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Thank you, Silent Mark. You have said much of what I would have said and seem to be as knowledgeable about it as any seasoned piano technician should be.

I have been quite busy the last few days and have wanted to respond to this thread. There is a concert series I have been attending this week at night too, leaving me no time at all. Can you imagine a professor playing ALL of Beethoven's sonatas from memory with outstanding interpretations? This month if the final series and tonight it ends with the Opus 111! The tuning is excellent although the technician there is afraid to do anything but Equal Temperament (ET). An 18th Century temperament would have made it all the better.

It appears to me as well that the tuning which was disliked involved a combination of temperament and excessive stretch. From the description, I think there is a possibility that tuner #2 tried the so-called Equal Temperament with pure 5ths. It certainly would make the piano sound brighter but at the expense of having both intolerably wide octaves and Rapidly Beating Intervals (RBI), Major thirds, sixths, tenths and seventeenths (M3, M6, M10, M17).

The author of the thread may not understand what this means but the effects of overly stretching out an otherwise standard tuning will certainly produce the sound that she heard and found pleasant in one way but ultimately unacceptable. It is just as you noted, something gained but also something lost. When what is lost exceeds the value of what is gained, the compromise made is found to be unacceptable.

Another possibility is one that I have noted now for many years which is called Reverse Well temperament. The tuner dislikes the sound of a tempered 5th when progressing through a 4ths and 5ths kind of sequence and therefore "errs towards the just 5th" (makes them too close to beatless or "pure") as the late John Travis identified in his book, now over 50 years ago, Let's Tune Up.

Since the temperament sequence begins primarily among the white keys and ends with the black keys, the tuner does essentially the opposite or reverse of what is called for in Well Tempered style tuning, (usually called Well-Temperament). The 5ths among the white keys are beatless or nearly so and those among the black keys are overly tempered as an ultimate compromise. In this case, if the ET with pure 5ths was not intended, octaves may have ended up overly stretched as well to try to keep all of the 5ths and octave and 5ths from beating while ignoring the effect upon the RBIs.

The result either way is that typical harmonies played in the simple keys, those with no sharps or flats or up to 3 or 4 sharps and flats would sound very "busy", slightly or even downright "sour". The reverse well scenario would have made it even worse than the ET with pure 5ths.

One may think that such erroneous tuning is rare and far fetched but in my experience, it is the most common error made by aural tuners who cling to the most often taught 4ths and 5ths kind of temperament sequence, the kind which is considered "classic", the kind found in the book used by more tuners than any other, the book by William Braide White called Piano Tuning and Allied Arts.

It is the tuner that makes the error, not the sequence.

Bill: I'm going to give up defending William Braid White's sequence from your Bashing. It is only to your advantage. It gives you more opportunities for your pre-recorded info-mercials. You are just trying to tear something down to build yourself up. If people don't see what you are up to, well there's a sucker born every minute. Then again, it being an election year, they might just be insensitized to mud slinging. The sad part is that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. There are tests in his sequence that are useful in any sequence. These could even be used to improve your sequences, Bill.

Blaming a piano’s reported change of tone on William Braid White is going pretty far.

Regards,

Well, Upright, if you have any better explanation for why so many tuners across North America, from Montreal to Mexico City and from New York to Los Angeles all seem to make the same errors, I would like to read it.

Just exactly how many tuners do make these errors? How did you count them?

One thing you can always, I mean always, be sure of. Anytime two or more piano technicians sit down at the same table, and the conversation is about tuning, there will be strong disagreement every time. I wonder if auto mechanics, or electricians argue the finer points of what they do, this much. I kind of doubt it.

I have to agree with Tooner in this one. When it comes to White's sequence for tempering, the problem usually lies with the person's skill level, rather than the temperament sequence he is using. Someone once wrote, "piano tuning is like cooking; everyone has his/her own receipe."

