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Why Aural Tuning?

  • 1.  Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-16-2017 17:19
    Hello all,

    Before you comment please read my entire post. 

    Why do we put such an emphasis on aural tuning? We accept modern technology in every other area of our lives, and yet one of the goals of most piano technicians is to be a competent aural tuner. Why is that?

    Please understand, I am completely for aural tuning. If the device breaks or gets lost, you still need to be able to tune. My question is more of why we so highly elevate aural tuning. As ETDs get better and better, the need for "strictly by ear" gets less and less. So I guess I'm trying to figure out why aural tuning such a high goal to achieve?

    I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this controversial subject.


    P.S. Please don't respond to me privately. Your opinion needs to be heard by everyone. 
    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    BenPianoPro@comcast.net
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-16-2017 21:31
    I originally learned how to tune aurally. I passed the RPT tuning exam aurally. At that time I finally felt qualified to upgrade to an ETD, which I now use almost exclusively. Why? Accuracy, repeatability and yes, speed. 

    My ETD assists me through about 25%, perhaps a little more, of any tuning I do. The rest I have to do by ear. I just have to. There is NO way to do a competent tuning without using your ears to judge where the tuning is going and how it turned out. Not the least of which is pulling in the unisons. 

    But the ETD is not the boss, nor is it what I feel comfortable turning to when the customer questions what I have accomplished. If the customer sits down and plays a bit and then questions the correctness of a specific note or interval I'm not going to pull out my ETD to research whether a specific note is in or out of tune. By doing that I have demonstrated to the customer that I'm not a competent tuner because I am dependent on the ETD to do my job. That I am unable to evaluate and judge a tuning, or something that may be not right with it. No. I'm going to do some aural interval tests to determine if one of the notes is wrong, and if so to determine which note is wrong and then decide how to correct it. Without knowing how to tune aurally I would not be able to do that. Troubleshooting and correcting or adjusting a tuning is also a lot faster by ear.

    Knowing how to tune aurally is not about actually tuning aurally. It's about understanding what your tuning goal is, and whether you are accomplishing it by whatever means you choose to use. No question that ETD's are terrific, and they make our jobs a lot easier. But none of them are right all the time. And unless you know how to aurally judge a tuning you will have no way of knowing if the tuning you just pulled off your ETD is actually the tuning you wanted to achieve.  

    Knowing how to tune aurally is an educated art and a skill. It provides you with the ability to evaluate, judge and manipulate a tuning. It also gives you the skill set to know how to correctly cheat a tuning should you have to. Knowing what you can get away with, when and where in the tuning it will work, is almost as important as getting it right in the first place. 

    Plus, if the battery dies in your ETD, (and yes, that will happen), and you can't tune aurally, how are you going to finish the job. Are you going to tell the customer that you have to come back another day because your device failed? And even if you manage to pull that off do you believe that customer is going to feel comfortable inviting you back to tune for them again?

    But to more directly answer your question, I think that modern technology has advance to a degree that it is much more efficient and accurate to use an ETD than to tune strictly by ear. Nevertheless, you should know how.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 01:06
    Geoff,

    I haven't responded to this question or topic yet, partly because my reply would have been quite similar to yours and I am sure others.

    I actually enjoy days when I reach for my ETD and find it is missing from its holster or the battery is inexplicably dead.  I know I can do as good a job aurally, but I also know it will take me at least a half hour longer.

    I also feel that the ideal way to tune is a hybrid tuning; why waste available technology, but you need to know what you are doing.

    ------------------------------
    Blaine Hebert
    Duarte CA
    626-795-5170
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 09:07
    The argument for being able to tune strictly be ear makes no sense to me. It does not make one a better tuner to tune aurally only. I of course started as an aural tuner and passed my RPT exam aurally. Now I am an ETD tuner (CyberTuner). Getting the best results consistently is what matters most. Having refined aural skills are still very important. After all, how does one know if a piano is really in tune, if you can't carefully evaluate intervals? I also support being able to pass a part of the RPT exam aurally. One because it is historically part of our profession and two because setting the temperament aurally is as good a way as any to demonstrate aural proficiency. If you can't demonstrate that an interval is correct aurally to a discerning client, you will not have any credibility in demanding situations. Saying that aural tuning is inherently superior is as foolish as asserting the opposite. I tune unisons aurally, and each note with the ETD. I almost never need to improve the ETDs choices. The most important parts of tuning are stability, stability, stability and unisons. Making aural tuning a religion is not relevant to me.

    Sent from my iPad
    CarlPianoTech.com




  • 5.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-17-2017 09:55
    The tuning exam was created in the 1970s, using the first available ETD to measure the results of tunings created by tuners with the skills of that time. It was based on lots of empirical testing of what people were doing, not just on ideas and claims of what was good tuning.
    Suppose the knowledge of that exam were lost.
    What kind of exam would be created today using current technology and practice?
    One suggested question: Should pitch adjustment skills be tested as part of a tuning competency exam?

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-30-2017 12:27
    There is another pianotech list, that I'm sure most of you have visited at least once, where this topic would have quickly devolved into a flame war with everyone angry and defensive. This kind of behavior, fortunately, almost never occurs here. Discussions on aural vs ETD tuning can generate heat sometimes so I want to take a moment and thank everyone who has been participating in this discussion for keeping it not only civil but also productive. It's cooperative discussions like this that help us all learn and grow. Thanks!

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2017 17:31
    Amen

    ------------------------------
    Sheffey Gregory, RPT
    [
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 00:09
    I don't usually tune "strictly by ear" but I use my SAT IV only as a tool to get where I need to go.  Granted that there are some programs that claim to be more advanced than what the SAT offers but I never have used it to tell me what to do, I have told it what to do through aural verification and correction and Direct Interval programming.  I learned to tune initially by ear so I do not have the perspective that an electronically calculated program can do better than what I know how to do.

    That is the unfortunate circumstance of the many who have only ever depended entirely on an electronic tuning device or program.  They cannot imagine that anything could be better than that.  The bottom line is that if you want to be an RPT, you have to find out for yourself that it is true.

    The reason why the Examinations and Test Standards Committee (ETSC) insists upon the aural tuning requirement is that they want RPT's to have verified aural tuning judgment.  It is not enough to claim that you can hear when it is out of tune.  You have to be able to prove that you know why and how you could correct the error.  The only way you can do that is to attempt the PTG Tuning Exam.  There will be errors.  Even if you use an ETD in Part 2, there are likely to be errors.  Some people even fail that part although they passed Parts 1 and 3 aurally.  Don't ask me how that is possible because it is improbable but it has happened.

    I can only say what I have witnessed.  Someone strictly follows an ETD program but tunes enough notes in the high treble so extremely sharp that it causes a failing score, far below a score of 80.  Also in the high treble, someone, somehow, tunes B7 a half step flat.  The candidate cannot "hear" that it is wrong!  Someone tunes a note in the Bass so completely off that it also results in a failing score.  The candidate "cannot tell".  The one and only way that any of these could verify the pitch was with their ETD, not their ears.

    This is the reason, Benjamin.  An RPT must prove to have aural tuning judgment.  It has been made easier for nearly 30 years now to tune the outer octaves using an ETD and indeed, most people pass handsomely that way but there are still failures.  And those failures do not have a clue as to why they failed.

    ------------------------------
    William Bremmer
    RPT
    Madison WI
    608-238-8400
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 00:39

    Why do we put such an emphasis on aural tuning?
    Benjamin Sanchez,  08-16-2017 17:19

    The reason is similar to preferring a painting to a print.




  • 10.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 01:33
    I agree with what everyone else has said. It's important to know what's going on, how things work and why. It reminds me of making jigs for woodworking. Anyone can run the jigs, but the important part is understanding how to make the jigs, how to set them up, how they work and why. If you don't set the jig up properly, the parts for you project won't come out correct.

    ------------------------------
    Lucas Brookins
    Janesville WI
    608-931-5863
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 07:07
    Hi Benjamin

    All my clients check my work with their ears, and if my tuning is on the radio, everyone will do the same. For that reason alone, why would I hold myself and the finished product to the standard of something else?

    Additionally, if the client asks me to change something about the character of the tuning, as an aural tuner, my options are limitless.

    And lastly, as an aural tuner and a pianist, at this point in my career, when I play the piano at the end to check the tuning, I can hear in the context of the pieces I run through whether there is a note if like to change the placement of.

    Lastly, I spent a lot of time, money and effort learning to tune aurally. Once I put that much of myself into it, I was very hesitant to let it slide or fall out of practice.

    I tell you this as someone who, when clients ask me about tuning by machine, I tell them that the best concert technicians I know all use machines.

    I hope this gives you a sense of what you're looking for.

    Elizabeth




  • 12.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 08:15
    I think the best comment on this subject I've heard came from Andre Oorebeek during a class on voicing. He held up an Accutuner and said (quoting from memory so any errors are my fault) : " I think before you tune 10 or 15 thousand pianos, they shouldn't let you own one of these. And after you tune 30 or 40 thousand they shouldn't let you leave the house without one."

    ------------------------------
    Karl Roeder
    Pompano Beach FL
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-17-2017 20:56
    It's a glorified karaoke machine.

    Like all we need is a digital player system operable by phone. No performer necessary! Let's have a concert and charge for tickets for nothing but a machine! No performer necessary!

    Look, tuning is existential as performing. Without the experience, it is not worth a dime. That doesn't mean people won't pay for it. Techno defined, and good to dance to. People pay for worthless things every day, tripping. Like the USA political process.

    Great fun for amateurs young and old. Yeah a real band costs time and money. And a reputation to back it up. For many aural tuning will put you out of business. Not good enough. Same thing, only the DJ makes anything off it. You are making about 4 people in the world rich using that plastic to do a job better off left to people capable of doing the same job with flesh, bones, and brains. Not convinced PTG aural testing proves you are there if you don't. 

    If Andre claimed:

    "I think before you tune 10 or 15 thousand pianos, they shouldn't let you own one of these. And after you tune 30 or 40 thousand they shouldn't let you leave the house without one..."

    He was smoking a crapload of weed at the time of writing this if he did. 

    Karaoke is recreational. For hobbyists exclusively...


    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 21:35
    Benjamin Sloane, many of us have experienced a particular aspect of this business: the more experience we get, the less we know.

    Aural tuning expertise is crucial before one uses an etd on a regular basis. After that, and as one gets experience with an etd's, the more valuable it becomes in delivering high quality, consistent tunings. The "only aural" approach is..in my experience..mostly advocated by those without much  etd experience.

    ------------------------------
    Eric Johnson [RPT]
    [Eric Johnson Pianos]
    [Westport] [CT]

    203-520-9064
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 22:54
    Back to the original question...

    I think the responses so far show something interesting.

    The ETD supporters tend to be grizzled veterans ( yes, Bill and Carl, I am putting myself in that category) who are saying "I've tuned tens of thousands of pianos aurally and (at least) a couple of hundred pianos with ETD's and I like using ETD's. None of them say "I use an ETD and have stopped using my ears". 

    The "aural only" advocates are saying something different. They tend to have narrow arguments which generally group around:

    "Why should I" :
    • Why should I spend the money
    • why should I change the way I've been doing it"
    OR

    A misunderstanding of what an ETD does:
    • I like to adjust on the fly
    • using an ETD means my aural skills will disappear

    OR

    Or a doomsday scenario:
    • What if batteries stop being made

    OR
    • I actually haven't figured out Benjamin Sloanes argument...something about smoking weed and karaoke.  

    I have never met a technician truly experienced with both techniques who says "aural only tunings are ALWAYS better".

    ------------------------------
    Eric Johnson [RPT]
    [Eric Johnson Pianos]
    [Westport] [CT]

    203-520-9064
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 13:02
    As a pianist and voicer the two things I care about the most are clean unisons and stability. Which to me is one and the same. If the temperament is slightly off (+/- 1 cent), I will hardly notice it, but if I play a note fff and the tuning falls apart, it's as if the piano wasn't tuned at all.

    As a voicer I follow up after different tuners and the tuning falls apart to such an extent that I've started tuning before every voicing. Do they tune aurally or with an ETD? I don't care. I tune with an ETD (but unisons aurally) and it allows me to tune whole unisons throughout, which, together with an ETD-prescribed overpull, leads to more predictable and stable results (in less time).

