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All recordings are dubious. Did you have any specific objection to the one that I did post? I do not have the equipment to make recordings other than with my laptop. There are other recordings, but I do not have the rights to them. I could have a recording made at one of the schools I tune at, but that is difficult to arrange. However, the guy who played the Chromatic Fugue may make some recordings there sometime. It is the same piano, and I still tune it.

You can always buy a ticket to a show I tune for. There is a good one tonight, in an acoustic situation which makes for difficult tuning. It is not a job for hacks or amateurs. There may be tickets left, but it was a sellout last time.

Jeff, I just think it's a very comforting thought that something not perfectly flawless might be beautiful - and even more so than the ideal, so to speak. And I like both Cohen and Browning

BDB: I'm sorry, I seem to have missed your postings, I will look for them! Now (touching the anonymity vs full disclosure thread) how on earth would I know where to by a flight ticket, if I get into BDB/ET-checking mode?

As far as sellouts go, in my experience they are no meter for the quality of tunings - I've played excellent tunings for empty rows and crappy tunings for full houses. And, God knows, everything in between...

A little Gershwin.....please forgive my 'hackneyed' tuning and lousy 'out-of-tune' sounding piano.

Played on the LX playback system, in EBVT III

http://www.box.net/shared/avzhe6juyn

For those interested in how I recorded this..Korg MR-1000, using 2 Avenson STO-2 mics under the lid, one in the bass, the other in the treble, facing directly down, about 2-3 feet above the strings. No processing, reverb, or any sonic enhancements were used, only volume equalization. What you are hearing is the resonance of the piano, helped by the EBVT III tuning, hammers, bass strings, and Wapin, and of course, the excellent Mason & Hamlin piano itself.

(In listening to this and any of the recordings I have put on box.net, it's much better if you download the file, then play it, rather than listening to it played directly from the website. For some reason, there is some type of distorion, albeit slight, that creeps into the recording. Earphones are a big plus!)

Nice choice, GP!!!

The EBVT III supercharges this one!

Thanks Cinnamonbear!

The harmonies and the complexity of the music really stand out with this piece, especially tuned in EBVT III.

I forgot to put in the title of the Gershwin piece...it's the 3rd movement of his Concerto in F.

Thanks for posting this, GP! The Gershwin Concerto in F is one of my favorite pieces! It really sounds great on your piano!

I would like to state that the above post is the exact opposite to what I have experienced.

I found that once I received insructions on setting the EBVT III temperament that I as an aural tuner could understand, it was easy. The first time I tried it I thought the results were spectacular! The deviations from ET are nothing radical, and produce a very sweet sound. I have tuned it for customers who liked it very much as well.

I say, don't knock it until you try it. Listening to samples was not going to do it for me. I tried it for myself.

So, when the previous post asked the question "How many concert-level tuners have been covinced to use this temperament?", I raised my hand! And I have tuned ET aurally for over 25 years.

I appreciate all that Bill has done in helping others to learn that there is something else out there that can really be enjoyed, even savored - especially by the pianists themselves. Since most technicians are not accomplished pianists, perhaps they cannot have the same appreciation for how the piano sounds musically.

I have not knocked anything other than what I have actually listened to that sounded bad to me.

Have any of you gone through the effort of trying to learn to tune the way I tune? It seems not, if you do not even understand what I would have to go through to learn what you seem to think is so simple.

BDB, it might actually do some good if you took the time to lay it out. If you already have, find that post and repost it here.

In re-listening to my recording of the 1st and 2nd movements of Gershwin's Concerto in F, there are enough beautiful sounds coming through to warrant presenting them here, along with the 3rd movement, which I had already posted above, but also include here as well.

The caveat here is that I was not able to produce a "broadcast" quality tuning, where every unison is perfect, and where my trouble area, the 5th and 6th octaves are not spot on.

Nerve the less, keeping those points in mind, there are some wonderful and incredible sounds coming from the piano. EBVT III seems to bring a richness to the harmonies and themes. Best to download and listen with your favorite headphones.

During the summer when I have some free time, Bill is going to work with me to improve my hammer technique. We will also be making some recordings with Bill tuning my piano in EBVT III.

Enjoy!


Gershiwn's Concerto in F played on the LX system, in EBVT III

Gershwin-Concerto in F 1st mov, played on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/dpgxgm42sb

Gershwin-Concerto in F 2nd mov, played on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/4573rycabj

Gershwin-Concerto in F 3rd mov, played on the LX http://www.box.net/shared/avzhe6juyn

Hammer technique will only improve once you can get into a position where you are tuning several different pianos a day, five days a week or so. After about a thousand you'll have it down. It's been said hundreds of times, tuning the same piano over and over again won't do it.

Byron, I respectfully disagree in this instance. GP is really only interested in keeping his own piano in tune although I believe he has mentioned he has done a few tunings for a few friends. Having the privilege of knowing who he really is, a truly great musician and artist that would humble us all, he neither has the need nor the interest in becoming a piano technician.

What he does want to do is learn to maintain his instrument the best he can. This would have been and is discouraged in most cases. There are, however exceptions to every rule. GP proved his capability to me with his first examples. I was honored that he even wanted to try a method of tuning that so many had literally stomped upon, dismissed, ridiculed and mocked (and they're still doing it). He has been delighted with the results and considering his stature as a professional musician and performing artist of the very highest caliber (if all of you only knew where he is now and what he is doing, you would step back and bow in humility), I consider it to be the confirmation that I need to continue. (GP is not the only artist by far who has confirmed this to me. So many high caliber musicians have on a regular basis and NONE of them have EVER said anything remotely close to what some technicians here have said. Is it any wonder why I would dismiss those opinions as disingenuous and not worth consideration?)