That said, I must admit I am not a fan of White's temperament sequence in "Piano Tuning and Allied Arts." Though White's book was one of the textbooks in the school I attended, we were not taught his temperaments. I know people, who strongly believe the best method is using 4ths and 5ths as the basic temperament intervals, but I have never found their tunings that pleasing to my ear. That is not to say, they were really bad; just not the way I would do it, to bring the tuning to "life," for lack of a better word.

I am sure Mr. Bremmer has had a lot of experience with people taking the PTG tuning exam, who were in the "ballpark", and maybe even passed, but whose tunings were just not at the highest standard. I would again have to say, it was probably not the tuning interval sequence that was the problem, but that examinee's skill level.

So, the amiable arguement continues, and as BDB so correctly stated. How many indeed do make these errors, and who counts them anyway. Unless one takes the PTG tuning exam, there is no standard for anything in tuning, except the customer's "standard." And I found out a long time ago, the majority of the piano owning public dont know the difference between a good piano tuning and one not so good.

I've been setting here wondering if I should chime in on this one or not and decided that I would.

I strongly disagree with only one way of tuning and in particular in the cutting down of Mr White. While some might not agree with certain methods of tuning, it's wrong to cut someone else down for their personal preferences. Especially naming names, that so many technicians highly respect and on top of that, it is unethical according to the PTG guidelines.

I'm going to name drop. Bill you know some of these people. If not, ask Richard Kingsbury, he knows them and he knows me too from many years ago. My dad and his dad and the rest of these 4 fellows mentioned were good friends and hung around together at all of the PTG functions. In fact, that's where I got to know Richard jr from attending these things with Harry Buyce.

Some of the very best technicians that I know, Harold Buyce , Yat Lam Hong, Gerald Peterson, George Groot (my dad) tuned using the apparently, old fashioned method of ET tuning. These guys produced some of the finest tunings I've ever heard. Yat Lam has used ETD's for many years. Heck, Yat Lam has all the toys for boys!

Ask Yat Lam or Richard about the reputation these ET using people had for tuning. The answer will speak for itself in that there is nothing wrong with using the ET method. It is the person behind the tuning method that they prefer or the EDT of their choice that creates the problems. Not the words written in Whites book.

Many other RPT's that I know use the ET with great results as well so, please don't cut down the choice of others. It's just not right. If it works for them and produces the correct results then, so be it. If you prefer your method over theirs, then, so be that too.

Ron,

Good comments here on your experience with the tuning intervals and your preference for a differing temperament structure.

I have used Braid Whites temperament for 37 years, and I can tell you with a degree of certainty that if you are tuning ET with pure or beat less fifths this is not Braid Whites temperament.

I just dug out my copy of the book to review, the 1974 edition, and interesting to note that there is a typo on page 88 in the chart of ET where the beat count for A37-D42 has been left out. My father calculated the count and wrote it in with pen. This could be the problem with everyone making the same errors as Mr. Bremmer claims.

No-where within this chart does he instruct students to tune the fifths beat less or pure.

While I don’t use the beat count much anymore (just as a guide) I can tell you that this temperament must be “varied” slightly from instrument to instrument. Example: I find I have to adjust the F-C slightly slower on Asian entry level uprights more so then on longer grand’s. Could be the mathematical error produced when casting a smaller plate scale. And this fact is really not important. I just do it and the customer is always happy. Really with tuning what we might hear as tuners might not be the same thing that the customer hears, if they can hear at all………………

Also just as an addition this book went to 18 printings from 1917 through to 1974. I don’t think this would be the case if people were of the opinion that this guy didn’t know what he was talking about.
The book was repeatedly printed because of………….maybe he knew what he was talking about.

How abstract.

The topic of this discussion is whether different tuning styles may affect perceived tone. The answer is most surely, yes. I gave my opinion about what I thought two possibilities may have been. I meant what I said and I offer no apology for that.

I did not drop any names. I did cite the one book which was written nearly 100 years ago as what I believe to be the primary source and reason why so many tuners, certainly not all, make the very same type of error. I have also, at other times, critiqued other books and said what I thought was good information along with what was clearly erroneous, incomplete and obsolete.