    My other observation is that octaves in bass and treble by most aural tuners are not nearly as precise as when tuned (well) with an ETD. I am actually so dismayed by the state of tunings out there that I wish there was much less, if any, emphasis on aural tuning, and much more on stability, tuning pin technique, overpull patterns during pitch correction, and string friction and lubrication.

    ------------------------------
    Mario Igrec, RPT
    http://www.pianosinsideout.com
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 13:14
    I absolutely agree with this in all respects.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 18:15
    Mario claims:

    "My... observation is that octaves in bass and treble by most aural tuners are not nearly as precise as when tuned (well) with an ETD. I am actually so dismayed by the state of tunings out there that I wish there was much less, if any, emphasis on aural tuning..."

    Then you need to get out of the piano business, and stop trying to teach people who cannot tune octaves to enter it. Aural tuning is the first step in qualifying people for work in piano technology. Aural tuning should be a screening process for being a piano tuner first and last of all. I am surrounded by imbeciles claiming to be piano technicians thanks to the ETD movement.

    This is the problem with trade schools. If you can't tune an octave, you need to find something else to do for a living.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 18:35
    I don't ordinarily double post and rely on editing, but Mario, if you can't train people to tune octaves, why are you teaching at NBSS?

    I suppose somebody could claim to be a pilot but not be able to fly a plane. Sounds like the same thing to me not being able to tune an octave, but claiming to be a piano tech. 
    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 19:44
    FYI Ben, Mario left NBSS at the end of academic year 2016 (i.e., May 2016). He went to one of the major rebuilder/retailers in the NYC market. I'm not certain he's still there.

    ------------------------------
    Patrick Draine
    Billerica MA
    978-663-9690
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 20:00
    Thanks for the info Patrick,

    NY Steinway backing up bullpoop trade schools. What a surprise

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 20:03
    Benjamin,

    Not sure that I understand your comment. Are you intimating that NBSS is a, "…bullpoop trade school?" If you are, I vehemently disagree.

    Alan

    ------------------------------
    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 20:18
    Alan,

     I visited the school and wanted to go for 2nd year as that NBSS is so important in the profession to-day which is not an understatement. Was disappointed I would learn so little though, not much bellywork or refinishing in the works then.

    But an octave? You graduate, but can't tune an octave? Can I even call that unacceptable? That is criminal in the piano technology profession.

    No wonder Mario bolted immediately...

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 21:02
    ​This is just bizarre, and utter nonsense.  Not that the amazing NBSS needs to be defended, but these comments are wholly inappropriate.
    Ruth Zeiner


    ------------------------------
    Ruth Zeiner
    ruth@alliedpiano.com
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 23:16
    Mr. Sloane,

    How rude and uncalled for! Your comments have no value and are of no help to anyone. Not only that, but they are very narrow minded. You're entitled to your own opinion of course, but to attack on a personal level is unbecoming of a member of PTG. In case you've forgotten, check the Code of Ethics. Note how many references there are to "honor".

    As my mother told me many times growing up, "Don't speak unless you have something worthwhile to say." You ought to be ashamed of how you've treated one of the most respected members of PTG. He has done much more for the betterment of the industry than most technicians do in their lifetime. 

    I think a public apology is in order.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    BenPianoPro@comcast.net
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-25-2017 09:43
    Benjamin,

    I am having difficulty feeling remorse for demanding that the most renowned school devoted to teaching piano technology in the states making or breaking peoples careers, both those who attend and those who do not, because they did not attend, or did, teach people to tune octaves or kick them out. People have privately expressed concern for my professional reputation in making such comments. I am concerned about the same for BBSS and the whole community of piano technicians it produces, and as much, their qualifications for piano work in general. 

    The argument was not particularly aimed at being pragmatic or utilitarian. It should be clear by now that an apology for aural tuning is not pragmatic either, as that ETDs work so well for so many. Theoretically, the thing that gets the best, fastest results in anything, including tuning, cannot be disputed as the greatest option. Defending aural tuning is an uphill battle, so whatever the reputation of the person or institution, be it or he the most famous in the country, if instead, it or he starts going downhill into valley of an ignorance and standard in piano technology that trivializes the importance of knowing how to tune an octave, no matter the institution, or individual, I object, for the sake of the profession. In education for piano technology, learning to tune an octave, is vital, to put it lightly. 

    I certainly do not think it is a useful observation, but beyond a statement of the obvious that the general public should be confident that someone who spends 2 years in the most important trade school for piano technology in the country leave knowing how to tune octaves, or without a diploma.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 20:00
    Mario,

    Please do not leave the piano business! If you did, there would be a great big gaping hole where you used to be.

    Alan

    ------------------------------
    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
    ------------------------------



  • 28.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 22:08
    Benjamin Sloane - Your comments are rude, inflammatory and have no place on these pages. I'm all for people being able to express themselves but your comments are out of line. 

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 29.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-25-2017 11:12
    Scott,

    Look, I love technology much as anyone. I am looking forward to a car with bluetooth, but love my old car too much. The day I bought a smart phone was the best day of my life. I value privacy, but use google calendar. It's not paranoid, MDs wanted to opt out of being locked into google calendar with android, and so the technology changed, and you could set up your schedule inaccessible to the internet on your smart phone. I don't care, I want to use the calendar for data entry on my laptop. I stopped using RCT when the PDA gave out. Then I got a smart phone, downloaded Tunelab, and started using it for pitch changes. I use it to set A4 that's it. Evaluate half step up or down, a couple notes maybe, my tuning is too expanded to go much further. I got better at it than RCT with the visual aid for setting pitch. Don't think I am being fatalistic when I claim it was meant to be. I always have called RCT a great teaching tool, and with money to burn would be up to date with updates and continue demonstrating the technology to clients.   

    I bought a Kawai CA67 to replace another digital piano, the obsolete GEM. I got a better digital piano than more than half of you easy. I love the sampling, sometimes it sounds better than my acoustic, again better than more than half of you got easy. I hear people whine about how digital pianos put us out of business, I think it keeps piano germane. The digital player systems are unbelievable, I got an app to play them on my phone at the dealer I work for. For some, an acoustic with a digital player system is the perfect option. I just don't think we should create a climate where the only people who can do the pitch changes to make it sound in tune with the recordings combined with the acoustic piano automatically playing are using ETDs.

    I love technology. I am no Luddite. My favorite tool is my 20 inch chainsaw. Still, I learn too much about acoustic pianos from tuning aurally to replace that with technology. 

    I love sampling and recording from the digital pianos, and CDs. Lately, I've combed through reissued recordings of Bud Powell, Lenny Tristano, James Booker, and other guys not popular enough at the time to hire a good piano tuner. Sometimes the tuning is so bad, I can hardly listen. But I just will never see the solution as being to give the same guy or gal who tuned the octaves an ETD. I will always see the solution to train him or her to tune right, or if not possible, not to tune at all. Whatever happened to the shop people in the field of piano technology making a killing who cannot tune to save their lives? Abolish ETD use and bring those people back. 

    Sampling and recording tunings and performances will never teach people to tune or perform independently from studying piano, both to tune and to play. Technology can be abused. To use technology to promote indolence and ignorance, simply to replace the inability to tune and to play the piano, is not utilizing technology, but abusing it. My hope is that this never will be the fate of, piano pedagogy, trade schools and the PTG.  

    I am sorry if I offended anybody, but hope that people realize there is a lot to be gained from live interaction with the piano and your audience, as a performer and a tuner.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 30.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 13:26
    Eric,
    Neither would you understand the world where piano thrived in the West, the 19th century, the greatest century of the piano, when there would be no music if someone did not play the piano, or no tuning if someone did not tune it. Now we have well tuned karaoke machines to accompany our mediocre singing and dancing, and the pianos that used to accompany us by paying flesh and blood to use them are leaving the cocktail lounges and dance studios for a couple lame tracks mingled together, if you are lucky, by a DJ, while we all get high on state legalized weed getting too brain damaged to play anything.

    An jenem Tag...

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 31.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 14:04
    Eric, I seem to have missed your post the first time it flew by on August 17.

    I don't think my arguments are all that narrow, and you seem to have left them out of your list.

    Never mind, I don't expect everyone to be receptive to what I keep saying.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 14:27
    Susan, 

    You (and others) might be interested in the book: "Could it be B-12?"

    Seems that B-12 defeciency mimics a host of other diseases and ailments that often go incorrectly diagnosed and therefore inappropriately treated.

    Good to see you're on it!

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 15:20
    Thanks, I'll give it a look. I know that B-12 deficiencies are extremely common as people age, and that ordinary multiple vitamins just don't work to fix it. So 3 or 4 times a week, I put one of the sublingual methyl B-12 tablets under my tongue at bedtime, letting it slowly dissolve till I lose patience and chew up the rest.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 34.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 09:57
    Hi Ben,

    I've been tuning strictly by ear ever since day one  .......  summer of '71.  I'm not about to change now, my tunings are just now starting to sound really nice.

    If the final approval is done by ear, why not do the entire tuning by ear?  Speed?  Huh?  From start to finish, my life is dedicated to tuning that piano until it sounds good!!  Time is not a factor. 

    If the ETD meets an untimely demise (crushed by a cement truck comes to mind) I guess that puts the brakes on making a living until a replacement can be found.  Putting such faith in something so easily lost is not my style.

    I'm not going to walk around with a walker in front of me (with plastic flowers on the little basket and a squeeze horn mounted on the handles, a flask in my pocket) until I'm so danged wobbly I can't get to the feed trough without it.  Why would I use an ETD when I can still pay cash for my gold studded cowboy boots with out it?

    My Scottish, English, German heritage is far too squeaky to go buy one when I can, and have been making the grade without it.  After 45 years of this rodeo I'm riding my horse without a saddle. 

    Thar ya are.

    Lar

    ------------------------------
    Larry Fisher
    Owner, Chief Grunt, Head Hosehead
    Vancouver WA
    360-256-2999
    ------------------------------



  • 35.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 18:39

    Lar, different ways of talking (I like yours) but the same conclusion.

    After so many years, I consider traditional piano tuning to be a noble art. I see no need to change it in any way.

    People talk about some kind of digital hybridization, a mix of device and aural work, as being the best, but I wonder what deficiencies the digital assistance is supposed to adjust for. Whatever they are, the lacking or slow skills are not likely to get better if a crutch is used.

    Other people seem pretty tolerant of every day ETD tuning, but for me it would be a nightmare. It would interfere with my connection to the instrument. It would take away listening to intervals and following the normal order of constructing a tuning. It would chain me to a mechanical and totally boring way of working, so I wouldn't be free to move around the registers of the instrument as I work. And physically, I find flashing and twitching displays to be very uncomfortable. I think about how disgusting it would be to lose the directness, freedom, and control of musical qualities in doing my work, and yet I see no one mentioning this when they talk about using an ETD in daily practice, I wonder if they just never developed (or undervalued) the traits which I see as central to tuning.

    There are the results we get. I'm prepared to say that in proper hands, an ETD can produce acceptable (if not charming) results. And then there is the experience of tuning, in its depth, its on-going interest, its subtlety. The connection to each instrument, the quality of listening to all the sounds and all the intervals, the gradual construction of a tuning which brings them all in line, and which (with a dab of voicing) brings out the best that piano will produce -- one is in such close touch, and it is so very satisfying. It is constructive, in the best sense. And then, hearing what a really fine pianist can do with such a tuning, putting my work to its highest use -- job satisfaction is far too mild a term for that.

    It's distressing to see so much of the profession putting on these shackles. I fear that those who worked with ETD's from the very first never had a clue about what possibilities they were giving up. Go ahead, save your half hour .... I'll spend mine in my own way.




    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 01:34
    Well I'm very relieved to know that I can produce an "acceptable (if not charming)" result.

    I feel very connectedto the instrument when I tune and I don't find the experience uncomfortable, digusting nightmarish, shackling or unsatisfying. But maybe I've just never developed the traits (or undervalued them) central to tuning. 

