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Yes +/- 0.2 cents.

Current electronic tuners make it possible, they have a resolution of 0.01 cents.

What limits me is not the instrument I use to set the pitch, but the instability of vibrations of the string.



That´s my goal, to tune A4 with such an accuraty that nobody can hear a difference with a 440 hz. reliable source.


BTW, 440.5 vs 440 hz is a very noticeable 1/2 bps! (almost 2 cents). If you tune directly A4 to a 440 hz source you can by all means do a better job! Even without any further testings (F2 or B1)!

Gadzar:

Exact pitch is not important, properly tempered intervals are.

But shouldn’t the temperament be tuned to the note that all written music is referenced to, rather than some arbitrary international convention that is generally ignored? You know what note that is: C4, good ol’ middle C!

1/2 beat per second is not very noticeable. Even if it were, it depends on the context. There are very few people who could hear the difference between 440 and 440.5 if one were played, and then the other was played a few seconds afterwards. Some time ago a website was linked to on which it tested one's ability to distinguish that sort of difference, and they confirmed that few people can do it, and they were only testing whether one could hear whether one was higher or lower.

The standard is what it is as long as it will be. When it changes then I will change my procedure.

When we talk piano tuning, ACCURATY is a keyword. There are no permissions to be inaccurate on whatever you like!

I don't ignore the standard.

Why am I supposed to ignore it?
Only because you do?
Only because you say that it is generally ignored?
Only because you have the false perception that tuning from C will give a different tuning than tuning from A, even if what you claim to tune is "an exacting ET"?

C4?
Are you sure C4 is used?
In an orchestra, are instruments ever tuned to C4?

You are arguing just for the pleasure of arguing.

And as always, you have the feeling that rules were invented to have the others following them, not for you, you feel you are beyond rules, standards, etc. You can do what you want only because you want.

For me it is different. I earn my life tuning pianos. I get paid to do a job. And I do it. I put the pianos at A 440, I don't argue with my clients if C is a better note than A to set the pitch. I respect the standard.

Standards are always arbitrary, at least for some people. Their function is precisely to make different people (each one with its own unique and different idiosyncrasy) agree with each other.

When you take a measure of whatever dimension, you are forced to use standard units, otherwise you measurings are useless. The standard units are what they are, and you have to use as they were defined, like it or not.

BDB,

1/2 bps is indeed very, very noticeable. When you set the pitch of a piano, you never hear first at the fork and then to the note.

You hear both at the same time otherwise there is no beating. 1/2 bps is a beat rate, and to hear a beat there must be two frequences sounding at the same time.

We tuners, tune always hearing two (at least) notes at once, when setting pitch, when tuning unisons, when tuning octaves, when tuning fifths and all other intervals. We never tune hearing at only one single string. Why? Because we tune hearing beat rates not frequences. With only one exception: ETD tuning, where we don´t hear nothing at all, we just see.

Okay, if you think it is noticeable, that is fine.

For WMIII you may reconsider having A=440. All notes will then be sharper than in ET and C and F will then end up about 10 cents sharp wrt ET. That's why ETD's have an option to tune the unequal temperaments at an A440 such that the average pitch remains the same.

Kees

For the Piano Technician Tuning exam the pitch is scored as follows: You get 1 cent for free. This means if your A is 1 cent sharp or flat (as measured by a calibrated ETD) you get 100% score.

After that each your difference of cents is multiplied times 10. For example if your A is 2.6 cents sharp, we subtract 1 to get 1.6 then multiply times 10 to get 16. 16 from 100 is 84, and that would be your score. If you are 3.9 cents off, you subtract a cent to get 2.9 and then multiply by 10 to get 29 which would give you a score of 71 which is a fail. You must score 80% or higher to pass the pitch section.

The A I tuned using C as a reference was 2.4 cents sharp. If it were an exam I'd get 1 cent for free giving me 1.4. Multiplied by 10 and subtracted from 100 would give me a score of 86. So my A would pass the pitch section.

For a piano to be "in tune" according to my way of thinking it has to meet the following criteria. They are also listed by priority. Notice stability and unisons are at the top of the list, exact pitch is at the bottom. If you can meet all this criteria you will have many happy tuning clients happy to pay good money for your services.

1. The unisons must be clean and solid under fff blows to the key.

2. The tuning pins are not left in a twisted or flexed position, and there should not be an excess or lack of tension in the strings between the capo/agraff and the tuning pin.

3. The octaves must be in tune and have at least some amount of stretch in the bass and treble. There is a range of acceptability based on the tastes of the tuner. At least 6:3 octaves in the bass, and 4:1 double octaves in the treble. (personally I go for fairly wide 6:3 in the low bass and a compromise between double and triple octave in the high treble).

4. All the intervals in the temperament should be musically pleasing: no harsh thirds or sixths, or fifths that are too narrow. ET fits this definition, but so do mild well temperaments such as EBVT3.

5. The pitch of the piano should be between A439.5 and A442. This is the range I feel comfortable with. Especially if the A439.5 is during the winter, and the 442 is during the summer or fall.