My personal observation has been that about 3 in 4 aural tuners who use a 4ths and 5ths type sequence end up with the same kind of error in temperament, one that is a result of accumulating and compounding the effects of tuning one 4th or 5th after another without any way to correct oneself at each step along the way.

The instructions in Braide-White's book do not adequately explain how to correct accumulated error nor do they tell anything at all about how to take the theoretical values which are provided and alter them to accommodate the piano's actual inharmonicity nor for the size of octave that is chosen.

Therefore, one is left with a vague "guideline". So, the skill level that Ron mentions is not in that book for anyone to read and learn. I also can name any number of names, which I will not, of very highly skilled aural tuners who started with and still use a 4ths and 5ths based sequence that more than likely was learned from Braide-White's book.

I can name many, many more names, which I also will not and never have, for it would be indeed unethical and when those names were of those who barely passed or failed PTG Tuning Exams, I am specifically prohibited from doing so. Those people were also taught the same kind of sequence but were either not taught or couldn't learn what isn't taught in the book that it takes beyond those basic guidelines to actually make a temperament end up as the intended goal.

I was one of those people myself once. If you asked me today to tune an ET from the Braide-White sequence, I could surely do it with results that would meet the highest of standards. I don't use the method I actually teach people as a way of setting up a nearly infallible framework right in the beginning of the process and leaving the rest to be simple and easy to complete because I never tune any pianos in ET.

My only interest in ET is helping those who want to pass the PTG Tuning Exam learn the skills that it takes to do so. I also am interested in identifying why certain problems recur and finding a way to avoid those problems in the first place. There has to be a reason why so many people make the very same errors.

I am quite certain about what the reason is and what the source of it is. Other very highly skilled technicians who also teach ET tunings have agreed with me and supported my contentions but I'm not going to "drop" any names. I've read the same outrage that was written in this thread many times before. If someone else can identify something else as the reason for it, I would be more than happy to read and consider it. But I will not take any suggestion to not reveal the truth for what I know it to be.

Until then, I stand firmly behind what I said here and have been saying for over 20 years: The Braide-White book is obsolete, incomplete, misleading and inaccurate. For those reasons, it should not be used today as a primary source for the education of a novice piano technician.

There is some information in it which is still valid, of course. One point made in it which I use in my own teaching is the value of tuning a 4th or 5th beatless first and then tempering it. Very few people, however seem to have even read that page, much less make use of the suggestion.

There was obviously something wrong with the way Tuner #2 in the initial post tuned which did not sound appealing to the pianist. A few people responded with ideas of what they thought the problem could be based on the description. Some mentioned stretch and at least one mentioned temperament. One person hinted at ETD vs. aural tuning. I also know how and why this bad combination occurs and I am not really concerned if some people find the plain truth to be a little too uncomfortable to bear.

when you start cutting down other technicians for whatever reason, you begin losing my respect.

1. You're flat out wrong Bill. And, this is why.... You need to realize that cutting down a fellow technician as you have done with Braide-White simply isn't right. Do it privately then but not in public.

2. Your way of tuning is not the only way. Nor is mine. Nor is RCT or Tunelab... If Whites way is obsolete then, so be it. The point is, there are other methods. So long as the final outcome is excellent, who cares who uses what method?

Some of us might make mention and we have, of reasons why a tuning might sound better or worse, but not one of us cut down the another technician in order to do so. You did... That's where I am telling you that you're flat out wrong.

Today, we have courses such as Randy Potters course and others. Which way does he teach?

Which way is required to pass the tuning exams to become an RPT?

Since WHEN is it unethical for me to name names, but, it's okay for you do it?????

To even imply that 3 out of 4 tuners are tuning incorrecty as per Bill Bremmer is practically like saying, 99% of all tuners are tuning incorrectly. Everyone, that is, but those that tune using your method. Hmmmmmm.

Being on the tuning exam as you are, I also know the passing scores of many technicians. Many have far surpassed the CTE levels using the ET method. Just as many have failed. That doesn't mean they would have passed had they used your method or passed had they used my method. That means, they didn't have a good enough ear to pass and/or were improperly trained.