    Really Susan. What sanctimonious drivel.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 05:09
    <<Really Susan. What sanctimonious drivel.>>

    Ah, but sincere! <grin>

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 38.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 08:01
    When I think of all the pianos out there with less than our various authoritative world's-only-best-tunings, I am amazed at how many ignorant musicians continue to play and even enjoy them. Truly appalling, the ignorant celebration of out-of-tunedness!

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 39.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 17:06
    And I have known some superb and very nice pianists who got their starts on badly neglected spinets.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 40.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 11:52
    <<Ah, but sincere>>

    I'll accept sincere but perhaps thou doth protest too much.  

    I hoped we could get through this discussion without any disparaging comments about one side or the other.  It's not only non productive but dishonest.  There are legitimate arguments to be made on the need for developing solid aural skills (which was the question) and I'd be the first in line to support those arguments.   The "who does better tunings" question should be retired.  I don't see ETD users in this discussion (many, including myself, with solid aural skills) pointing out the number of times that they've followed aural tuners who left much to be desired.  Both sides are capable of doing excellent tunings, "adequate (even charming)" ones, or sub par ones.  Many aging aural tuners who are tuning sharp 9ths in the top octave should be honest about the state of their aural skills as well.   

    Since we're being paid to perform a service, one needs to work within one's own skill set first and preference second, to provide the customer with the result that they deserve regardless of fears of perception, legitimacy, meaningfulness or tradition.  I'd like to think we're past having to defend our preferences, and that's all they are.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 41.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 12:29
    David Love wrote "Since we're being paid to perform a service, one needs to work within one's own skill set first and preference second, to provide the customer with the result that they deserve regardless of fears of perception, legitimacy, meaningfulness or tradition.  I'd like to think we're past having to defend our preferences, and that's all they are."

    To which I say "Thank you!"

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 42.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 06:23
    Susan and Lar,

    Trying to catch up on the conversation. I appreciate your observations. 

    I am talking more about higher education, and the role of administrators in regards to this question. I have clashed with administrators all my life in sundry academic environments, from my teens to my forties.

    What I am doing here is demanding administrators at North Bennet Street School remove, with celerity, aggressively, swiftly, all those who cannot or refuse to learn how to tune octaves in the bass and treble, aurally, and shun any suggestion that as an institution it is being bribed into handing out diplomas to a single solitary soul who cannot, and acknowledge to do so would be a disgrace to the profession. 


    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 43.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 09:00
    Benjamin, you sound like those that wanted to ban four function calculators from classrooms in the 1960's. Now kids are required to have graphing calculators.

    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 44.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 12:56
    Larry,
    I will admit thinking the relationship of piano to a public education in a form of a model created by Auguste Comte and our coeval understanding of science in general can be somewhat clumsy for a literature in music that developed far before he transformed learning institutions in the West. As I have explained in my website, as an aural tuner, I am not doing science, or engineering. Tuning a piano aurally can be a very spiritual activity, requiring intense meditation for a day. Like Budo Karate, aural tuning could be called Zen in motion. The reason it must be aural is that one cannot meditate in ignorance like a pig.

    Learning to tune a harpsichord or piano aurally doesn't really fit in an engineer's understanding of the physics of acoustics, and promoting it doesn't fit well with positivist education methods. Perhaps that is why so many leave NBSS strictly ETD users. Well tempering is a much less broad based understanding of tuning, but is perfectly adequate for most keyboard instruments in most settings. It doesn't really fit in a box for standardization like modern educators are compelled to create for accountability. Granted, it lacks the pretentiousness of the expert scientific specialist with his high tech machines, who I am sure NBSS could never put out of business requiring aural tuning. 

    Well tempering is a more simple approach I attempt to teach everyone who asks me to tune a harpsichord, if I am using the term right. Granted, torque on a modern grand piano presents greater obstacles. You begin with a low midrange octave, teach a contiguous thirds temperament, parallel 3rds, 6ths, 10ths and 17ths if they are still in the room, perfect 4ths, 5ths, Octaves. This is where tuning a keyboard begins, not the harmonic series.

    A standard has been created by the major ETD manufacturers that I will admit Bach, Mozart, and Haydn would not understand. Aural tuning is more organic.

    There is a whole worldview that goes with aural tuning that has been lost. There have been periods of regret in my life over the years at having studied piano in college. I had no idea the ETD movement was going to be so huge, had I, I may have left the piano business and studied something else in college. So perhaps this is why what I express is disturbing to people.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 45.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-17-2017 11:41
    The same reason a mathematician who uses a computer still needs to know the math.   Devices offer speed, consistency, check and verification, and other features for which it is uniquely qualified, such as pitch raise functions.  At a minimum unisons have to be tuned by ear.  The ability to recognize a solid and beatless unison is a skill that must be developed and is not unlike the aural skills required to set a temperament or tune an octave of various widths.  

    My choice to use a device is largely a business decision as it allows me to produce a tuning faster and more consistently.  I'm able to tune and address other things in the piano in the same amount of time that I used to do an aural tuning.  Customers are better served and so am I.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 46.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-17-2017 22:41
    There are some myths I'd like to address about ETA's (I prefer ETA instead of ETD because it's more accurate, Electronic Tuning App):

    1. The battery will run out of power!: If I choose to use an ETA then part of my job description is to make sure my device is charged up and ready to go, every day. In 22 years I've never had my battery run out of power. 

    2. Backup, backup, backup: Again, if I choose to use an ETA then part of my job description is to have a backup plan. I carry with me 3 devices capable of tuning a piano. 

    3. IF, for some reason all 3 of my devices fail, I'll return another day. That's not the worst thing in the world to happen. So, what I'm hearing from the aural tuners is that there has NEVER been a reason for them not to be able to complete a tuning job. That may be so. For my part I have never had to cancel a tuning because my device failed. 

    4. Dependence on a "machine": ( an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task.) How many machines are we all dependent on? It's staggering! We're surrounded by machines of all sorts that we're dependent on. Even if you tune aurally you're dependent on your tuning hammer. That's a machine. What if an aural tuners car breaks down? Hey, why are you dependent on a machine. Hoof it and get over there! 

    5. What if the power goes off?!: All ETA's run on battery power so refer back to #1. In fact, I found myself in a similar situation not long ago and the light from my ETA allowed me to see what I was doing even though the lights were off. 

    6. ETA tuners don't savor or enjoy the process: I love my job! I may have never tuned a piano totally aurally but on the other hand there are some aural tuners that have never used an ETA. How can you judge that the process isn't as enjoyable or satisfying when you haven't done it that way? And, if you've tried the machine a couple of times, that doesn't count. That leads me to #7...

    7. ETA tuners just turn on the machine and tune: There is a learning curve using any ETA. Not just figuring out how it works but learning to control the tuning hammer with precision. One app I use is Tunic OnlyPure. Even though I was used to tuning with an ETA, Tunic really challenged me. At first I wasn't sure I could use it. Now, after many years using it, I am able to just turn it on and tune.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 47.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 09:10
    I've been following this interesting repartee waiting for someone to state what I think is one of the most important points in the whole discussion. Alas, no one has done it so I feel I must. Perception. I have long been of the opinion that in most (not all, but most) circumstances, the client really has little idea if you do a good job or not. I know someone will chime in and say that their entire clientele is comprised of concert pianists, but those people are the exception. Most tuners tune for everyday people who really have no way of judging the fine points of tuning. What then matters is how they perceive you as a professional. I have always tuned aurally. I have never even attempted to use an ETA or ETD. I can't even count the number of times that I have been asked with incredulity "You do this by ear?!?!" Wow! Instant credibility whether I deserved it or not.  I have long been of the opinion, that when you tune by ear, your customers have a sense of awe about your skill level and automatically think that they could never do what you do. I also have seen the opposite play out many times. I have had complaints from piano owners when I sent a ETD using technician to tune their pianos. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the tuning, it was all in their heads. It didn't matter if they were right or wrong. The piano owners perception becomes our reality. Their thought, incorrectly, is that they could merely buy a machine and do the same thing. It doesn't matter if they're right.

    To make my point clear, I have no deeply held bias on the matter personally. I couldn't care less how the tuning gets done. I just have years of observation to the effect that piano owners like aural tuners. There is a well know piano maker who for a long time would not hire an ETA using tuner for exactly this reason. I know times are changing, but I think there's plenty of room for both.

    ------------------------------
    Charles Rempel

    ------------------------------



  • 48.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 10:54
    I observed the following after tuning for the International Double Reed Society. Two Steinway B's were tuned to A440 and A442 respectively. The pianist had a pocket electronic device and chose the wrong piano based on one note.

    To give some additional feedback, the  gremlin here was two historically unprepared pianos :-(
    Add to the situation was wild humidity swings coupled with very cold weather and a poorly designed back stage with massive roll up doors which should have remained closed. For the world class performers the program was a satisfying and successful event.

    I all to often will pick up a new client and find the piano unacceptably wrong in every way regulation and tuning! Terrible unisons and seventh octave providing evidence of "hearing loss" by the previous RPT.

    I was very pleased when I found out the technician finally invested in software (RCT).

    Diligence to proper service is what we must all strive for. We all have room for improvement. We cannot live long enough to learn by our own ignorance, we must be open to learn from the mistakes of others. "One who does not read has no advantage over one who does".

    ------------------------------
    Garret Traylor
    Trinity NC
    336-887-4266
    ------------------------------



  • 49.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 15:40
    Charles,

    I agree completely with perception. I can honestly say that I never get complaints. However, during the 6 month period (many moons ago) when I thought I was getting hearing loss and I got busy with an Accu-tuner (NH Chapter) in the event that I was going to have to go that direction, well...I got 4 complaints in that time period. They were not because anything was wrong, but they all referenced my use of the machine, without exception. That told me something very important. And anyway, the only thing I did with it was to tune the central section and do the rest by ear. But as you say, it was the perception, not the reality.

    Fortunately it turned out to be ear wax and the Accu-tuner went back to the chapter. I have Tunelab on my phone and I know how to use it reasonably well. but I only use it to measure and set pitch, and compute pitch raises.

    I would add that if I'm on the operating table and the power goes out, I dont want the surgeon to say: "Oops, looks like the computers are down, we'll come back tomorrow to finish the job"...I want the type of person who has real skills to move ahead regardless and says: "Rats, well...its going to take a little longer but let's do this and get this guy back together again...let's go everybody!"

    Please don't anybody be offended by the above illustration. Simply, if I don't apply everything I've learned and mastered to each piano I service, I know I will lose some of those skills. This is not true of everyone, but it is true of me. So I want to keep using and refining those aural skills till I can't do it anymore and need help.

    Perception...yes.

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 50.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 16:22
    Peter --

    I like your doctor metaphore. 

    Perception can frequently be easily changed. Every once in a while a customer will ask me about my ETD and it takes all of two or three minutes to change their minds from distrust to impressed. I first assure them that I can quite competently tune their piano by ear. I then go on to explain how knowledge about what we listen to when we tune, along with technology, has advance so much in the last 15 to 20 years that it's silly to NOT take advantage of it. Once they understand that the machine is not telling me what to do, rather that I am only using it as a guide for a rather small, albeit important, part of the job, so to speak, they relax. 

    The fact that a customer may not complain about a tuning doesn't necessarily mean that they are happy with it. If they call you back for the next tuning then they were happy. If they don't, they weren't. I always encourage my customers to play for a moment when I have finished so they can experience the change and improvement in their piano BEFORE I leave. Most of them, naturally, hesitate. Once I explain that if they are unhappy, or have questions about the tuning, it's a whole lot easier for me to fix it while I'm there then to leave the customer dissatisfied until I have the opportunity to return, then they always happily sit down to play. Invariably the tuning gets approved and they wind up playing far longer than they intended. Which tells me I did a good job and met their needs. 

