Pianotech

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

I just LOVE this!  A lovely reminder for all of us at the beginning of this new year, to step back, "listen" and re-evaluate! .... I'll have to steal a few lines of this to add to my business class at the SERC!!

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I’m a research scientist, as well as a musician. I’m interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what’s involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I’m interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that’s better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I’m a research scientist, as well as a musician. I’m interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what’s involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I’m interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that’s better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Re-read my story. You cannot dial it in by ear to 0.1 cent, barely 0.5 cents. But can hear the difference result when you dial it to 0.1 by machine. Look my friend, I am a logical guy, consistent in logic. If you really want to know more, you may contact me privately and attend my classes. Many are coming up. No one accuses me of inconsistency in logic. It is not my nature. But people DO often read in what they want to read in.

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Re-read my story. You cannot dial it in by ear to 0.1 cent, barely 0.5 cents. But can hear the difference result when you dial it to 0.1 by machine. Look my friend, I am a logical guy, consistent in logic. If you really want to know more, you may contact me privately and attend my classes. Many are coming up. No one accuses me of inconsistency in logic. It is not my nature. But people DO often read in what they want to read in.

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:52:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Re-read my story. You cannot dial it in by ear to 0.1 cent, barely 0.5 cents. But can hear the difference result when you dial it to 0.1 by machine. Look my friend, I am a logical guy, consistent in logic. If you really want to know more, you may contact me privately and attend my classes. Many are coming up. No one accuses me of inconsistency in logic. It is not my nature. But people DO often read in what they want to read in.

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 15:45
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:35:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Mr. Norsworthy --

> "I don't believe in 'opinions'"

You consistently tell us our opinions are wrong and fail to understand that opinions are ALL you are ever going to get, here. We are all here to share opinions. That's how we learn and grow. So far all you've been able to do is consistently disagree with the opinions being voiced here. You're not hearing us. You're not even trying to hear us. I think you need to lighten up. Wake up to the fact that bludgeoning us with your data as proof of your correctness, and our wrongness, is not making you any friends. Or, for many of us, even an interested audience. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you have invented a marvelous device that does all you say it does. But if all you can do is tell us our opinions are wrong, and our questions are irrelevant, why should we care? Put away the vinegar and stop treating us like data. Give us, as opinionated people, something to like about you and your product because we really would like to have you here as a friend. 

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Mr. Norsworthy --

> "I don't believe in 'opinions'"

You consistently tell us our opinions are wrong and fail to understand that opinions are ALL you are ever going to get, here. We are all here to share opinions. That's how we learn and grow. So far all you've been able to do is consistently disagree with the opinions being voiced here. You're not hearing us. You're not even trying to hear us. I think you need to lighten up. Wake up to the fact that bludgeoning us with your data as proof of your correctness, and our wrongness, is not making you any friends. Or, for many of us, even an interested audience. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you have invented a marvelous device that does all you say it does. But if all you can do is tell us our opinions are wrong, and our questions are irrelevant, why should we care? Put away the vinegar and stop treating us like data. Give us, as opinionated people, something to like about you and your product because we really would like to have you here as a friend. 

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Mr. Norsworthy --

> "I don't believe in 'opinions'"

You consistently tell us our opinions are wrong and fail to understand that opinions are ALL you are ever going to get, here. We are all here to share opinions. That's how we learn and grow. So far all you've been able to do is consistently disagree with the opinions being voiced here. You're not hearing us. You're not even trying to hear us. I think you need to lighten up. Wake up to the fact that bludgeoning us with your data as proof of your correctness, and our wrongness, is not making you any friends. Or, for many of us, even an interested audience. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you have invented a marvelous device that does all you say it does. But if all you can do is tell us our opinions are wrong, and our questions are irrelevant, why should we care? Put away the vinegar and stop treating us like data. Give us, as opinionated people, something to like about you and your product because we really would like to have you here as a friend. 

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

    What's so great about precision if the sound is lame? Electric pianos are generally invariant. It's about singing not being orderly. Art and craft are similar but different. If precision was prime galleries would be filled with blueprints not paintings.   That's not to say a better camera isn't great. To a painter not so much

Mr. Norsworthy --

> "I don't believe in 'opinions'"

You consistently tell us our opinions are wrong and fail to understand that opinions are ALL you are ever going to get, here. We are all here to share opinions. That's how we learn and grow. So far all you've been able to do is consistently disagree with the opinions being voiced here. You're not hearing us. You're not even trying to hear us. I think you need to lighten up. Wake up to the fact that bludgeoning us with your data as proof of your correctness, and our wrongness, is not making you any friends. Or, for many of us, even an interested audience. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you have invented a marvelous device that does all you say it does. But if all you can do is tell us our opinions are wrong, and our questions are irrelevant, why should we care? Put away the vinegar and stop treating us like data. Give us, as opinionated people, something to like about you and your product because we really would like to have you here as a friend. 

