Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Beatrate jumps across a break

The 3:2 fifth will always beat the same as the 2:1 eighth when the 3:1 twelfth is pure.

For my ear, there is a large fuzzy area that an good sounding octave can sit in. Unless there is an obnoxiously wild partial, I do not tune octave directly very much. I get much better results by creating an octave by tuning a fifth from a previous fourth. I may be in a very small minority on this one. I don't think I can help you.

Oh, yeah! I understand - just was presenting another view. I too notice that the interval of the octave often has some wiggle room. (except on some really nasty little pianos!) In fact, all of the slower beating intervals give a little wiggle room, that's what I'm trying to use by combining them to find the best spot for all.

I tend to live in the unison and slower beating intervals... almost like wine tasting, where tasting the reds spoils the tongue for the delicate whites, listening to RBIs spoils my ear to do the delicate work on the SBIs... (could be just me!) I'm happy to set a really good temperament up a little higher than normal to take advantage of consistent inharmonicity and then let the scale designer influence the temperament of the 3rds through the break as those notes match what is tuned higher up.

Since the Verituner's spinner is driven by multiple partials, based on the volume heard, I've even tried locking the machine on the lower note and playing different combination of notes above. The machine then displays how all of the mish-mash above (depending on the notes played) read compared to the tuning calculation for that lower note. Since the needle display will point to a certain cents sharp or flat, then I can set that lower note to match.

Kindof a direct comparison approach using new technology...

Since so much of aural tuning depends on what fits under the hands, I've been trying to expand the comparisons without using the sostenuto pedal or props to play expanded intervals. Make any sense?

Ron Koval

Only to a point. Pianists do play with their hands a distance from each other on occasions and also play large arpeggios. But smaller intervals can be tuned and then larger intervals checked. Or a third note can be added to achieve a desired blend. I really like my 12ths spanner.

I would not call this a crazy idea. As a reviewer of the OnlyPure tuning software and participant in discussions about the aural OnlyPure method on the pianotech list you are probably aware that this technique is a basic part of the protocols of the aural OnlyPure method. As you mentioned correctly, even no RBI (rapid beating intervals) touch is required, as i have succesfully demonstrated recently at the 2011 KC convention.

That wonderful tool you continuously ignore to give credit for:
http://www.piano-stopper.de/html/stopper-stimmung.html

Mr. Stopper:

No offense meant. I have given you credit in the past. It seems unecessary to do so every time I talk about using the tool. People do not give credit to Cristofori everytime they mention a piano. Besides, the tool itself is one thing, how it is used is another.

No. You have not given credit in the past, unless i was asking you to do so.
You were even using a ridiculous name for it later to mock about the trademark name i am using for my temperament and the duodecime spanner. If i remember correctly, it was something like "my schwarzen..(someothernonsense)..tuning-tool"

True. It just did not occur to me that failing to do so without being asked would cause offense. I really do not understand people very well.

And I wish you had said something about the fanciful name at the time.

Folks:

Mr. Stopper inspired me to make a tool that spans a twelfth. Unwittingly I have offended him by not giving him credit for the idea and also having them available to the consumer. I meant no offense and publically apologize. I think it best if I just do not mention this tool when discussing tuning.

It is just a question of being polite to give acknowledge to someone for something useful that has been provided and your last sentence indicates that you want to proceed just with this behaviour. What offends me is that you make things about the duodecime temperament going into discussions, that they appear as your own ideas. For example the beat masking effect in three note combinations of octaves fourths and fifths, that you threw into the discusssions, as if they were your own findings. Don´t believe that his appeared to be so? Maybe you remember how Bill Bremmer was giving credit to you for the finding of beat masking in ocatve-fourth-fifth combinations about a year ago, just because you were not giving credit to the correct source. Even after he gave credit to you for this, you did nothing to correct him. That is what offends me, nothing else.

I made one from a clothhanger. I would really like to have something you can turn so you can use it for double octaves also.

Kees

Mr. Stopper:

I am not Brenke, and will not respond any further.

A couple of thoughts/questions I have about the interval test rule, might be wrong.

If you tune any type octave and make the intervals progressive in the octave, wouldn't they stay progressive when tuning outside the temperament octave no matter the octave type as long as you are using the same type octave, assuming the IH changes smoothly?

If you would temper the P12ths, would you make them wide or narrow? How do you use the P5-P8 test? Do you use it to check if the P12ths are pure?

If the iH changes smoothly enough, yes, all intervals will remain progressive. But that is not what happens with a scaling break.

I would prefer slightly narrow twelfths to wide twelfths, but that is just a preference.

The better test for twelfths is the M6-M17 test. the P5-P8 test is just as valid, but the beats are very slow and there are other audible partial matches for the P5 and P8 that can confuse things. The important part (for me) is that when pure twelfths are tuned across the break the P5 and the P8 should be at thier smoothest.