    I'm not being pro or con either aural or ETD tuning. What I'm suggesting is that you need to know how to evaluate a completed tuning by listening to it and be able to know what, and how, to make corrections when they are needed. You may have just completed the greatest tuning of your life using an ETD, but you need to be able to hear and aurally evaluate that tuning in order to come to that conclusion. And possessing the skill to tune aurally is the way to do that.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 51.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 19:04
    Peter - I understand what you're trying to convey but...YIKES! Tuning a piano is not nearly as serious as surgery! With all the laser and computer stuff used in surgeries nowadays I don't think I'd want the doctor to continue without the proper equipment. What you're forgetting is these doctors are probably pretty young, because the older ones don't have the stamina or steady hands that they have. I know this because my doctor had to retire for those reasons. Anyway, they most likely would not want to continue the surgery without the proper equipment that they were trained with. Also, I had thought that hospitals were set up with their own power source, for just such a emergency, so it behooves me to be ready for, just such an emergency too. Maybe I'm taking your analogy too concretely... :-o

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 52.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-18-2017 21:47
    Scott --

    I think Peter's point was that, given a choice, we would rather have a doctor that knew what he was doing continue our surgery should a power failure occur rather than one that could NOT continue because without the equipment they didn't know what they were doing. Yes, hospitals all have UPS systems to help protect them from this scenario. The reliability of the hospital wasn't the point. Knowing what you're doing was.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 53.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-18-2017 22:42
    Thanks Geoff. Yes, I think I see what you mean. Perhaps the confusion is me trying make a different point. Knowing what you're doing can be relative. Hang with me here... If a surgeon has been trained to use a laser to take care of cataracts and that system goes down, he still knows what he's doing and the first thing he knows is that he needs that tool to complete the surgery. Does it make him incompetent if he can't complete the surgery without the proper tool?  Not in my mind. Most peoples jobs require tools to do that job. If a persons computer goes down and their job requires the computer to do their job, does it make them incompetent? Not in my mind. 

    If it's helpful to someone to know they can tune a piano without the help of an ETA, I'm good with that. No argument from me. But, if I'm considered incompetent because I don't know how to tune a piano without my proper tools, I do have problem with that.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 54.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 09:52

    A couple of weeks ago I had inadvertently left my ipad on overnight in my tool bag. Upon arriving at my first appointment of the day the battery was out of power. Having tuned aurally for more than 35 years I simply went ahead and tuned by ear for the day. It worked out just fine, but my ear was a bit more fatigued by the end of the day. 

    Worse than this was the time, a number of years ago, when I arrived at my first appointment only to realize that I had left my tuning hammer back home on my work bench. I have always kept a T hammer in the car for string replacement and briefly thought about tuning the piano with it. No way - I simply apologized and rescheduled the appointment. (now I always keep a spare, inexpensive hammer in the car - just in case)

    So...what's my point? Although I believe aural skills to be invaluable, these references to worst case scenarios in which the EDT gets lost or run over by a tractor trailer are somewhat exaggerated. After all, what does a carpenter do upon arriving at the house to work if there happens to be a  power outage? Besides, how often do these things happen anyway?



    ------------------------------
    Gerry Johnston
    Haverhill, MA
    gj@gjpianotuner.com
    www.gjpianotuner.com
    (978) 372-2250
    ------------------------------



  • 55.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-19-2017 09:54
    Gerry - You are correct sir!

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 56.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 14:27
    Scott,

    I hear you...and yes, Geoff got what I was trying to say...and yes, my illustration probably was overkill. Sorry for any offense...none was intended.

    With that out of the way...

    This profession is so steeped in tradition (as is much of the acoustic musical world) that I simply have a hard time separating from that and going all out electronic. I feel that from a professional perspective, it should be incumbent on our part to be reasonably proficient in the aural end of tuning simply because it is so much a part of the "whole" of what we do and are expected to do. I have no problem with "adding" some automation into it as a tool, provided it is in fact used as a tool.

    Time for another illustration that goes to the "perception" idea as Charles pointed out (I hope this one is better than the last one but I can't guarantee it):

    Think about your reaction to an immigrant who's command of the new native language indicates that he/she has learned "only enough to get by", has a very strong accent, difficult to understand vs. the one who has clearly made it a point to learn the new language well, has good vocabulary, has reduced his/her native accent to a minimum, and has really put forth the effort to learn to communicate in the new tongue. 

    (Remember this is just an illustration, I am not making any bigoted arguments)

    Both these people may be well educated, have a PHD in physics or chemistry, or whatever. However, which one are you more likely to have a positive and confident reaction to (perception of)?  Is it not the one who communicates well, the one who has gone beyond what is necessary to get by but realizes that if he/she is wanting to be recognized, it is expected of them to be able to communicate fluently and be articulate in the new environment?...therefore they put forth the extra effort (though they don't "have to").

    Similarly, a large % of our clients (I'm sure some will argue with this) expect us in this profession (due to the nature of it) to have the skills to tune aurally, though they may accept some electronic assistance with explanation. If they learn that we cannot do this, their perception of us could be impaired, regardless of how good a job we prove we can do with an ETD. 

    Now, I could be completely out in "left field" with this and I'm pretty sure someone is going to call me on it. Maybe I AM living in a different century mentally...that's definitely possible and I won't argue that. Maybe I AM electronically challenged...I won't argue that either. Maybe I'M the one who has to get with the program and come up to speed...I might argue that one.

    Nonetheless, when they see me there with my old tattered doctors bag full of tools, dressed nicely and professionally, and they learn that this whole thing is done "by ear"...they are seriously impressed and they love it. Whereas I have heard too many times: "Yeah, well the last guy used a machine of some sort..."  Of course they didn't register their disappointment with him...they just called someone else.

    Perception...

    Pwg

    (I hope I don't get lambasted for this) 😓

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 57.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-19-2017 15:19
    Peter,

    When a person hires someone to provide expertise that they themselves personally lack, after vetting the person who professes to possess said expertise, they behave in a somewhat chameleon like fashion. That is, once entrusting the person, their views about what qualities are necessary to do the job, are taken from cues the person they just placed their trust in, projects. These will be both verbal and non-verbal cues.  

    Here, the "expert" continues their conscious or unconscious sell. If the expert, for example, uses an ETD, but feels somewhat apologetic, unconvinced, inadequate or challenged by its existence or use, and communicates this, subtly, non-verbally, the customer will take their cue, and sense there is an issue with someone using, in this example, and ETD (generalize to any version of expertise). If the "expert" knows full well they can put an amazing tuning on the instrument with the visual assist, the customer will pick this up too, and be comfortable with the use of the ETD.

    The examples you present have way more to do with the expert's demeanor, and own feeling about the technology, than with the client's expectations and knowledge...as they will adopt whatever the experts beliefs are, on this question...provided, the expert, has the chops, either aurally or visually, or more commonly both, to pull off a pleasing and convincing result.

    I think the impressions we assign to clients, have way more to do with our own projections than the clients knowledge of the expertise (which, since they were hiring us in the first place, they lack.) 


    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 58.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 15:33
    I don't care if anyone tunes by ear or by ETD. The objective is to get a good tuning that sounds good. A machine may tell you that the piano was tuned technically correct, but it won't tell you if it sounds good. In the end, if you complete an ETD tuning and the piano just doesn't sound right for whatever reason, how would you go in and fix it if you don't have the skill to aurally troubleshoot and correct minute problems? This is not a rhetorical question, nor is it a challenge. I really would like to know. I could possibly learn something here.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 59.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-19-2017 16:41
    Geoff - That's a very good question (and I'm not being sarcastic), I'll give you my answer. I play the piano so I'm able to play through chords and a couple songs and get a sense of how the piano sounds, taking in to account of course, the quality of the instrument (think spinets). I'll also play through each note checking unisons and do some voicing, if needed. I'll check octaves to make sure they're sounding pleasant. I prefer the term "pleasant" because for me it describes more of what I'm looking for. Certainly as beatless as I can get them. It seems to me that most people mainly hear if octaves or unisons are off so that's what I focus on. So admittedly, I do use the most basic of aural techniques but have never tuned a piano totally aurally. 

    I do tune all my unisons by ear, not necessarily because it's more accurate but because it's generally faster. When I have a problem with a unison (false beat) I'll tune each string separately with Tunic OnlyPure and that usually takes care of it. So, there ya have it! ;-)

    Oh, forgot to mention, and maybe this is obvious, but if something's off I also check with my ETA to see what it has to say. 

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 60.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 20:16
    Scott wrote:
    "I do tune all my unisons by ear, not necessarily because it's more accurate but because it's generally faster."

    I learned to tune aurally and passed the RPT test aurally. Started 
    using an ETD when I began doing institutional work. ALWAYS tuned unisons by ear. Not only do I find it faster than tuning each note to an app, but I also get better sounding unisons by ear. Not sure that "accurate" (in the sense of all strings of the unison being tuned to exactly the same pitch) is my goal in the realm of unisons.

    Alan

    ------------------------------
    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
    ------------------------------



  • 61.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-19-2017 16:58
    Peter - Certainly no offense taken on my part! I think we just see things differently and that's okay. You need to operate the way that works best for you and so do I. 

    Jim - You took the words right out of my mouth! In my experience most people expect to see some sort of device or app and many years ago I used to do what you're talking about, explain myself, etc.. But there came a time, when I became more confident, that I embraced how I tune. In fact my slogan is "State of The Art..." because I try to use the best equipment and stay on the cutting edge of technology. As Popeye said, "I am what I am!"

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 62.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 20:44
    Yes, I also thought that Charles' post about perception had some good points.

    As others have noted, machine tuning does not enjoy universal acceptance. Over a number of years, I've seen the remarks change a little bit. Gradually a few more people remark on my tuning aurally as being something unusual (and welcomed.) I tend to say, "well, there aren't all that many of us anymore. Sometimes I feel like the last of the Mohicans. But I like to do it this way."

    I have a standard response to anyone who mentions ETD tuning in a negative way. Well, I can't remember when anyone mentioned electronic tuning because they preferred it. I move it all back in time by telling them that the devices have improved a tremendous amount in the last 15 or 20 years. I am tacitly assuming that when they mention a machine tuning they really didn't like that it was so long ago that the machines were not good enough. Then I tell them that a lot of tuners these day do good tunings with the devices, though I also give my opinion that the ones who tune well with the machines are those who could also tune equally well without them.

    By now I've said these things to customers several hundred times at least. We work to support the musical community in general and our customers in particular. It seems all too likely that in the future if they want their pianos tuned at all, the person they will find (possibly with difficulty) will be using an ETD. It would do them a disservice not to try to reconcile them to the idea, even if they have come to the opposite conclusion before I arrived on the scene.

    I do not think it is a good idea to second guess a customer by assuming that they disliked a tuning because of cultural preconceptions instead of esthetic preferences. We don't know that. Many of the tunings by the early machines did not sound good. I know because I followed a lot of them. In fact, customers' dislike of them were a steady source of work for me back in the 1980's. Not only were the machines less good back in the sight-o-tuner days, but the people using them had not had as long to learn how to get the best from them. So, when a customer bad mouths electronic tuning, the tuning they didn't like may go back decades. People tend to remember things like that a long time. They also are usually quite polite, and most probably didn't complain at the time. They just looked elsewhere for their next tuning. Of course, with time, they will die out, and the people who got better work done with better ETD's, being younger, will gradually take over. 

    Peter, I long since stopped worrying about whether I get lambasted for something. Despite appearances, I don't set out to offend people, but if giving my true opinion brings me a lot of social disapproval, I can handle it. I know from my own experience, now pushing 40 years, that using an ETD and going for a high volume of work would be an unsustainable disaster for me. I know that most of the people taking part here do not share some of these limitations, and possibly also have not shared some of the rewards I have found by doing work in my own way -- or perhaps they just value other things more. If I come out openly and try to share some of what I think people are losing out on, and someone dangles the word "dishonest" in the general vicinity of my arguments, that is really not my problem. I am thinking of the other people, possibly just a few of them, who do not have the ballast of all those years of work, yet who may be better suited to my way of working than the general norm presented to them, which seems to come down to "ETD plus ears, best quality attainable, do a lot of pianos very quickly with machine precision." To sum it up, I don't like regimentation. One of the best parts of piano technology, in my opinion, is that it is so flexible and allows so many different approaches and specializations. I think it's healthy if some people learn to tune aurally only, and to stick with it until they reach a high quality of work, even if they are only a small percentage of piano tuners. I think of them as being like the people who pay a lot of money for tube amplifiers because they hate the sound from transistors, or like the people who cook from scratch using whole ingredients instead of buying food prepared in a factory by someone else. Yes, it is more work, but I think there will always be a few people who are willing to do it, and I don't want them to feel alone. So I write, droning on and on and on and ...