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

------------------------------
Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

------------------------------
Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

------------------------------
[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

------------------------------
Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
------------------------------

Jason Kanter has provided us with an aural test for hearing unisons in .5 cent intervals. Guess I'm just lucky but I did mange to hit the perfect unison on all but one.

(the password is your favorite guild that starts with a "p")

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/ab33a675-b1fa-4933-bc4c-f220a29734fc/review

    What's so great about precision if the sound is lame? Electric pianos are generally invariant. It's about singing not being orderly. Art and craft are similar but different. If precision was prime galleries would be filled with blueprints not paintings.   That's not to say a better camera isn't great. To a painter not so much

Mr. Norsworthy --

> "I don't believe in 'opinions'"

You consistently tell us our opinions are wrong and fail to understand that opinions are ALL you are ever going to get, here. We are all here to share opinions. That's how we learn and grow. So far all you've been able to do is consistently disagree with the opinions being voiced here. You're not hearing us. You're not even trying to hear us. I think you need to lighten up. Wake up to the fact that bludgeoning us with your data as proof of your correctness, and our wrongness, is not making you any friends. Or, for many of us, even an interested audience. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking you have invented a marvelous device that does all you say it does. But if all you can do is tell us our opinions are wrong, and our questions are irrelevant, why should we care? Put away the vinegar and stop treating us like data. Give us, as opinionated people, something to like about you and your product because we really would like to have you here as a friend. 

Dear John, 

Great reply. We know things drift quickly with playing the piano, as I tune my own piano and after 3 hours of practice, no matter how good the pin-setting technique is, things drift, even with perfect environment constants. Tensions move around from playing. The problem is that in my experience, most tuners are not coming back and checking their work the next day after their pianist/customer has practiced for a day. 

Now said, let's go to statistics. If the std. deviation of the spread starts out at 0.2 cents, and from playing it winds up a few days later at 0.8 cents, we have increased the std. deviation by a factor of 0.8 / 0.2 = 4X. Now let's say you finish your tune using a standard ETD and now you are starting out at 0.8 std. deviation, and then a few days later you have a 4X change, then you have 3.2 cents std. deviation and the customer says, "I don't like the way it sounds now." Maybe the fussy math retort is that things don't increase by 4X so let's say just 2X from 0.8. That is 1.6, and is audible, and annoying. This is exactly what I experienced as a pianist using RPT tuners, very good RPT's I shall say. I aggravated them because I would call them a few days later and say the piano does not sound good. Seriously. So I am now with the inventions and my tunings last much longer. The most discerning pianists will hear the lack of clarity in the attacks at this much deviation. Why do you think Glenn Gould had his full time tech with him daily? 

I have another story. Paul McCloud has tuned with my device now for over 200 pianos. He is my beta tester. He has a professional pianist with a good Steinway B. She did not know Paul was using a new device but she was shocked at how much better her piano sounded, so much clearer and cleaner. She told Paul that she could not stop playing it was so good! SO... the difference IS audible.

I had this whole argument that lasted over an hour with one of the VP's of the PTG. I had to tell them that this is about 'invariance' and it is statistical. I think they finally understood. "Start with less error and your tuning will last longer." That is the real essence, Wim. But, Wim, you need to go to my device's YouTube channel and watch the videos. They are all backed up logically with data. I don't believe in 'opinions' but believe in real data to back up things. I do my best in that way.

Kindly and respectfully to all,

Steve

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 16:59
From: John Zeiner
Subject: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 3:22:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:56:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Win,

I am only interested in applying better technology to raise the bar to a standard that goes beyond human perception. Let me tell a story. I was at NAMM this weekend. I did a live demo for the CEO and head tech of a piano maker. I presented unison tuning string by string with my new invention / device. The head tech could not achieve the same results by ear, and he is very good already! They agreed that while the human cannot dial it in by ear, the human ear can HEAR the difference in the result by the new device. 

I document this in my class I teach. I play live recordings with spreads that are well within the tuning exam. Then I play recordings where they are dialed in better than that. It IS audible, easily so. But we can't dial it in with our ear. Not the best ear. I am not appealing to the top 0.01% of the golden ears. We cannot clone them. I can use new technology to help a junior tuner outperform the best 0.01% tuner. This I document with many examples. This is what I am interested in.

Best regards, 

Steve

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Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-30-2024 12:41
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

It's because different tuners hear differently that we do it the way we do. We measure what the three of them hear. We don't want to have the end result dictated to us by a "machine", even if that machine can give a more accurate measurement.

When the current exam was established many years ago, the complaint was that candidates were going to tested against a "machine". It was difficult for some of them to understand that the final pitch of any given note was established by three aural tuners, and then recorded with an ETD. If the final result is going to be measured by an electronic devise, it takes away the human factor of a tuning.

