I had a "tune and attend" on this piano for a past Cliburn medalist. He wanted to practice with no one in the auditorium. I had recently become convinced of the value of a pure 12th tuning and this was a sort of public debut of it. I listened to him practice at the side stage entrance and got that dreamy feeling as he played Beethoven's Pathetique.

When he came off stage a few of us were standing there and he immediately started ranting: "That piano is a disaster! It is the worst piano I have ever played!" Of course I thought "Uh oh, was it the stability, the stretch, the tempering, all of the above? What will I be able to do to fix things up in the next 10 minutes?" He then turned to me and said, "No it isn't your fault, the tuning is fine. It is the piano. It plays like a tank. If you wanted an example of a piano that would injure a pianist, that is the one! There was nothing you could have done." But, of course, there was much I could have done if I had been allowed. (Much later, I was asked to do something and I did. The hammer flanges were too tight and I re-pinned them.)

To finish the story, I then sat in the audience and listened to a fantastic performance on a piano with a tuning I could hear no fault in even to the encores but didn't enjoy a single note because I failed to provide the best service to the pianist.

Challenging enough for 'ya?

C Bechstein and a Steinway/Boston grand nose to nose in the same little studio... Heat pumping away from a heater that was set only 3 feet from the Boston. C Bechstein's pins skipped left and right (up and down the range) like mad! Had been restrung/pinned- with terrible results... That piano made me sweat trying to get it 'fine' tuned- and it never really made it, in my opinion.
The pianist were two women from the Netherlands.

I tried 4 times, and they called me back out 4 times!
Tried to explain the multiple problems that they were presenting from their side, as best as I could...
Not only heat so close, and so dry. But, also a much smaller Boston, compared to a Large C Bechstein... Mentioned how horrible the pin-skip was in the Bechstein... But, it all sounded like excuses, and there was really no point. They appeared to be set that it wasn't them or their situation.

(and no, there was no climate control systems in the room)

I guess I was the third (or fourth) tuner/tech to be 'dismissed'...

They still stand to this day as the only customers I have lost.
Rather irritating to this day.

*** Last I heard they were tuning their own pianos- guess no one left to call in the area?

I don't bother explaining in situations like that anymore. Like you said, the more I explain, the more it sounds like excuses.

Don't get me wrong. I do spend time explaining things to reasonable people. :-)

I think that with difficult situations similar to what Rick explains you can usually count on the fact that most people do not hear out of tune intervals and if you just focus on clean unisons you will likely be ok
I had a short notice tuning with a rock group and had about an hour to tune a Yamaha c7 rental
It came from San Francisco and set up outside in Sacramento in July. Not to mention the drummer that was dueling with me.
Made unisons solid and did not have a complaint, it was about 6 cents flat and moving.
They tuned to the piano and could care less about pitch

Indeed. That reminded me of comments by technician Linda Marten, on p65 of Steve Brady's excellent book Under The Lid:

Honestly, I don't think it's that simple. I can't imagine growling M3rds and 6ths or overly flat 5ths passing escaping notice. My opinion is that temperament must be a co-equal third of the formula (octaves, unisons, temperament).

In other words, skilled work and attention to detail are what separates a great tuning from a good tuning.

Most certainly you are correct. I should not be suprised that someone missed my point here and I am not advocating producing a poor quality tuning.
My point was that given difficult circumstances and time constraints, sometimes a high quality temperament and ideally stretched octaves is just not possible. Your choices are to either walk away and not do the work or to do the best that you can with the situation.
Try this one: you are hired to tune for performance, you have one hour, the piano has been sitting on a truck and has equalized with outside temperature of freezing. It is brought inside where room temperature is 70 deg F just in time for you to tune. What do you do?

Yes, Gene, I was speaking in general terms. Of course, under the time constraints and challenging situation you mention, I would be glad for any semblance of a tuning I'd be able to get! Certainly under those circumstances, you're going to go for as clean a sound as you can, meaning octaves and unisons as best as you can.

Then I missed your point, sorry.
We do tend to learn how to adapt to challenges like that.
And sometimes it may be good to walk away.
As mentioned-real problems that prevent high quality work appear as excuses to some. And our reputations can be impacted.