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 63.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-19-2017 19:32
    I know people really need to express their opinions, but I don't even read any of the threads like this any more.  It is tiresome.  Anyone care to start a pool for the next time a thread like this will pop up?  My guess is 3 weeks.

    ------------------------------
    Tim Coates
    Sioux Falls SD
    ------------------------------



  • 64.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-20-2017 15:10
    Tim, 

    I believe you are also quite correct here.

    I think it is generally accepted (to reasonable people) that a fine job can be be done either way, with just the ears, or with just the ETD, or both together. It should not come down to which one is superior, because that argument is truly a no-win situation. I do not believe that one is inherently better than the other. 

    However, let's turn the tables slightly...

    Let's suppose for a moment that a truly superior tuning could in fact be produced with an ETD...but with the caveat that it would take roughly double the time to achieve, and that there was just no way to significantly reduce that time. So your tuning time is roughly twice that of an aural tuning.

    The question is: How many of us would go for it?

    Being a piano technician for over 40 years, and observing the general method in which piano technicians think (I am referring to my years manufacturing and marketing state of the art key rebushing tools, etc.), I am strongly inclined to conclude that VERY FEW would actually spend the money for software that (though somewhat better) would actually cause them to earn less money and require more work to do it. Or...they would need to double their fees in order to make it profitable.

    Think about it, honestly.  Is it not, in fact, the TIME SAVING factor (which translates into more earning power) and convenience of these devices (with little or no sacrifice in tuning quality) that is the PRIMARY driving force behind their use?

    In fact, if that were the case (2 paragraphs above) the entire idea would fall flat. There would be no market for these devices. As with most things in the current framework, it boils down in the end to money...specifically more money (very few exceptions). ROI is a standard practice in monetary circles. 

    Of course, the fact is that these devices CAN do things faster for us WITHOUT sacrificing quality (in the right hands) and therefore represent a demonstrable ROI in monetary terms. In fact, they can enable us to do some things that just can't be done easily aurally (or at least efficiently) such as tuning two or more instruments together in a concert situation, or tuning in noisy environments, and more. 

    Is it not BECAUSE they can do these things, not because they are actually better than aural methods, the real situation? 

    I invite your comments.

    Pwg


    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 65.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 00:41
    Yes.

    Also reminds me of an accountant I once had. When the software came out that could do taxes accurately in about 1/4 of the time he told me that he preferred to do it the old fashioned way. It took a lot longer but he preferred working that way and, he let me know, he charged by the hour.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 66.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 07:55
    Peter,

    I have been following this thread since I posted to see if anyone will venture to predict when a thread like this will start again.  I don't care how anyone tunes a piano, just so that piano is tuned as best it can be for the customer.

    Yes, you are correct in everything you say, but one aspect has been left out.  Brain Drain.  I know of at least 5 former techs who have left the profession because their brains can't take it anymore.  It used to be called hitting the wall by some techs. 

    I have been tuning for 46 years starting when I was 18.  I started ETD and aurally, then aurally only, hit the wall after after 26 years, now tune aurally and ETD.  My serial number for my first Cybertuner was 51, one above the beta testers.  I have moved on to another system, but I never looked back as it has kept me away from the Wall.

    I was fast aurally, so speed was not a factor.  It was the Wall.  As a matter of fact, statements I made about using Cybertuner were in their advertising their first number of years.  If I remember the statement correctly, it's main thrust was concerning fatigue. 

    I am slowing down now that I'm almost 65, but using comfortable tools along with a  host of mental, physical, and nutritional regimes has kept me in the game. 

    So anyways, I predict this thread will reappear in about 3 weeks.



    ------------------------------
    Tim Coates
    Sioux Falls SD
    ------------------------------



  • 67.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 08:05
    Tim -
    Yes, burnout!! Been there more than once. Tuning aurally all day long is exhausting.

    ------------------------------
    Gerry Johnston
    Haverhill, MA
    gj@gjpianotuner.com
    www.gjpianotuner.com
    (978) 372-2250
    ------------------------------



  • 68.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 07:59
    Peter,
    You are absolutely correct! I began my career as a musician and quickly decided that being a starving artist was not the life for me. In fact, I still work as a professional musician occasionally - sort of a paid hobby.
    Don't get me wrong - I really do enjoy working on pianos, but money is a primary motivating factor. If I didn't need the money there are other things I'd rather do.
    The ETD helps me do a good job (with less effort and fatigue) and that equals more $$ and a little extra free time.

    ------------------------------
    Gerry Johnston
    Haverhill, MA
    gj@gjpianotuner.com
    www.gjpianotuner.com
    (978) 372-2250
    ------------------------------



  • 69.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 08:12
    Maybe just a little pause in our opinions for a gift from G. F. Handel in honor of the solar system:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOP3Ya_4-gU&list=RDnOP3Ya_4-gU

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 70.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 08:55
    lovely...thanks!

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 71.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 09:36
    A month ago I bought a few boxes of solar eclipse glasses at .50 each. Now standing in Sweetwater making $300 a pair. Holst CD in loop. Thanks for sharing the Handel.





  • 72.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 10:07
    Tim,

    Brain drain. Okay, I have to admit that is something I had not seriously thought about. I suppose because it has not (that I am aware of) happened to me. However in thinking it through I can see how it can occur. 

    I have had physical situations occur that have seriously hampered my work temporarily, but I got through them with the assistance of Dr. Sarno's various books. It is just possible that these instances were in fact manifestations of what you are talking about. I'm not sure...must think about it.

    Anyway, I do agree that in the final analysis, it doesn't really matter whether an ETD is used or not, as long as the job is a good one. (As has been stated, there are plenty of aural tuners who leave something to be desired).

    What I did do though, some years ago, was to raise my rates to a point where I did not feel "pressured" to have to accomplish so much. That has helped me to relax a bit. And I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of pushback on that. In fact, people still ask me (sometimes) : "Is that enough?"   I've been thinking that it's time to do it again. Could this be my instinctual defense against brain drain?  Maybe.  I do see others going all out every day, 6 days (or more) a week and I wonder how long they can keep this up (ETD or no ETD). 

    Gerry, I agree...there are other (more important) things to do in life (like helping other people), and I take time out to pursue these. 

    Tim, you started at 18.  I started at 17 in 1975. Learned on my mother's old decrepit Bechstein B.   My biggest stumbling block was "coincidental partials". Took me a LONG time to figure out what that was all about. My first teacher simply said "hear the beats".  Eventually it all came together. 

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 73.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 12:38
    Certainly not doing too many tunings is critically important for my physical well-being and my enjoyment of the process. As I get older, I allow my schedule to lighten up. If I had been cranking out tunings like a factory assembly line, I'd have quit long ago. Plenty of time, time to talk with my customers, time to savor the sound and observe the piano and fix little details, keeps it all sweet. I just thank a kindly providence that I'm financially able to work like this.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 74.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 12:28
    I'm about to go out to the rear deck with a dubious pinhole viewer. I'll risk a short look at totality, which is apparently fairly safe.

    Facts I never knew till now: if the moon's orbit were in the ecliptic plane, we'd have a total eclipse once a month. It's 5 degrees off. The fact that it is a perfect fit to completely cover the sun, leaving only the corona, is a complete but happy coincidence.

    Here in Oregon it is totally clear, despite partial clouds being forecast a few days ago.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 75.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 13:37
    The universe works as prophesied, except that totality was forecast for here for 10:18, and it was closer to 10:16. I got a good look at the sun during totality, without harm, black disk, with the corona around it, just like photos. There was definitely twilight, but I didn't see any stars. No sounds of distressed animals, just excited humans. Such a short event, and then the brightness peeked out from the far edge and I couldn't view it directly anymore. And it's off to points southeast ... sweeping across the country. At least I didn't oversleep and miss it.

    My klutzy little pinhole viewer worked better than I expected. As soon as I came in from viewing outside and used it again, the little fingernail of light in it had changed to the other side. Still just a little less sunlight than usual, but it's strengthening.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 76.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 14:05


    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 77.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 14:22
    Nice, Larry. Did you travel to see the eclipse?

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 78.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 14:46
    And just that fast, my glasses are now worth zero. Lol





  • 79.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 14:57
    If you keep them for about a hundred years, they might become valuable again, plus they will be antiques. Or you can just look at the sun without the moon in the way, any time in daylight hours that you wish.

    Charleston lucked out -- lots of clouds, but not over the sun.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 80.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 16:13
    Nope, front yard in La crosse WI. 85% eclipse

    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 81.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 16:22
    85% is still a lot.

    I can imagine the traffic jam as everyone heads for home. The news coverage about Casper, Wyoming (where my sister who lives in Loveland, CO went) said that 214,000 cars arrived there yesterday.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 82.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 17:34
    Why do people go nuts over this?

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 83.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 17:53
    Because people like seeing something out of the ordinary. Like when you get that customer that watches you while you tune -- assuming they stick around that long.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    BenPianoPro@comcast.net
    ------------------------------



  • 84.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 18:34
    "Why do people go nuts over this?" -Pwg

    Well, I read that the last time it happened here in Nebraska was 1444. The native Americans must have wondered what was going on! 
    Some call it life changing...That's pretty extreme to me, but it's really, really cool! We had total darkness here in Lincoln. The street lights even came on.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 85.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 18:45
    I certainly enjoyed it. Some people who were visiting my neighbors gave a huge whoop when it went total.

    There's something very deep about the experience.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 86.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 15:23
      |   view attached


    Gary Bruce
    Registered Piano Technician





  • 87.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 15:49
      |   view attached
    That's better than mine, Gary. This was the best I could do.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 88.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 11:49
    This is a primary consideration for me.  I would say it saves me probably 30 minutes a tuning and more in the case of pitch correction situations or multiple pianos tuned together (not to mention some brain and ear fatigue). Given that a full schedule for me is four appointments (unless I'm in the shop) that is two hours a day--substantial when you add it up over the course of a week or a year.  Like you I have lots of other interests and pursuits (musical and otherwise) and though I find the trade satisfying, having something left at the end of the day to pursue those interests is very important.   The ETD is an essential part of that.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 89.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-21-2017 18:38
    I think over all that this has been a healthy discussion about ETA/ETD tuning and aural tuning. I doubt that anyone is going to change the way they tune but possibly there's a better understanding of why people do what they do. Yeah for us!

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 90.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 19:47
    Scott,

    I completely concur. It's been a good discussion of why we tune the way we tune, and I for one have benefited. 

    Tim,

    I do not try to pick fights, especially virtual ones. I was simply curious to see why things are the way they are. Asking questions is the first step to finding out how something can be done better. 

    Thanks to all for your opinions! It's been a pleasure.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    BenPianoPro@comcast.net
    ------------------------------



  • 91.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 21:59
    Hi, Scott,

    Good to see you're still "active" in PTG. Hope you got to enjoy the eclipse. I wasn't going to get involved in this long thread, but I couldn't help myself.  Here's my take:  Why Aural Tuning? Why ETA/ETD/Electronic tuning? Most of the arguments are either sentimental, or practical. They're arguments only. No solutions to which is "best." Some would say that the best tuning is the one that satisfies customers. That's hard to argue against. Satisying customers is what pays the bills. A person has to live.

    But the reality is that customers rarely know anything about what we do, or how we do things. Winning customer support is important to building a business, but it's a deadend for determining quality.

    When we take customers and money out of the equation, what's left. Us, the professional technicians. What do we define as best? ETA tuners have to rely on the makers of ETAs to define that for them.  Nothing wrong with that. ETA designers and builders know what their machines can do and people using ETAs professionally score high on the only wide-spread test around, our PTG tuning exam. What is best is follow the rules as the machine has determined them.