I wish Mr. Bremmer would explain what exactly he thinks is wrong with the tunings that he does not like, rather than talking about what is wrong with techniques. I would like to know which intervals are wrong, and which direction they are wrong, wide or narrow. Maybe he could even give an indication of how much they are wrong.

Jerry, for someone who often thinks my writing makes it seem if I am angry, yours certainly does to me. Furthermore, you seem to be angry about something that never happened.

What is Equal Temperament, after all? The two words mean that every interval is tempered equally, each exactly the same as the other. The PTG Tuning Exam Master Tuning is about as close to that ideal model as is humanly possible, it even exceeds what any electronic tuning device or program can do. Yet, it is done by a committee of three over a four or more hour period, typically, under a clinical setting. We all know that it is still imperfect.

So, is a temperament that passes that exam even at 100% still really ET? Its readings won't match the Master Tuning pitch for pitch, even when the pitch correction is factored in. How about one at 95%, far exceeding the requirements to train as an examiner? 90%, 85%, 80%? They all still pass but they all still have errors or imperfections, even the master does.

I have conducted any number of master tunings and will do another at the 2008 convention. My preliminary tuning will have its errors corrected by the committee. In the terms of what you have just written, I have just cut down myself and I have used and will use my own method for tuning ET. In fact, I have not cut down 99% of technicians, I have cut them all down, including myself and all of the master tuning committees there ever were or will be.

The point I make is that I do, in fact, know where certain typical errors come from and why. There are ways to avoid those kinds of errors. There are ways to correct them when they have been made because of the specific approach used which caused them.

If you really read the material I have written, you would know that I don't teach just one specific way to do anything but give a myriad of options. My writings involve concepts rather than rigid declarations. They teach moving from one point to another with assurance in clear, unambiguous language. I also provide suggestions for those who are most comfortable with using a 4ths and 5ths sequence because I do understand that familiarity can be an over riding factor in the choices people make.

The fact is, that no one temperament sequence is perfect, not any of the several that I have come up with over the years nor anyone else's. They all need cross checks and methods of refinement. The ultimate goal is to have as true of a result as one *intends* (the theme of this year's PTG convention) as possible.

So many technicians go for years not being able to improve their work, whatever it may be, tuning, regulation, voicing, rebuilding, refinishing, piano moving, etc., because of lack of knowledge of specific ways to do things better. Teaching only old, obsolete methods which leave out completely the knowledge and finer points which have come to light in the last 30 years or so serves only to cut them all down and keep them down.

No one knows who "tuner #1" or "tuner #2" is. No one knows exactly how each tuning sounded. We can only go by the descriptions offered. I saw two different possibilities in what tuner #2 *may* have done. One would have been intentional, the other a result of very commonly made errors.

I made those same kind of errors myself at one time and it prevented me from becoming the equivalent of an RPT at the time. I sought further education and found revelations not offered and completely unknown to me from the text I had relied upon for my initial education.

I just can't accept that helping people to understand why and how certain errors are so commonly made by so many people amounts to "cutting them all down". Nor do I get any personal gain from it. I don't get any more calls for tunings or anything at all that would actually make me any money. The material I have written is available for free, it isn't even copyrighted. One must pay for just about any other useful information there is today.

What I do make money on is the way I handle the pianos I service for my mostly local clientele. The application of the knowledge and skills I have acquired and accumulated from so many different sources for nearly 40 years now all adds up to a truly marketable product.

Many people have clamored for me to write a book and I probably will some day. But the idea to me seems daunting. I'm afraid of what would be left out that is truly important. I've seen other recent books and shook my head when all that was offered were theoretical beat speeds that no human being could replicate with no clear and unambiguous way to adjust that information to the piano's unique inharmonicity and the size of the temperament octave chosen. They offer precious little more or better information than did Braide-White.