Jeff, sorry, but you've totally lost me now. Pitch doesn't matter on a piano? Oh yes it does.

I just find it peculiar that you, by your own admission, are incredibly picky about your temperament (you described it as "probably to a fault" when we were talking about impact hammers). Why? If pitch doesn't matter because no note is going to stay where you put it, then why get so particular about temperament, RBI's, SBI's, et al?

For that matter, why try being accurate at all?

I tune to 440. When I'm done, I usually have A4 at 440 within 1 cent. Maybe I'm just so used to doing college work. They're super picky about stuff like that.

As Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said, "The standard is the standard!"



I agree. Piano owners pay me to tune their piano, not get philosophical.

Loren,



I very much disagree with this philosophy that you are promoting.

Clients SAY they want a piano tuning, but I translate that to mean "I want my piano to be more fun to play". The vast majority of clients don't care about pitch being within 2 or 3 cents of A440. In fact no other instrument can maintain pitch at that level of accuracy: Violin players can't, horn players can't, woodwinds can't etc. It's not about "absolute pitch" it's always about THE MUSIC.

If I come to a piano that is in fairly good tune with itself but at 441.3, I may be able to touch it up in 20-30 minutes. Then I have all that time left over to work on voicing and other matters.

I talked with a prominent piano teacher recently about this. I asked her "would you prefer a perfectly tuned piano with somewhat uneven touch and voicing, or a beautifully regulated and voiced piano that's a little out of tune?" I'm sure you can guess the answer.

My last appointment this afternoon, I spent an hour pitch raising and tuning the piano, 10 minutes adjusting lost motion on keys, 30 minutes shaping hammers, and another 15 minutes adjusting the pedals and vacuuming the interior.

Then I played the piano a little for the owners. They were so pleased. Much more pleased than if I had given them a perfect tuning but had not done the other adjustments.

Being at a different pitch is not the same as being out of tune. That said, there comes a point where the piano needs to be pretty close to some standard, or else it will get worse and worse.

I was going to put this on "What did you do today?" but since the discussion here has drifted to how important pitch is, I think it is more appropriate here. Out of the usual four pianos, I tuned two today at two different schools, one exclusive private school, the other a public.

The private school had a nice, Kawai RX-1 grand. It was last tuned in August and at that time, I wrote about it being 30 something cents sharp. I did my usual two step process, a pitch correction, then fine tuning. Really, any piano that far off and any piano not anywhere near that far off could use at least three passes which indeed, may have actually made it easier.

The first pitch lowering pass in August was done at standard pitch but the piano rose back to +6 cents at which it was tuned. Today, the same piano measured -32.4 cents!!! I did the very same; first pass at standard pitch which sunk to -6 cents and it was fine tuned there. I also had to ease several sticking keys and decided to "wet lube" the key pins and the damper wires which were "howling" when the damper pedal was depressed.

Apparently, the humid season left these metal surfaces rough. In the dry season, they were abrasive. The treble end of the keybed also knocked, so I had to adjust the studs. The damper pedal also had too much lost motion in it, so I had to adjust it. As usual, dust and debris had collected in only six months, so did pencils and pens in the action cavity. All were cleaned, as usual. I have been taking care of this piano for a few years now. If I had never cleaned it, it would be a frightful mess by now!

The piano teacher saw me as I arrived and said that they had requested funds for a humidity control system but had yet to receive them. I cannot imagine how anyone could have been using this piano for lessons on a daily basis! Whatever I did six months ago could not have lasted more than a month and got worse with each month thereafter. The pitch went from +6 to standard and on down to below -30 cents. The A2-A3 octave had to be heard to be imagined! It was the very same, only oppositely wide then as it was narrow today.

If, in August, I had insisted upon tuning the piano to standard pitch, it would have been yet another 6 cents lower today and the point at which it had reached standard would have only come earlier. The range of pitch, as it is, has been more than 60 cents from sharp to flat. If I had insisted upon tuning the piano today at A-440, by May, it would be well above that. If I had tuned it, as some Europeans seem to prefer to 442 or 443, by next August, it would be around 50 cents sharp! Imagine the stress on the soundboard and bridges!

The Yamaha P-22 (studio vertical) at the public school, on the other hand, had humidity control and had not been tuned in two years. Its wicks surely needed changing but the pitch was only 2 cents flat and was raised to standard. All of the capstans needed adjustment and got it. The Yamaha P-22, not having been tuned in 2 years but with humidity control, took only an hour, including capstan adjustment. The Kawai grand, with no humidity control tuned only six months ago, took more than 90 minutes.

This morning, the 7 AM temperature outside was -8º F. (-22.2º C.). Tomorrow, the predicted 7 o'clock commute time temperature will be -13º F. (-25º C.). Indoor humidity would be 15-20% at best. Whole house or building humidification systems, if they are present at all, back off for these low temperatures. Piano soundboard cracks open widely in response. Pitch plummets.