    Aural tuners done't have a best either. Most aural tuners learned an aural system that works for them (there are many systems out there) and they're very loyal to it. A few years ago I had the impression that about anything goes, aurally. Best is in the eye of the beholder and woe be it to criticize. We saw a lot of unequal temperament experiments then.  At times I felt there was no upper limit to stretching treble octaves. Recently, I'm seeing a swing to best being defined as the pure 12th temperament. It's being described as the most forgiving, having the best compromise in stretched octaves, the most melodic. Actually it sounds a bit like the old-fashioned aural tuning of Virgil Smith coming back into vogue.

    At the heart of the debate, then, is loyalty, a personal esthetic satisfaction, and perserverance. 1. Loyalty to what the machine decides or what we have come to believe are "correct" aural intervals, 2. Personal existential satisfaction in having followed those beliefs to a satisfying result, and 3. Belief that you hung in there long enough to be sure the unisons were good and stable.

    What is missing is a common metric. How do aural tuners really know what they're doing? Are the aural checks all that accurate, really? They're always talking about "slightly" this or "slightly" that. How many ETA tuners get a full blush or get the lights to make an "X?" And if they don't get the lights to cooperate, do they know how far off they are, really? Are the machines set for the finest measuring parameters?Can we trust our ears? Can we trust the lights? I guess we have to. Perhaps, truth be told, we rarely get it right or if we think we have, we're deluding ourselves. But the piano is forgiving and so is our paying public.


    Richard West









  • 92.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-21-2017 23:03
    Richard --

    I like what you have to say here. Especially the last paragraph dealing with how we determine if we got it right or not. To me there is no such thing as a perfect tuning, no matter how good you are aurally or how accurate your device is. And even if it WERE possible to achieve that illusive "perfect" tuning, how long would it stay that way? My guess would be a couple of minutes at best. What were left with, regardless of how we got there, is a tuning that's as good as we can make it and which will satisfy both the customer and ourselves when we're done. 10 minutes after were done it would be measurably out of tune if checked with a device, I'm sure. But we all know that it can go out quite a bit, technically, before all but the most discerning ears could ever tell. Our job, then, is to make sure it's as close as we can get it and as stable as possible. Everything else is out of our control as soon as we've packed out tools.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 93.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-22-2017 08:07
    When customers say rapturously 'you do that BY EAR??' I say:

    1. (Like Elizabeth) Most of the top technicians use visual devices of one kind or another.

    2. They are all just tools, ears or ETA's. What matters if if the tuner cares about doing a good job.
        I emphasize this because most customers who admire me for aural tuning assume that the device is some kind of crutch.(Still! I was not surprised at that 35 years ago but now?!!)  I am quick to point out that any method has short cuts.

    ------------------------------
    Cindy Strehlow
    Urbana, IL
    ------------------------------



  • 94.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-22-2017 13:17
    I think the inference from the question from customers about tuning by ear versus using a visual aid is that any Joe Blow could pick up a machine and tune their own piano.

    Educating the customer as to the value of the ETD tool and the comment about doing a good job, and perhaps a bit about hammer technique and setting pins....

    The educated customer is our best friend. It is to our benefit to educate our clientele.
    I always learn from customers in related fields.

    Nancy Salmon
    LaVale, MD

    Virus-free. www.avg.com





  • 95.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 01:03
    There's no faster way to get your customers to appreciate you than to suggest they try it themselves.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 96.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 01:15
    David --

    I have one customer who actually invested in one of the higher end hammers, mutes AND a copy of RCT. He wasn't interested in tuning as a job, he just wanted to be able to touch up his piano from time to time and extend the time between formal tuning's. He admitted that he never could master the hand/eye/ear coordination well enough to accomplish what he wanted. He very much respected my skills.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 97.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 03:37
    Through the years, I've had several people ask me for a basic tuning hammer and mutes so they could touch up a tuning. I sold them a student hammer and basic mutes, and gave them a short lesson so they wouldn't break wire, etc.

    They all without exception hired me for tuning at the usual interval. When I asked about the tuning hammer, they said that they could get the notes in, they just couldn't get them to stay in the next day.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 98.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 10:20
    I used the illustration of a surgeon earlier, but have you ever seen a skilled surgeon tie a suture knot lightning fast with one hand? The first time I saw it (cocktail party) I didn't believe it. I said: "do it again"...he did it again on the same string. Like "magic".

    That is the type of skill WE have developed for tuning and setting the pins. And we make it look easy...just like the doc. Hard for the novice to appreciate until they try it.

    And we should be paid well for it. 

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 99.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 11:40
    I have several customers that I have set up with hammer and mutes. These are picky picky customers who hate unsteady unisons but understand that they can't afford to call me every other day to keep them in to their satisfaction. These customers have done a pretty good job at maintaining the unisons in their pianos but every one of them admits that actually tuning of the instrument is something they are not prepared to do. They tweak the unisons every couple of days so they can practice without being annoyed and then one day they realize that just bringing in the unison is no longer enough and I get the call.

    ------------------------------
    Geoff Sykes, RPT
    Los Angeles CA
    ------------------------------



  • 100.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-25-2017 02:02
    I have a few customers who tweak unisons too and it's all good with me. They all appreciate from that how difficult it is to master enough control to tune the entire piano even with an etd.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 101.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 22:18
    When I display my SAT to a new customer, I simply say this is a wonderful tuning tool that allows them to "see" what I am about to hear.I assure them I can tune with or without the tool. I give a simple explanation of how it works and then ask the client to determine how many cents the piano is above or below A440.
    They seem to enjoy learning and and participating in diagnosing the instrument and appreciate the fact they don't just have to just trust my assessment of the tuning condition.
    I finally add that my ear serves as the final tuning judge. I've never had a client to ask me to only tune by ear and I have maintained all the business I want.
    I am glad and believe we all should know how to tune by ear!!

    Sent from my iPhone




  • 102.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-25-2017 08:17
    I am surprised at the assumption that someone can be experienced in both methods. Years of experience in both methods? Switching back and forth? I originally had this question in reference to speed---aural tuners can be pretty fast. Then I noticed a few other comment that to me implied that some technicians are so accomplished in both methods. I have a hard time understanding how that works, don't you do one or the other almost all the time?

    ------------------------------
    Cindy Strehlow
    Urbana, IL
    ------------------------------



  • 103.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-25-2017 08:38
    Hi Cindy,

    You ask how it could be that there are technicians who are skilled at both aural and electronically assisted tuning. Those of us of "a certain age" all started our careers in piano technology tuning aurally. Forty years ago was like a hundred and forty years ago in this regard. When ETDs came along, the benefits of using them were readily apparent to many (most?) members of that generation that had begun tuning aurally. In my own case, I was a purely aural tuner for ten years before acquiring my first ETD. For myself and so many others who could tell similar stories, machines were an enhancement of our long-established aural tuning skills.

    Call me Old School, but I think that to pass the tuning test, one should have to pass ALL sections by ear alone. I consider aural tuning skills to be essential. That said, I do use an ETD in conjunction with my aural skills. Yes, I drive a hybrid car to my hybrid tunings. Hopefully, my next car will be all-electric, but my tunings never will be (unless I go deaf!).

    Alan

    ------------------------------
    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
    ------------------------------



  • 104.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-25-2017 10:40
    Don't remind me ;-)

    I also tuned aurally for at least 15 years and when I bought my first etd it was only because I started doing some institutional work and I pretty much used it only for that for another 5 years. Next year is my 40 year anniversary in the business and the state of the electronic arts has changed considerably. Tuning aurally for all those years was certainly a benefit and allowed my to assess the strenghs and weaknesses of machine tuning as the technology developed. Even now, choosing stretch styles, whether you use Accutuner, Verituner or Cybertuner (the ones I am familiar with) requires aural judgment. So those aural skills are still in play and the ability to cross reference an electronic source I believe has improved my aural skills and perception by increasing my awareness of small differences in "whole" tunings in a way that is both measurable and verifiable. 

    While different people may choose to use these devices differently I don't really know why any professional in the field today wouldn't want to own one of these valuable tools.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 105.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-22-2017 07:44
    Richard,

    Well said.  I forget my customers are not the norm.  I have learned much from working with a clientele most technicians don't have. 

    Thanks for your comments.

    ------------------------------
    Tim Coates
    Sioux Falls SD
    ------------------------------



  • 106.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-22-2017 09:58
    Hi Richard,

    Yes, the eclipse was pretty awesome! Just stayed in Lincoln to see it. Tons of people went further south for about an extra minute of darkness. They were having a gathering at Meadowlark coffee shop so we just went down there. Anyway - Thanks for your wise words.

    Went I went into this business (22 years ago this month!) I had no idea about all the controversy over approaches to tuning. I had just thought it would be a nice way to make a living, I could be self employed and it would be low stress. I'd have a skill that people would want and I could even continue to tune a few pianos after I "retired" (whatever that is!). Do piano tuners ever really retire? ;-)  I just pictured myself going to peoples homes and tuning their piano. That's it. So far, it's worked out nicely for me. Along the way I've learned a ton and gained a good clientele. My training included tuning with an ETD (Yamaha PT100) and my teacher said not to bother with learning all the aural stuff. That's the way I was taught and for me, it's worked out well. But, others have to follow their own path and I can't decide what that is nor can they decide for me. I agree wholeheartedly with what you said: "At the heart of the debate, then, is loyalty, a personal aesthetic satisfaction, and perseverance."  

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 107.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-23-2017 11:59
    "What is missing is a common metric. How do aural tuners really know what they're doing? Are the aural checks all that accurate, really?"

    My metric (right now) is pretty simple: the perfect intervals all have to sound 
    acceptable. Other tuners often say octaves and unisons are the most important, but I disagree: 4ths and 5ths must both sound acceptable.

    That's why, after tuning with the Verituner, I do an extensive set of aural checks. My customers (hopefully) hear me doing all this checking and correcting. Maybe they don't. Frankly, though, I don't thing they really care how I tune it as long as it's in tune when they sit down and play it.
    If they question the fact that I use a phone app, I quickly point out that it costs $600. That sobers their impression of phone apps. And in the real world in which I live, I'd say that the vast majority of pianos are NOT like my tuning test piano, a new Shigeru Kawai 7' grand in a climate-controlled room with a space blanket over the strings. In my world, most pianos are poorly-maintained verticals that need pitch raises. And the ETD lets me do a pitch raise in the least time possible. I don't want to be in someone's home for hours trying to do that aurally at this point and I don't want to use them as guinea pigs to perfect that skill. They have lives and want me out of there as well. 

    I guess if I had had an apprenticeship in a shop or factory where I could do pitch raises all day long I would have developed those skills. But I went into customer homes pretty early in my training. 

    I'm probably repeating myself from a response in another thread about tuning, but I'll say it anyway: there was a time as a photographer when I was convinced that customers respected film photographers over those that used digital cameras. I thought they noticed or cared that I knew how to "really" do photography the Ye Olde way.
    Maybe a few hipsters do, but the fact is that mostly they could care less. They want sharp, colorful, well-posed photos. Period. If I used a film camera, I was just doing it for my own satisfaction.

    However, I will say this: convenience aside, I pretty much still hate digital photography, and consider it to be a simulacrum of another medium. The colors are garish and black and white is unconvincing. Nothing matches my B&W darkroom prints on Fiber-based paper. So there.

    ------------------------------
    Scott Cole
    Talent OR
    541-601-9033
    ------------------------------



  • 108.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-23-2017 13:42
    You should ask Don Mannino, I know he tried at least three different tunings on Joe Bonjourno's piano until they were both satisfied.

    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 109.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-23-2017 16:32

    Larry, I'm sorry, I don't understand what your message is responding to.  Just the topic in general, or something in Scott's message - ?

     

    I tune aurally along with the computer.  Joe Bongiorno never had specific requests or asked me to change a tuning that I can recall.  What you might be remembering is my telling you that I calculated a few tunings before settling on one that I thought was best, and Joe really liked it.

     

    It is normal for me to measure the piano, calculate a tuning using my usual 'Custom Equalizer' settings, then start tuning.  If I am not liking something I then exit back out to the 'Custom Equalizer' screen and modify the settings, recalculate, then go back to tuning.  With some pianos I do this 2 or 3 times before I'm happy with the tuning.  But this requires the older version of Cybertuner – I use RCT Windows on a windows 10 tablet computer. 