Wim.

Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:26:00 PM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

The PTG exam has been well described to me in detail. Remember, I'm a research scientist, as well as a musician. I'm interested in the research of going beyond the variability of human to human. There are many stories about how the exam judges hear differently themselves. This all needs to be revised by a higher standard in 'invariance.' We do not have that. We can get there. I am not just satisfied with the status quo. So far I would have to conclude that most PTG members 'are' satisfied with the status quo. Let's go back to chess playing and not make a better chess program that beat Gary Kasparov. 

Best regards,
Steve.


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 12:14:00 PM
From: Wim Blees
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the PTG tuning exam. Not just what's involved with taking it, but also the preparation and measuring of what we call the Master Tuning.

Wim
Sent from my iPhone


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 11:54:00 AM
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Hi Patrick,

Obviously I'm interested in going beyond what humans can perceive as a standard because what humans perceive is very subjective from human to human. We need to measure ourselves by some measurement means that's better than we are in order to compare what we are, I knew.
Best regards,
Steve


Original Message:
Sent: 1/30/2024 8:43:00 AM
From: Patrick Draine
Subject: RE: Getting back to basics

Steven asked: "Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?""

While it can probably be improved upon, you may find taking the PTG tuning exam to be an enlightening experience.  

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Patrick Draine RPT
Billerica MA
(978) 663-9690

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 23:34
From: Steven Norsworthy
Subject: Getting back to basics

All,

I appreciate the ART and the SCIENCE of this. I have had lots of off-line discussions with great aural tuners and several have resisted the ETD ideas because they know how varying the results are with acoustic interference affecting the ETD's inability to resolve the harmonics accurately. So many have decided to stay with aural tuning and treat it as more of an art. I DO appreciate that! My first point of reference is 'music' and the art of it. I think the above statement by me will 'surprise' many. My first 2 degrees were in music, not engineering. Then my next 2 degrees were in engineering. It tells you where my 'heart is' at the 'emotional level. Surprised? LOL!

NOW, as some of you are aware of my initiative to research a reliable and invariant way of making it more of a science, I liken this to Gary Kasparov, the world's last greatest chess player. Chess is part art and part science (mathematics and statistical probabilities). He cannot beat an iPhone-based chess program today! The last time he could beat IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was in the early days, before the year 2006. 

We will always need good mechanically skilled people to do regulation, string leveling, hammer voicing. We will always need great ears to compromise badly mismatched bass bichords with huge differences in their IH character. 

What if we could come up with an invariant and dependable way of taking a piano that is in 'good shape' in these ways, and then create our 'art' by selecting the temperament of our artistic choice, and then sampling the notes to set up that temperament wherein the sampled notes are 'frequency accurate' with 0.1 cents relative to one another? That would be an improvement for us, correct? We could then use that same invariant system to know we could nail the unisons string by string to within 0.1 cents, confirming with our golden ears that they do sound super clear like we cannot get by ear-string-matching manually, and, 'yes' knowing they will drift over time and temperature and humidity, but knowing that we start with virtually no error so that after the drifting the error will be far less than if we had started with a larger error which is what we have today? Would not that be extremely 'welcome news' to us? It certainly should be. Start with minimal error and the drift will proceed with less error outcome! Great! The tuning will last longer and the customer will be happier for a longer period of time. A true improvement that is measurable and objective.

Let's all be honest with ourselves and ask, "If our customers (piano owners) and our peers all think that our 'current methods' are so great and that we are creating great art and we all are satisfied, shall we stop and say that 'good enough is good enough'?"

Then the next question is this: "Have we ever really objectively measured our work by a professional 'test and measurement system' and does such a system even exist in the PTG?"

Then the next question is: "Can any of us who are satisfied with our current work ever really be the best judge of ourselves?"

A major fundamental improvement to today's methodology is coming. It will be more objective and invariant. It will improve our 'art' and it will not obsolete us, but will make us better. This is possible within the next year or less, maybe even today.

It will require better 'pickup technology' and better algorithms within the ETD's. We need both. We are currently using hardware that is either all-analog and 50 years old, or using ETD's that have 20-year-old DSP algorithms that have not been updated with major advances that have come out of the 5G and DoD signal processing profession. It has been presented to us as, "Trust me, it is accurate and state-of-the-art," but how can we know that? Do we have any way of verifying that objectively? We have no test and measurement method to verify it. So the outcome is 'subjective' and therefore we are back to 'pure art'. I am not here to turn off any of the hard work that has gone into either the aural tuning art, or the ETD apps. Far from it. These steps were all necessary. But we need to go forward. We need a jury of our peers to evaluate our own work.

This type of mental and technological 'shift' would not threaten anyone, would not do anything but to improve the artistry of the piano art in which you are proudly part.