I often find that people who have the fabulous "April Air" system have set it to 20 or 25% when they saw their windows fogging up during extremely low temperatures but forgot to raise it back after that when the weather moderated. Of course, when their piano goes drastically out of tune, the first thing they say is, "But we have April Air!"

The only implication, of course is that YOUR tuning SLIPPED! They will gladly stand by with their hands on their hips as you re-set each of the tuning pins that you did not tune (in their estimation) carefully enough last time, for free, of course, since they PAID to have the piano tuned only two months ago. They have April Air! They would not need that "water thing" in the piano! Besides, they had heard from the local dealer (who is now out of business) that the "water thing" would void the piano's warranty!

Yet, by the week end, a thaw is predicted here. The "Ground Hog Day" forecast was for an early Spring. We can easily have warm temperatures soon that will cause flooding from melting snows of which huge mounds lie about everywhere at this time.

By May, all of this cold and dry weather will have been forgotten and everyone will be in shorts and sandals with doors and windows wide open. Thunderstorms and high humidity will prevail. That will continue through and into October. Then, the whole process begins over again. Customers will again complain about a piano going markedly out of tune in a short period of time.

Oh, so many times, I have heard the question, "How could a piano go sharp?! I always thought they went flat when they went out of tune!" "Humidity? What does humidity have to do with it? By looking at the piano, it seems that most of it is made of metal. How would humidity have any effect on that?"

What would YOU do under such circumstances? Would you beat your brains out over every last tenth of a cent of pitch when you know that in a week's time, whatever you had beaten your brains out over would surely have been destroyed by then? If not in a week, then how about a month, two, three, or six months? What would you do today if you knew for certain that whatever pitch you tuned the piano to, it would be 30 or more cents sharper or flatter in only a few short months? 30 cents! Not 3 cents, not 0.3 cents, 30 cents! (Or more!)

If you beat your brains out to tune a piano in a concert hall to exactly standard pitch, only to have the house personnel fling open the overhead door for a large shipment in zero degree weather, (Fahrenheit or Celsius, it hardly matters any more), then turn hot stage lights upon the piano which you have so carefully tuned, would that very last tenth of a cent ever really mattered at all? Would 2 cents matter? Would 4 cents matter? Wouldn't all you can do when you can do it really be the answer? Followed by, "See you soon"?

I only speak from many years of experience in this.

Maybe my english is not good enough to exactly express my ideas, or maybe there are other bizarre things cashed behind the words posted by some guys here, but almost all the people posting here are piano technicians and know well what I am talking about.

All of us, including BDB, know how to set the pitch of a piano, and in spite of what he said:



all of us, I insist: including BDB, are able to set the pitch with a better accuraty than 1/2 bps, and if anyone is not able to do so, then, in my opinion, he/she shouldn't be tuning pianos.

The point I am questioning here is the validity of a procedure which uses a C to set the pitch instead of an A which is the standard. That´s all. It is that simple.

Gadzar,

Your English is fine. We get the message: you believe every piano should be tuned to between 440hz plus or minus .2 cents. That's the great thing about working for ourselves. We get to make decisions about how we want to run our businesses.



I'm sure many of us CAN set A to 440hz and get it to within half a bps. Sometimes we choose to, and other times we choose not to. Its a judgement call, and as piano technicians we have to make these kind of decisions on every piano we service.

Why are you so hung up on this idea of a standard? There is no 11th commandment that says "Thou shalt always tune to A440 within .2 cents!" The Piano Technicians Guild is the only organization in North America that has a published standard for piano tuning, and the standard is A440 plus or minus 3 cents.

Your position reinforces a theory that I have had that ETD users focus too much on pitch. High quality aural tuners are more interested in intonation and voicing. Why? Because that's where the $$ and respect is my friend. Touch and tone are what the client is interested in. So... when I come to a 15 year-old Samick that is at 442 but reasonably in well tune with itself, I think "this is my chance to really wow the customer". While you're still turning pins, I'm reducing string cuts, needling shoulders, and fitting hammers to strings.

I've become addicted to the phrases: "My piano's never sounded so good!" and "My last tuner never did what you're doing". They are music to my ears! So go ahead and proclaim from your high horse that you are a superior piano tuner because your A4s are dead on 440 plus or minus .2 cents. As for me, I'm not willing to sacrifice my customers money to such a false god.

Let’s keep what I say in the context it was written:



Of course pitch matters, but the exact pitch does not. If the exact pitch mattered there would be a lot more Damppchasers installed, or pianists would sit down at their piano and say “Oh my, I cannot play today. My piano is not at exact pitch!” Or worse yet, acoustical pianos would never have been popular because exact pitch and a harmonious sound are incompatible with inharmonicity.

Ryan, I understand what you are saying. Where I take issue is with the statement that the starting pitch just doesn't matter. It does!

Gadzar:

No one is telling you what to do or even criticising what you do. However, you certainly are doing this to others.

And yes, I do toss out some odd points to ponder. The technique is called "reductio ad absurdum."

If I took my tuning fork out and used it right away after being in the car all night in what is even colder than it was predicted, -15º F. (-26.11º C.), it would be closer to 441 than 440.