I learned virtually everything of true value that I know through my association with PTG either directly or indirectly. Therefore, I know first hand the value of PTG and the status of RPT. I am committed to promoting both of them so that all piano technicians, PTG members and non-members alike can benefit from the collective influence PTG has had on piano technology in general, particularly in the last 30 years.

Therefore, I maintain that the Braide-White book and its teachings, some of which are still good and valid but others which are not, should be viewed for what it is, obsolete. It had its place and value in its time just as Sigmund Freud's work did in its time. But we know so much more today that Braide-White didn't know and didn't understand, just as with the case of Freud. The time will come when the mention of Braide-White's book will be accompanied by a chuckle, knowing that it did not have all the answers and that it lead so many people down an erroneous path.

It simply doesn't make sense to keep teaching novices methods that don't really work as they are written. Virtually all technicians who initially learned from that book and who now have superior skills use knowledge and skills acquired elsewhere. They do *not* do literally what is taught in that book. Why should anyone start with it, knowing what it will lead to and what a painstaking process it will be to recover from it when there is a much simpler and easier way to approach the initial setting of an equal temperament?

That was an awful lot of writing, and it does not say anything that has not been said already.

BDB, your post came in while I was writing my last. The answer is that errors in tempering of 4ths and 5ths can and do go either way, wide or narrow. For example, if one tunes any 4th or 5th, knowing that it must be tempered but not knowing how much or how little in order to compensate for *both* the piano's unique inharmonicity *and* the width of octave chosen (beatless sounding or very slightly widened or even something more unconventional either way), then without an immediate check or confirmation that the amount tempered is correct or incorrect, proceeds to tune another 4th or 5th from that unverifiable pitch, and then another or two, the result may well be that each and every pitch tuned is incorrectly to some degree or another. The result will be uneven Rapidly Beating Intervals (RBI).

"Backing up" through such a chain of imprecision doesn't necessarily correct the errors either. Such an operation may only serve to make certain groups of related intervals compatible but leave that group incompatible with the rest.

Either way, 4ths and 5ths tempered too much or too little or a combination of both lead to uneven M3s and M6s (also m3s, or any of the RBIs). Any kind of sequence that tunes one 4th or 5th after another with no immediate RBI check for each note tuned will lead to compounded and accumulated error in ET.

Therefore, the solution to that problem is to find a way to *not* tune one unverifiable pitch upon another. I have attempted to explain this to the point of exhaustion in the "Marpurg" thread.

One student from Mexico for whom English is clearly a second language seemed to understand this very well. He wrote:

<<For me the question is: Does the [Braide-White] sequence lead to tune a fine tuned temperament?

And for me again the answer is: No.

That is for me. What about for others?

For example for you. Do you really tune 5ths beating at 5, 4.5, 4, 3.5 BPS, etc.?

Or, instead, you know how it sounds like or how it feels like and then you tune them by experience and feeling?

quote:

"[name], you're right they can't be "counted", the thing is to learn what the proper rate sounds or feels like."

If so, why not to accept that it doesn't work the way it is and tell honestly that you are doing it otherwise?

I think I've understand the concept beyond the facts in [Braide-White]. That is tempered 5ths. Now, you can't get tempered 5ths by counting beats as it says. You have to temper 5ths, yes, but how? How do you cope with [inharmonicity] that affects dramatically the beat rates of 5ths? [Braide-White's] explanations don't answer that, so it doesn't work. No[t] for me, nor for anybody.>>

The student understood well that the information in the Braide-White book didn't provide specifically and unambiguously what is needed to compensate for inharmonicity. But to further complicate the issue, how to compensate for the chosen octave size as well. The two, all important and critical factors are completely unaddressed in the Braide-White book. Read: obsolete and incomplete. Do not read: "cutting down all the tuners who learned from it and use it".

BDB, I respect you as a technician and contributor to this list as I do Jerry. I have seen from both of you honest, helpful information on countless items. So, I ask you both to please accept from me what I have observed for some 20 or more years now about what I have found on the pianos I have been hired to tune.