     

    The differences between a standard Cybertuner tuning and mine are miniscule, and the musical impact is quite small.  I feel that the sound of the piano is slightly better when everything is optimized, so that's why I only use a straight machine tuning when I'm doing fast tunings.

     

    I do feel that I am a better tuner since I started using Cybertuner.  I am not perfect, the computer is not perfect (at least not musically), but the combination makes a more consistent tuning that is also musically satisfying.

     

    But then others feel that the regular settings on the machines give a better tuning than mine, and I don't have any argument with that.  It comes down to minor preferences in sound. Tuning a piano to a formula has a certain logic to it, but tuning it for the best musical sound makes the most sense to me and my ear.

     

    Don Mannino

     






  • 110.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-23-2017 17:57
    Don, I was referencing

    "What is missing is a common metric. How do aural tuners really know what they're doing? Are the aural checks all that accurate, really?

    I thought you did did it with Joe, my mistake.

    I think Jim Sr. was never satisfied with a "perfect" tuning on his piano.

    Very long thread here with many opinions. 

    This is why why it takes three RPTs to tune an exam piano. Viva la diferance.



    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 111.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-23-2017 21:23
    Very funny joke common to many professions.... "How many RPTs does it take to tune an exam piano?"
    The punch line should always be taken with a good sense of humor. I know that is why PTG works best ... that is when we can muse, love and respect each other for our commonalities and differences.  Viva la difference! Oui!?

    ------------------------------
    Garret Traylor
    Trinity NC
    336-887-4266
    ------------------------------



  • 112.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 10:22
    I want to add a story to this post.

    Some years back I traveled to Germany for factory training. Another American tech was there, and forgot to bring an adapter that would make the RCT able to be plugged into a European outlet. The person had been trained in aural tuning, same as me, but had been using an RCT for a few years.
    I went along and tuned the piano I was assigned, aurally, as I always do, and finished in about 75-90 minutes (which is pretty slow). The other tech was faced with having to tune aurally after not doing it for years. It took a long time, and the head of the factory came by a few times and said "When will you be done tuning?" I felt bad, and this person was a great technician, and a great, very stable tuner.

    Some people think it's a myth that you "lose" your skills in aural tuning if you switch over to an ETD. While you may still be able to hear beat speeds easily, setting a temperament and tuning by ear is a struggle of a process. If it's not maintained regularly and you find yourself up the river without your ETD paddle you'll find out just how dependent you are on it. For me, that's something I was always determined to avoid.

    Both the RCT and the Accutuner are great tools- well designed, innovative, intelligent. But for me, aural tuning is a lost art, a craft that I want to preserve, only depending on having my ears, tuning hammer, and a few mutes to get it done. It's a piece of soundscape artwork that I create. And like most art, it's a very personal thing, a creative outlet, and something I always strive to excel and improve at.

    There are a lot of aural tunings out there that sound far worse than machine tunings. What matters in a tuning is accuracy, pure unisons, stability, musicality. But for me, aural tuning specifically is a passion. And it needs to be- otherwise on the heavy days, how else can I get through a dozen pianos in a day and still be happy to do it again the next day? Personally, I love old world crafts - that's why I've taken the time to learn how to hand hew and build a hewn log cabin by hand, make timberframe joinery with hand tools, lay drystone walls, and hand forge tools in 90°+ weather. To me personally, being able to do these things is worth sweating through your clothes- whether literally or figuratively. :o)




  • 113.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 11:28

    Elizabeth said: Some people think it's a myth that you "lose" your skills in aural tuning if you switch over to an ETD. While you may still be able to hear beat speeds easily, setting a temperament and tuning by ear is a struggle of a process. If it's not maintained regularly and you find yourself up the river without your ETD paddle you'll find out just how dependent you are on it. For me, that's something I was always determined to avoid.

    My reply: Although I agree with your basic premise, you make it sound painful. It isn't always a struggle, I enjoy aural tuning because I feel that I'm communicating with an organic "being." Together we're laying the groundwork for beautiful music. I will concede that some pianos don't want to communicate and work with you easily. It can be a wrestling match.

    When ETDs were still fairly new in the field, I got hooked and started relying more and more on the "machine." I can't tell you what day it was that I realized that I was losing my hearing and I don't mean in the medical sense. I was losing my skill at aural tuning and, like you, I had worked hard to develop that skill and valued it as a skill that few people have. Aural tuning is a very satisfying endeavor! I decided to turn off the the machine and go back to aural tuning. Not necessarily because I think it's better. I really don't know how my tuning measures up because there's really no way to compare. As I said in a previous post, there's no metric. I believe in my choices and tune accordingly and get a result that satisfies me.

    That's not to say that I have thrown away my ETD. I use it to set A (and I have to say that trying to do that aurally now is a bit of a struggle) and I rely on my ETD for pitch raises, which is worth the price of having an ETA because getting the piano in tune before I can tune it, is important to accuracy and stability. 


    PS I acknowledge that this thread is going on and on. There should be a Journal article here that explores the virtues of the two sides of tuning. 






  • 114.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 11:59
    Why Aural Tuning?
    I'll join in the fray here.

    When you take your late model car into the shop for servicing or to get a problem looked at, let's say the "check engine" light is on, you take it for granted that they will plug in a computer to diagnose the issue.

    The piano on the other hand is ancient technology, a piece of machinery, essentially unchanged in well over 100 years. (Many of the instrument we work on are over 100 years) People do not assume that it should be "serviced and diagnosed" with 21st century technology.

    There are different ways to tune a piano and in the end, it is the final result that matters. So I don't really care how someone else tunes for their clients.

    This applies to me and my clients, and maybe some of you aural tuners out there can relate: I get a ton of mileage by being an aural tuner. How many times have I heard "That last tuner came and tuned with a box, and it just didn't sound right". Maybe it is all in their head, but it doesn't matter.

    It is about perception. When clients see a young "chap with an app" tuning their heirloom piano, they think they are getting short changed and that he does not know his way around pianos. It does not build client trust and confidence.

    I can proudly advertise that I was trained in the arcane and time-honored method of tuning aurally, and it give me street creds and respect that money cannot buy.

    The slogan "Tuning by human ear" brings in clients.

    "Tuning by Android" not so much.

    ------------------------------
    Jurgen Goering
    ------------------------------



  • 115.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 22:01
    "How many times have I heard "That last tuner came and tuned with a box, and it just didn't sound right". Maybe it is all in their head, but it doesn't matter." - J. Goering

    I don't suppose you'll be surprised to know that, as an ETA tuner, I have had responses the other way. People wanting an electronic tuning. We hear what we want to hear...

    I wholeheartedly agree with Richard, Susan, Elizabeth, etc... When you've worked as hard as you have at a craft and you get satisfaction and good results from it, why change what you're doing? Would it surprise you to know that that is exactly how I feel as an ETA tuner? I've worked at this for 22 years, continually trying to improve my tunings (yes, using an ETA takes time and patience to get good), I get good results and great satisfaction from my work. I just get there a different way than you do.


    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 116.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-24-2017 13:10
    Elizabeth, you are quite amazing. I admire activities like hand hewing, and timberframe building, and dry stone wall making, and forging. No way could I do any of them.

    We totally agree about aural tuning.

    Jurgen just said, <<How many times have I heard "That last tuner came and tuned with a box, and it just didn't sound right". Maybe it is all in their head, but it doesn't matter.>>

    While I admit as a possibility that it's all in their head, I suspect that most of the time it's an observation rather than an illusion.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 117.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-24-2017 21:46
    "But for me, aural tuning specifically is a passion. And it needs to be- otherwise on the heavy days, how else can I get through a dozen pianos in a day and still be happy to do it again the next day? Personally, I love old world crafts - that's why I've taken the time to learn how to hand hew and build a hewn log cabin by hand, make timberframe joinery with hand tools, lay drystone walls, and hand forge tools in 90°+ weather. To me personally, being able to do these things is worth sweating through your clothes- whether literally or figuratively. :o)" - E. Pearson

    Yikes! Wonder Woman's got nothin' on you! You go girl!!  


    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 118.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-25-2017 10:41
    The ETD will likely do to aural tuning what machines did to woodworking, and all the other trades.  A generation or two after the introduction of power thickness planers and jointers to the woodworking industry, hand plane skills among carpenters were diminished. Even up to the 1970s it was likely that your average carpenter could set up a hand plane, get it sharp and take some shavings, that is with a nice stanley with a convenient knob to adjust the depth of the cut.......but to flatten a rough cut board quickly on 6 six faces, that is a different story.  These aides slowly erode an intimacy and deep understanding of working wood,....the ETD will slowly do the same to tuning. Many of us learned before the introduction of the ETD, just like the early American piano builders learned to build pianos mainly with hand tools. The ironic thing today is that someone working in the carpenters union may not have any idea of how to set up and sharpen a hand plane, while on the other hand you have a computer tech who flattens boards by hand in the evening after work to blow off some steam. Personally, I prefer to work wood, not machines, and tune pianos, not ETD's.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 119.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-26-2017 00:09
    Wait, I use ETDs and handplanes.

    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 120.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-26-2017 08:22
    David,
    Yes, but how do you tune your planes?
    Tell the truth.

    <Wait, I use ETDs and handplanes.>

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 121.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-26-2017 11:24
    Woodworking machines do help, but you still need to know how to set them up, how to run them, and how to construct your project. If you try to make a perfect box on a table saw that isn't set up properly, you will not have a good box. If you run a board over the jointer and the jointer isn't set up properly, you won't have a flat or square board.

    ------------------------------
    Lucas Brookins
    Janesville WI
    608-931-5863
    ------------------------------



  • 122.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-26-2017 13:19
    The main point is that ETD's will gradually effect the average ability of aural tuning. History shows us that technological developments always have an impact on the ability of people to perform the skills that the technology was invented to replace or aid. Let's be honest here.  I'm not arguing for one or the other, I'm just saying that many tuners will use the ETD to avoid the need to develop the necessay skills to tune aurally,... because its easier and produces faster results, just like thickness planers are much easier to learn to use, and produce faster results than learning to use a traditional handplane to flatten a board. Most people look for the path of least resistance, it is easier on the body, and often gives people more time and money.  One other thing that technology almost inevitably does is produce more uniform and repeatable results. This means less subtle variations in finished products. This is why some people prefer to furnish their houses with antiques....which have more variations and "imperfections" than furniture produced with machines. Other people like plastic.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 123.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-26-2017 16:28
    ETDs already allow tuners to offer a wide variety of accurately tuned alternative temperaments and octave stretches.
    They allow performers like Peter Serkin to specify well in advance of the performance what temperament offsets they prefer.
    They allow teachers, such as my customer M.L. to ask for tunings a little more or less equal temp. on her three pianos,
    Well controlled and defined tunings may be producing a generation of more aware and articulate customers.
    They can help tuners have a more flexible understanding of what constitutes "good tuning" in a world offering a variety of instruments, circumstances and musical demands.
    They can also offer us a chance to see if we really hear and tune as accurately as we like to believe we can!

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 124.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-26-2017 18:07
    There is a difference between the kind of variation that is produced with the aid of a machine and the kind of variation produced by human imagination, perception, and even "mistake". Yes, machine tuning has the potential to influence the effect of our personal judgment and imperfection or mistakes that show up in our work... But this is different from my main point, which was that ETD's will gradually effect the overall ability of aural tuning skills mainly because it is easier to use a machine, and many people will overtime likely gravitate in that direction. I understand that the ETD gives us more options without doing the time consuming work of learning the different temperaments aurally, but these are more like controlled options. The monochord was used historically to achieve similar results..it required the aural skills of matching unisons and the geometric/mathematic skills of placing the bridges to divide the octave accordingly, so it likely had the extended benefit of educating the tuner in proportional relationships visually and aurally, and expanding their understanding of tuning, and possibly scale design. All in all I don't believe that the ETD will make aural tuning a "lost art".  Most arts deemed lost are actually not lost if you look hard enough..... unless your talking about building megalithic structures.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 125.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-26-2017 19:38
    I might compare the difference between aural and ETD tuning to drawing a straight line freehand, versus using a ruler.