Respectfully submitted,

Steven Norsworthy

email me privately if you wish at 

steven@rf2bits.com

------------------------------
Steven Norsworthy
Cardiff By The Sea CA
(619) 964-0101

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 19:40
From: Norman Brickman
Subject: Getting back to basics

I have always felt that someone who tunes visually can do an equivalent job as someone who tunes aurally – given the proper training and dedication for each. But I get worried that some of our colleagues gravitate to visual tuning due to improper training or learning an aural approach that I might consider undesirable.

I only tune aurally, and I agree with Blaine that every tuning is a challenge -- and offers new insights and maintains your interest. As far as "tired" ears, I find that modern hearing aids do a great job! Regards, Norman.

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Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321

Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:21
From: Michael Morvan
Subject: Getting back to basics

Great post Wim. I don't tune but I think your example can apply to just about any job or situation. I have gotten trapped in many phases of restoring keyboards and action frames thinking that the way I was doing something was the only way or the better way, only to be humbled when I perform a self-evaluation, or think outside the box. Reading old PTG Journals, receiving constructive criticism from customers, watching the never-ending supply of home videos on the internet, and talking with colleagues can put things back into perspective as well. Upgrading equipment or replacing equipment that has lost its tolerance is also a good opportunity to make some changes for the better, I find that the new fixtures or jigs I make are always more accurate and universal than their predecessors. Once I reevaluated the order in which I rough trim and final trim keytop material, and simply rearranging the order of operations shaved some time off of the job and improved the quality. I have a father-in-law that is a machinist and a good friend that is a machinist and welder, I bounce ideas off of them once in a while with good results before the beer fridge opens up. Won't make it to the SERC but would like to considering that it is snowing here. 

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[Michael] [Morvan]
[Blackstone Valley Piano and Organ]
michaelmorvan9@gmail.com

[Uxbridge] [MA] 01569
[508-340-6443]

Original Message:
Sent: 01-28-2024 22:48
From: Wim Blees
Subject: Getting back to basics

Getting Back to the Basics

About 20 years ago there was an ad on TV for an airline company. The topic of the ad was a company president sending out his sales force to visit with all of the customers, face to face. Apparently, according to the ad, his sales force had gotten into the habit of having customers order products over the phone, confirming the order with a fax, and sending an e-mail to thank the customer. What the president wanted, was to have his sales force meet the customers, and thank them with a handshake. The president wanted his sales force to go back to the basics of customer relations. 

In sports, a coach will explain the success of his team by extolling the importance of knowing the basics. In basketball, players will spend a lot of time on free throws. In baseball, fielders are reminded of the importance of keeping their butt down fielding grounders. And in football, linemen are drilled on the fundamentals of blocking and tackling.

When I was working at a university about 20 years ago, the piano faculty at the university were concerned about my tuning. They asked if my hearing was still OK, because they thought my tunings were not as good as they once were. I couldn't understand where they were coming from. I was tuning pianos day in and day out and I thought I was doing fine. After all, I reasoned, I had been doing this for over 30 years, I'm a respected member of my profession, a CTE, etc. etc. So why should I have to worry about my tunings?

It was a wakeup call for me. Although I use an ETD, what I had not been doing was really listening to my tunings. I was watching the spinning lights too much, and not paying attention to how the piano sounded. I had become complacent in my work. 

So I decided to go back to the basics and give myself a lesson in tuning. I used my trusted little box to tune the piano, but when I got done, I turned it off, and re-tuned the whole piano, by ear. 

What a difference. I used all the tricks I had learned over the years, some of which I had not used for a long time. But the main thing was, I started listening again. 

That's what all of us should do once in a while, especially if you're an ETD tuner. If you don't work for an institution, the next time you are scheduled to tune a good quality piano, allow yourself an extra hour or two, and give yourself a lesson. Go back to the basics.

If you've never learned the basics, it's never too late to learn. Ask one of the members of your chapter who tunes by ear to spend some time with you. 

Listening is one of the most important aspects of our profession. An ETD is a great tool, and I am not advocating you get rid of it. But don't allow it to do your tunings for you. Once a year, turn off the little box, and get back to the basics. 

We need to do the same thing in our business and other parts of your life. Maybe review your advertising policy, you bookkeeping, your computer skills, and most important, your life. When is the last time you took your spouse out for a nice dinner, and treated her/him as if it was your first date? 

No matter how good you've gotten, or how long you've been at it, once in a while it's important to get back to the basics. A good place to do that is at the Southeast Regional Conference, Feb. 22 – 24. Please go to SERCPTG.ORG to register. The early bird deadline and hotel registration have been extended to Feb. 2. 

Wim Blees RPT

904-615-7816

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Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
St. Augustine, FL 32095
Tnrwim@aol.com
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