Some have been other "concert tuners". Others, a dealer prep tuning, others simply the last tuner who was there. They could not have all somehow morphed into the same kind of inequality of temperament which I have so often and consistently observed.

I recall one instance where at the 1998 PTG convention, I set about to do the initial tuning of a Walter grand piano for a presentation I would do later in the week. I observed the same "reverse-well" kind of temperament I had found in so many other places before. I called a very highly respected mentor of mine whose name I will not "drop" here to witness what was on the piano before I began to tune it.

That was 10 years ago. Needless to say, I have found the very same kind of error ever since, more often than not, an estimate of 3 out of 4. I've never made a tally of of all ther reverse-well's I have encountered but at times, I wish I had started one so I could give some hard data. Not all were so particularly bad but a few have been rather blatant as I mentioned in another recent thread. Saying this is not an effort to "cut down other tuners". It is merely an observation of the facts as I see them.

I only wish for technicians to become aware of why and how these errors occur so often and consistently. I've even seen a few cases where the errors occurred more or less in the beneficial direction and created a kind of crude well-temperament.

I recall, for example, a very famous technician of a very famous brand of piano tuning at a PTG convention. He would only speak of ET but to my and a few other's observation, it was clearly not ET but the variation he produced was truly well-tempered, not the reverse of it. He was definitely a 4ths and 5ths tuner. I know that from watching him tune.

In short, you can choose to "believe it or not". I can only offer what I know to be persuasive. You may choose to believe as you wish, that anyone who uses the Braide-White method or anything similar to it, always produces a reasonably good representation of ET or that the majority, as I contend do not. Either way, it is not my intention to "cut down" anyone or to say who does and who doesn't. I only wish for the the truth to be known and understood by everyone.

Member # 20363

Rate Member posted April 16, 2008 10:17 AM
It seems a few critical words from a student I quoted were someehow left out of my last post:

For me the question is: Does the [Braide-White] sequence lead to tune a fine tuned temperament?

And for me again the answer is: No.

That is for me. What about for others?

Since you cannot say whether a given interval is going to end up wide or narrow, I do not understand how these mistakes can be the result of a particular method of tuning.. If the method is at all useable, then using that method should give the same results all the time. Is your claim that the method works differently from time to time? If it is not, the only other conclusion is that it is not the method, but the implementation.

There are too many of these discussions which seem to fall apart on issues like whether something should be wide or narrow, or beat faster or slower, with some people saying one thing and others saying another, and still others saying, "It depends," which is the worst. As soon as someone says sometimes it is one thing and sometimes it is the opposite, I cannot believe that person knows what he or she is talking about.

One comment about judging other people's tunings: It is very difficult to do. The piano may be ideal when the tuner leaves, but the temperature may change, or a breeze may blow by, and if you are trying to be absolutely accurate, that could make enough of a difference if your tolerances are too close. I am up to my neck in a concert series now, tuning the same piano day after day, and it varies. Whether it varies because the lights have changed, or it has been moved to a different venue, or because the pianist was plucking strings or hitting them with mallets, or because I was on one day and off another, I cannot tell. I would be even harder pressed to judge someone else's tuning. (However, digital pianos are fair game!)

Bill:

When you say the thing to do is to learn what the proper rate sounds or feels like - by "sound" are you referring to "pitch" or something else?

I've read that people with perfect pitch claim to be able to tell whether they are hearing, for instance, an "A" note or a "B flat" note by the sound of the note, I think they mean they hear something other than the pitch that is coloring the note. Is that the kind of thing you are referring to when you talk about listening to the "sound or feel"?

Is there any correlation between the method of tuning you are talking about and the method that enables people with perfect pitch to identify the pitch of a single note?

Jeanne W

Jeanne: Bill was quoting someone else that said "[name], you're right they can't be "counted", the thing is to learn what the proper rate sounds or feels like."

All:

I am suspicious of any argument that makes negative (rather than comparative) comments about one thing in order to prove the value of something else.

Since there is some interest in this subject, there is also an opportunity for something positive to come out of it.

Out of respect to this Topic's subject, I will start a new Topic.