This is an interesting question and thank you, Peter Grey for inviting me to respond. The only real requirement for initiating a Master Tuning is that it be done on a piano already tuned to A-440 in Equal Temperament. Already, we can see where there is some real slop in that. The A4 must be within +/- 1.9 cents of 0.0 as read on the A4 fundamental. Already, there is an electronic tuning specification. Since many tunings tend to drift a bit along the way, few exam committees would want to start with the A4 being at or near the limit. What would be the very best way to take care of that?
The problem with drift is one that I never see really addressed. In the "good old days", the master tuning was done entirely by ear, yes. The entire piano was tuned from end to end and then each pitch was measured and stored. If, in the end, the A4 was beyond +/- 1.9 cents, the entire project would have to be started over. I will address the problem of drift later in my comments.
Many of these master tunings were done at annual conventions. It would be a new piano from the factory and delivered to a hotel room after going through sweltering heat and then into an air conditioned room. The initial state of the piano could be almost anything and to try to gain control of it was a very difficult problem. One solution to the problem was to turn on the AC to the coldest setting so that it would run constantly, not cycle on and off. There were exams in Las Vegas where it was 120 degrees outside but the exam room was a chilly 65 degrees and people had to put on jackets or sweaters to be comfortable. There were exams in Kansas City where it was a sweltering and very humid 95 degrees outside and the piano had been on a truck and delivered from such conditions to a cool and stable room.
In St. Louis, I observed that Atsundo Aikawa, the Chairman of the ETSC Tuning Exam Sub-Committee, had supplied thermal blankets to pianos to prevent them from being exposed to air conditioning on and off cycling effects. The rooms were not so chilly.
Please consider once again that these were brand new pianos. Nice in one respect but in others, not so nice at all. Perhaps very tight, squeaky or jumpy tuning pins. No long series of constant attention that would stabilize their pitch. Totally "green", so to speak.
Since the rules did not stipulate that the initial tuning had to be done aurally, many examiners in charge of the piano began to use ETD's to perform initial tunings, to try to get the piano on pitch and within a reasonable range throughout. It would take at least 2 or 3 of those before the master tuning session would begin. Whatever there was on Tuesday afternoon of convention week was the result of whatever effort had been made to stabilize the pitch beforehand. No one ever expected any ETD generated tuning to not need any correction and that has never happened.
It is not that even if an ETD generated tuning from an hour before the master tuning session was "bad", it may well have scored perfectly or nearly so within the tolerances of the exam. It is the fact that the master tuning itself is a super-human model of perfection that otherwise would be unattainable through any means or method. The exam candidate only has to come within the allowed tolerances of that to score perfect 100's which nobody ever has (although some people have come close).
It is also a matter that the master tuning is, after all, an entirely aural tuning effort and its results can differ from the perfect model that an ETD program may project. The difference, for example between a photographic image and that of a highly skilled artist. The photographic image may, in fact be more true to form but the artist rendering may be more appealing to the eye.
In any case, electronically calculated programs tend to draw a smooth curve through what otherwise should be a jagged and irregular line. The electronic program does not know where the piano changes wire gauges, for example. There may be four unisons of a certain gauge of wire that each exhibit their own inharmonicity curve but when the wire gauge changes, there is an abrupt and new set of circumstances.
The electronic program can blur all of that together so that nothing sounds very "off" but when an exam committee scrutinizes it, very fine distinctions can be found. It takes longer and is very difficult to make extremely small changes to what is already there. The closer to absolute perfection one gets, the more time consuming and difficult it becomes to try to achieve absolute perfection.
For this reason, it is not uncommon for an exam committee to still spend 4 hours correcting an electronically generated preliminary tuning. Some of the drift in pitch because of conditions in the room and the newness of the piano may also be factors.
As for drift, I learned from Doug Atkins that it would be a good idea to check and correct if necessary, any drift in pitch that may occur along the way. Therefore, rather than waiting until the entire piano had been tuned, I personally record the temperament octave, then the midrange after they have been completed. I deliver firm test blows to each string. If any have changed, I restore them to what has been recorded but then, I am required to re-asses any electronic tuning with aural verification. I record each octave after it has been tuned the same way. It all takes time.
In other words, I like to treat the master tuning in itself as a work in progress. It is preliminary until each and every pitch has been agreed upon in the very end. I do not like at all the idea that some parts may have drifted before all pitches are recorded. Whatever drift there may be could easily exceed the tolerances of the exam. In my view, it is better to firmly establish each section of the piano, each octave as it goes, check and restore it if necessary on the fly so that the end result is really what it was meant to be.
Unfortunately to the purists, this does involve electronic tuning. It involves tuning pitches to exacting amounts that have already been established aurally in the exam program. If anything has been restored by electronic tuning, it is required for it to again be verified aurally. This, by the way, sometimes does turn up some discrepancies which can serve to further improve the master tuning.
That being said, I have heard of some astonishingly short master tuning sessions that followed a preliminary tuning by a master tuner such as Jim Coleman, Sr. I have also heard of some short sessions when the program for the same make and model master tuning was used to generate the preliminary tuning for a new master tuning. However, I must say this about the last sentence. The master tuning I attended in St. Louis had for its preliminary tuning, the master tuning program performed on it for the preliminary tuning, the very same piano, not just the same make and model and it still took more than four hours to correct it.
The moral of the story is that if there is a master tuning session to be done in a chapter or area exam board piano that is an established piano in a stable environment, it may well work to initiate the project with a preliminary tuning done entirely aurally. The preliminary tuning is done by the examiner in charge and the master tuning is done mostly by the other two examiners scrutinizing the preliminary tuning. That is what I believe to be the original idea and that is all well and good.
The goal is to have the most perfected model tuning possible. If rules were imposed that each and every master tuning be done from scratch aurally only, I believe that master tunings done under convention circumstances would suffer as a consequence. There is simply no question about the ability of electronic tuning to be able to afford some exacting pitch under such circumstances. It is still and always has been the requirement, that master tunings be finalized entirely aurally.
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William Bremmer
RPT
Madison WI
608-238-8400
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2017 18:47
From: Fred Sturm
Subject: Test Master Tunings and ETD's
Dean Reyburn has a tuning style called "RPT Tuning Exam." He based it on data he had collected on a large number of master tunings, and early on he stated that all master tunings would score his emulation at 100% or very near. He stopped making that claim due to some pushback, I believe, but I also believe that his claim was true.
This was based on master tunings done entirely aurally. The use of an ETD to set up the initial tuning for exams was frowned on among CTEs, though some would use a stored master tuning to do an initial tuning on a piano of the same model. In my own limited experience as a CTE, scoring exams taken by people using an ETD (in the days when the whole piano was tuned first, and then the ETD assisted examinee had to do an additional aural midrange), I found that they tended to score at least 95% and above, unless they had lousy hammer technique. The first one I faced had all 100s except two 98s.
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu
http://fredsturm.net
http://www.artoftuning.com
"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2017 06:59
From: Eric Johnson
Subject: Test Master Tunings and ETD's
Does anyone have any data or anecdotal information on how the master tunings used for testing exams compare to standard ETD calculated tunings on the same piano?
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Eric Johnson [RPT]
[Eric Johnson Pianos]
[Westport] [CT]
203-520-9064
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