    The ruler line is certainly exactly straight, but it somehow lacks the appeal of the freehand version, which is still quite straight, just not machine straight.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 126.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 02:00
    And there's another benefit, creating a master tuning for a specific instrument which you can memorize and repeat every time--and continue to refine, if you so choose knowing exactly what changes you are making.  It's also good for tuning pianos with different scaling together. Since different scales produce different degreees of inharmonicity which leads to different degrees of stretch, the etd allows you to easily predict and modify to get the pianos as much in unison as feasible given their inherent differences. 

    I don't think they have diminished my aural skills though they probably have diminished my aural speed somewhat were I to return to pure aural tuning--at least tempoarily  I think they've been helpful in verifying tuning the extremes and testing different types of octaves in the low bass with greater certainty. I'm sure I could tune without it but I don't see any benefit, quite the contrary. Given a full werk of tuning appointments I probably save 10 hours a week. That adds up. 

    Oh, and Ed, I tune my hand planes with my thumb. 


    ------------------------------
    David Love RPT
    www.davidlovepianos.com
    davidlovepianos@comcast.net
    415 407 8320
    ------------------------------



  • 127.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 08:28
    After multiple injuries and chronic inflammation of the ulnar nerve in my right arm and hand, by my early 60s I could no longer work through the pain of playing octaves or using the tuning lever with my right hand. I had to learn to use Cybertuner  or give up tuning.

    I was very proud of my aural tuning at my best and wish I had recorded or tested some of those tunings to see if they really were as good as I thought they were, because I frankly now believe that Cyberrtuner does better than my aural tunings.

    Now approaching 70, I've lost much of my ability to play piano, harpsichord. guitar and lute. My handwriting is also a mess. Talk to older piano tuners and you'll find similar stories, not to mention those who have been forced to retire. (I'm taking piano lessons with a Lister-Sink protege, so I still hope to get better. Earlier study of Alexander technique might have prevented some of the damage, but I don't think I could have played so many of those octave-fifth-fourths without injury.)

    Young tuners, just do what is best for your hands. You'll be glad to have them in good shape later.




    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 128.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-27-2017 13:55
    I'm sorry to hear about your physical challenges, Ed. My hands are pretty good, though I can't stretch as far as I used to, but my mobility is really bad and really uncomfortable even with a cane.

    I'm just starting some new supplements designed to restore cartilage and elastin -- saw palmetto (also good for guys), hyaluronic acid (gives a liquid matrix for joint lubrication and skin and muscle hydration) and bioavailable collagen. Bony soups and soup stocks (slow cooking bony cuts like lamb shanks and slow cooking and eating meats with a lot of collagen like chicken legs with the skin) can help, too. I was already doing that part of it, using a crock pot and cooking with all the stock.

    I think that meal timing, avoidance of sugar and flour products, and especially lots of SLEEP in a very dark cool bedroom are indicated. The repair happens while one is in deep sleep. My sleep improved a lot when I started taking methyl B12, needed (along with total darkness) to make melatonin. I like the Jarrow brand, mildly lemon flavored. One lets the tablet dissolve most of the way under the tongue because it absorbs better that way. When I first started it I must have been terribly short of B12 because I slept like a log for 12 hours the first couple of days. Kind of like younger days, when one wakes up with a dry mouth from it hanging open, feeling sort of blended INTO the bed in total comfort. It had been many years since I had felt like that. The methyl form of B12 is the kind the body can use. The conventional kind ("cyanocobalamin") has to be converted to methyl before it's any use, and people do that more poorly as they get older. To my amazement, adequate B12 helps small muscle coordination, which is why Olympic marksmen take methyl B12. They say it eliminates a tiny background tremor and their scores improve. The first few weeks after starting it I noticed that while playing chamber music I'd come up to a hard lick I didn't expect to be able to play -- and then I'd see it in the rear view mirror, and I'd played every note. Just better small muscle speed and coordination. Weird but neat.

    As they say, after forty, life becomes a maintenance problem.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 129.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 14:34
    Ed,

    I am sorry also and echo Susan's sentiment.

    Though I never thought I would have physical challenges tuning, though most of us in the pride of youth never do, it started happening to me. 
    There is a gentleman I worked with for a dealer in the area who constructed something to play octaves without his hand he held in his fist. Not what I am recommending. 

    I was very lucky early before ever having physical problems at the piano that happen to the young and the old to be introduced by an instructor to the Taubman technique. 

    Piano Technique: The Taubman Approach
    Wellbalancedpianist remove preview
    Piano Technique: The Taubman Approach
    A brief introduction to Dorothy Taubman's approach to piano technique.
    View this on Wellbalancedpianist >

    I developed some exercises based on it that I stopped using for a period. It is not like riding a bike. I was forced to take the time to do them to make the pain go away. If you can find an instructor in your area who studied with her you won't regret it.

    The problem with striking piano keys involves simultaneously holding up the forearm and pressing down on the keys. Taubman helped me fool my shoulders and back into realizing how little energy this actually takes and stay completely limber. My elbows are never rigid or shoulders never raised. I can make pain go away with the training.

    Tuning verticals left handed helps to give the left hand a break striking the keys.

    Eating healthy always soothes pain in my joints. 

    And fasting has been indispensible. Trying to tune grands at 12:00 with 20 extra pounds quickly became unbearable for me.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sloane
    Cincinnati OH
    513-257-8480
    ------------------------------



  • 130.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-27-2017 17:51
    Ed, I am also sorry to hear of your injuries. I plan on taking your advice seriously because at 35 I am already starting to feel some pain from tuning, woodworking, and other things that I do.  Posture and technique have become very important to me lately and getting these right seem to be essential for preventing injury and being able to work into old age. Old habits are hard to break though. I second what Susan and Benjamin said about the supplements.  There has been alot of new research in these areas and herbs and vitamins can work very well if you find the right ones.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 131.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-28-2017 09:27


    As always I liked Eds answers in regards to aural tuning. The one thing he left out of his list should have been EDT's never get tired. 
    I was trained to tune aurally and to set the temperament using 1917 J.Cree Fisher method. I tuned aurally the first 29 years but after buying an EDT many times Dr. Al Sanderson discovered my mistakes. He would reach down from Tuners Heaven and tap me on the back and say, "Oh Bob, I understand that it is almost midnight in the rehearsal hall where you are tuning the Steinway grand you just restrung two weeks ago but 
    please go back and look at the Accu Tuner, you missed the B7 and also check the D # 2. Last week I did two aural tunings. One where I had returned to the venue to put an action part in the music room piano and the office secretary said, "Oh Bob, do you have time to tune the piano in the practice room also? We forgot to ask you when you were here the other day" I only had my upright piano tools with me and couldn't see driving the 50 mile round trip just to get my EDT and twelve cases of other things. It was fun tuning the 1992 practice room piano piano and it came out fine and I finished a bit faster then when I am constantly glancing up to check on what I just heard while tuning. The other aural tuning, last week was for Aunt Laura's 1927 Ludwig drop action spinet with 78 keys that the client had just inherited. It was last tuned in 1972. It was more than a half step low and many strings might break raising the pitch even a little bit so I just tuned it to itself. Fortunately I only have relative pitch. I explained to the client the old phrase "if you can't tune it to A440 don't tune it at all." After tuning it didn't sound as honky tonk as it did when I first arrived and spent a half hour, of the three hour job, cleaning 90 years of dirt and dust out of the odd case piano. Now when her twin granddaughters come over she can baby sit them and they can play the piano despite the fact that they may also learn to sing over a half step low.

    ------------------------------
    Robert Highfield
    Lancaster PA
    ------------------------------



  • 132.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-29-2017 21:45
    I have decided to rethink my position on the matter. Once we started talking about power tools I decided I had to. Although I enjoy working with hand tools, and especially old ones, and old ways (I built myself a shaving horse [Roy Underhill style]), when I want to get something done reasonably fast it's the table saw, the power planer, the drill, the impact driver (that one is pretty much my favorite) the chain saw, etc. etc. I only use the hand plane when I have to (but of course...I can, and I keep it sharp and adjusted).

    I get it now. Not that I am going to change wholesale to using an ETD, but I understand the reasoning and agree with it. Simply at this time I WANT to keep honing my aural ability, but I am not averse to a bit of assistance from time to time (which may increase in the future).

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 133.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 08:21
    Cudos Peter...rethinking a belief, using experienced based information to consider the reasonable possibility of another valid way of approaching a problem...you just cut 15 years off of any potential alzheimers


    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 134.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 09:25
    Peter - I agree with Jim. You've inspired me today! Let's go tune some pianos!!

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 135.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-30-2017 10:47
    Peter -
    For what it's worth - I was a staunch aural-only-tuner up until just a few years ago. As a result of one of these (very lengthy) discussions about aural vs ETD I decided to give it a try. Mostly out curiosity,  but also as a practical matter. Although I have not suffered any hearing loss, it is certainly a possibility (now in my mid sixties). Additionally, Ed Sutton had written about the pain he was experiencing when stretching to reach octaves. I was not having pain - but with arthritis setting in those stretches were getting uncomfortable.

    Old habits die hard and I was "on and off" with the ETD for a couple of years. Over time it became more comfortable and for the last year or so using the ETD has has become my standard approach. Oddly enough, my aural skills have actually improved during this time. I'm doubtful that this is because my hearing has become more acute. More likely it is because what I might have regarded as a tuning which was "good enough under the circumstances" a few years ago is no longer acceptable to me. Don't get me wrong - I was not a sloppy tuner. But when a piano had to be raised 20 cents or more before fine tuning and there were other appointments to get to, "perfection" (if it even exists) was not, indeed could not be, the goal. 

    Yes, there have always been those pianos which are very well maintained and don't need pitch raising - maybe about 10% of my work. On those I could produce a concert quality tuning aurally. But this is New England. Pitch swings of 20 or 30 cents are common for the average piano. With the aid of an ETD even those pianos can be tuned to concert quality. And as a bonus, my last tuning of the day is as good as the first - and I'm still not exhausted!!

    ------------------------------
    Gerry Johnston
    Haverhill, MA
    gj@gjpianotuner.com
    www.gjpianotuner.com
    (978) 372-2250
    ------------------------------



  • 136.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 12:58
    I really appreciate your comments Gerry. You've confirmed what I have said about there being a learning curve, even with an ETD/ETA. I doubt that it's as steep as aural tuning, nevertheless, there is a learning curve. And, even switching to a different ETA is another learning curve. What a nice bonus that it's helped hone your aural skills!

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------



  • 137.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 13:02
    Well said. No more need for discussion as far as I'm concerned!!

    Sent from my iPhone




  • 138.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 16:29
    Good luck on that...

    ------------------------------
    Regards,

    Jon Page
    ------------------------------



  • 139.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Posted 08-30-2017 17:57
    I'll add an advantage of ETD that I don't believe has been mentioned. It has enabled me to do some tunings that I imagine most aural-only would not take on. For example...

    I tuned for a large outdoor festival of rock bands. I was given a 2-hour window to do the tuning before the first group's performance. Ninety minutes after my "start time", I finally got got to begin tuning. After 30" the first band began their show. The piano and I were off stage but pretty close to the group. I did most of the fine tuning while they performed. At one point I stopped to measure the SPL which was as much as 85+ decibels of music-not just noise.

    My EDT (Verituner) saved the day. Normally I would have gotten at least a nice set of inharmonicity measurements for the piano. This was not a lnormal situation! The piano was a near new Yamaha U1, and I had a excellent saved U1 file I had done for a piano teacher and that's what I used to tune the piano. It was a "visual" tuning to a large extent. The tuning was for the main attraction that performed in the evening. When I returned for a possible touchup, I was told none was needed.

    A point I want to make is that I was paid pretty well for the tuning, although I traveled about 260 miles (through beautiful mountain country!) and was given overnight lodging. For that one tuning, I was paid enough to significantly cover the cost of an EDT.  Having it paid off that day.  And it's not the only time the EDT has been a godsend in challenging situations.


    ------------------------------
    David Bauguess
    Grand Junction CO
    970-257-1750
    ------------------------------



  • 140.  RE: Why Aural Tuning?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-30-2017 19:59
    David,

    Excellent point!  👍

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------