Mr. Stopper, you are very welcome to add your thoughts on this.

Thanks for the invitation, but as Patrick Wingren mentioned wise, we old guys better stay off the internet..

Bernhard:

Since you inserted your off-topic comments in this thread, in my opinion you owe us your views on how well OnlyPure (whatever that is precisely; as it is not a published method I do not know) fares in the presence of jumps in scaling on poorly scaled pianos.

Kees

Bob,

Because your web site is down, all the PMs being sent to you are bouncing and ending up coming to me.
Please either change your email to something that works, or temporarily stop accepting PMs.

I do not think Mr. Stopper owes us anything. And I say all this without any animosity. As I understand it, the OnlyPure aural method does not lend itself to analysis, it has to be learned. I assume that it is in some way similar to how I hear the tempering of fifths directly, without counting beats. And it is a subject, as you know, I do not see much value in discussing.

However, the OnlyPure electronic method has been documented. A while ago Mr. Swafford posted some audio of electronic tuning on a concert grand and also, I think, a spinet.

This can drive us nuts if we let it. Every piano has these jumps in beat rates due to scaling and enharmonicity. And, we all know that anything from the quality of the strings used to the person cutting the bridge can affect the evenness of the beat rates. Manufacturer drift is what I think this is called. I find the most stable and musical tunings are develop from a system of checks that references to the middle of the piano. i.e.: the M3rd F4-A4. Check the F3,F2, and F1 to the quality of the M3rd F4-A4. Inversely, into the treble Check the A5,A6,A7 to the quality of the same M3rd F4-A4. This type of checking can be done using as many intervals as time will allow. Ultimately the low bass octaves will play in tune and in rhythm with the high treble octaves.

Hey Ron,
One of the problems with using a number of different partials over the break area, is deciding which intervals, and where, smoothly progressing intervals will be found.

If checking for 3rds, and they are uneven, it's OK because the 4ths are good here. And if the 4th are smooth, but the 3rds are uneven, again, it's OK, because the 4ths are good there. The best that can be hoped for would be equally uneven intervals. Which of course, isn't all bad!

To stick with the 'eggs and baskets' description, jumping around using different partials in this A2/A4 area produces smaller and more numerous 'baskets' of different sizes and colors for the eggs.

Determining the width of the temperament double and single octaves(s) (in my case, A2/A4, A3/A4, and A2/A3) and then 'filling in the blanks' using a single interval priority will at least result in a smooth progression of at least 1 interval over a 2 octave temperament range. But the double and single octaves have to be right!

As long as the overall octave's widths are wide enough for the 5ths, and narrow enough for the 4ths, using a smooth set of numbers will at least result a smooth interval (for me, M3rds). And using the 4th partial (M3rds) will most often result in perfectly acceptable 4ths and 5ths.

On the smaller scales, most of the time A2 is below the 'break'. Having the 'break' contained within the A2/A4 temperament range provides an opportunity for the 'break' to be accounted for when establishing the widths of the A2/A4, A3/A4, A2/A3 double and single octaves, before 'filling in the blanks'.

A final note on adjusting the width of the A2/A3/A4 single and double octaves. . . . The slower beating intervals are really difficult to hear precisely.

[This shows up on the AccuTuner's light rotation too, since the speed of the rotation represents a beat (lights all on, on one diagonal to lights all on, on the next diagonal = 1 beat). So using this light rotation speed to 'describe' the speed of the beating, is very handy when visually 'hearing' the speed of the beat.]

For example, adjusting the width of the A3/A4 2:1 octave by .2 c. or .3 c. is really hard to hear in the 3rd/17th check. Al Sanderson has said the width of a M3rd must be changed by .3 c. before we can hear the difference. And for many .4 or .5 is required to 'definitely' hear the beat rate change. And that is on a M3rd! Of course I use an AccuTuner for all this. Good luck doing this totally aurally.

Because the beat rates are so slow, the slow beating intervals (8vas, 5ths) are even harder to hear. Most of the time when we move them enough to easily 'hear' the beat change, we have moved them more than .3 c.. Hearing 1 beat in 5 seconds is tough. Is it really 1.1 beat in 5.5 seconds? .9 beat in 4.5 seconds? Is that close enough? What is hard to hear in a 5th or 8va, can be heard in a 3rd.

Keep in mind, moving A3 by .3 c. at the 2nd partial, moves the 4th partial of A3 (A5) by .6 cents. These small changes are very useful for getting the most out of the piano and are used to determine the width of the temperament double and single octaves, and are ultimately 'audible' in the tuning.

Bob Conrad, Tucson, AZ