While I haven't yet worked with GP and observed his hammer technique, I actually don't believe the hammer technique itself is really the problem. There have been a number of possibilities suggested as to why the 5th and 6th octaves seem to want to go flat. They are all plausible. One that hasn't yet been suggested is that the fitting of the pinblock to the plate flange may have some gaps in it. I have not questioned the rebuilder about that nor do I intend to. If that is indeed the problem, it can and will eventually resolve itself.

What I do think may be the problem is in the hesitance to perform a pitch correction first before a fine tuning is attempted. This is fairly common among tuning novices. If what is happening is what I think is happening, it is no surprise to me that the piano goes flat and out of tune quickly. It is, in fact, what I would expect to happen.

After the PTG convention, I will visit GP again, work with him as an experienced tuning tutor and attempt to solve the problem. I will spend some time there and we will make a fresh batch of recordings with the piano exactly as I intend it to be. I have every confidence that GP will be able to learn to tune the piano and keep it in tune within reason.

Everyone must remember that if one expects to hear a broadcast quality sound, no piano on earth can maintain that beyond a brief period. For any commercially released recording you have heard, the piano was tuned immediately before that recording. If a recording session is to take hours on end or days to complete, a piano technician has to be on standby to correct any deterioration that develops.

I believe that with a consistently applied technique and a tuning program to which the piano is always returned each and every time, GP's piano can eventually develop some remarkable stability. Some of the remarks that have been made here have been shameful in themselves when it considered how freely GP has wanted to share his experience with all of us. Look forward to more offerings by GP and expect a richness in tone and a delightful experience in key color as GP's technique develops and he acquires new musical offerings.

I'll be putting them on my website. I will want performing artists to hear what they could be experiencing. I will be expecting that as performing artists become aware of the enhanced sound that they could be getting, they will ask for it. Such changes in artist expectations happen very slowly, particularly because so few technicians can or will provide them. When the artists become aware that they have choices and do not have to accept only one tuning style, they are sure to require what they want and they will find the technician who can provide it.

Bill, thanks for your post, appreciate it very much.

Thank you ppat, Nick, Cinnamonbear, for pointing out that there is more than one way to go about tuning a piano to sound beautiful, and that ET is not the ONLY pathway. You all hear it as I do, as a different approach that brings out qualities to the music that ET seems to lack.

Having lived with EBVT III for several months now, when I hear other pianos, I miss the color changes and the effect EBVT III has on the music overall...in ET, they sound 'nice' but they are missing that extra depth and complexity to the music. If I had not heard your EBVT III, I would have never known what I was missing.

I checked with the re-builder in regards to the pinblock and how it was installed. It definitely does not have any gaps in there, so we can rule that out. It's a "Falconwood" pinblock btw.

I look forward to working again with you, and this time, NO piano party, or perhaps AFTER all the recording is done, we can have one!

I don't think I posted this one before, beautiful sounds in EBVT III....Roger Williams playing "September Song".....lot's of runs etc. Amazingly enough, Roger Williams recorded this in the late 1970's early 80's for the Pianocorder Playback system, which worked off of cassette tapes! We now can take those recordings, re-encode them with software, (Mid2Piano CD) to the LX language and play them through the LX. It's a great way to save these recordings for posterity, and enjoy them as if he recorded them yesterday!

Thanks again for your post Bill. GP

Roger Williams on the LX playing "September Song" http://www.box.net/shared/iqbytlal5g

Thanks, GP, I am pleased to know that the rebuilder is confident that there would be no gaps between the pinblock and the plate flange. Many rebuilders fit the pinblock the best they can but as an added measure, install it with epoxy between the pinblock and the plate flange for a rock solid fit. From the answer that there "definitely" are no gaps, I imagine that must have been done.

Falconwood is the very toughest pinblock material on the market. Some technicians joke about it, calling it "F***in' wood". The laminates are so highly compressed that the wood takes on a different character, like coal to a diamond. This is what gives the tuning pins that extreme amount of resistance. It makes tuning difficult now but it also assures that the piano will never develop loose tuning pins in your lifetime.

I've written quite a lot about how the hammer technique I use largely avoids twisting of the tuning pin but when there is as much resistance as your piano's pinblock offers, it cannot be avoided. You simply need to learn how to win the "tug of war" with your piano and you will be able to enjoy tunings that last longer.

I very much enjoy any selections by Roger Williams. The texture provided by the EBVT III enhances the modulations, providing the appropriate tension and release that is written in the music.

When you get home, I wonder if you can find in the LX catalog any recordings done by that Boogie Woogie artist I recently worked for, Michael Kaeshammer? His technique is so phenomenal, you would hardly believe human hands could do what he does.

We have already enjoyed "Flight of the Bumble Bee", I wonder if you can find any recording of "Bumble Bee Boogie"? It is very entertaining! As it does for all music, the EBVT III enhances Boogie Woogie with tension and release. The small minor thirds create the "blue note" effect that we hear in most of the Gershwin and any Blues type music. Boogie Woogie evolved out of Blues, so the blue notes fit right in where they belong. I hear them in the September Song melody too.

I have a hunch that GP is Neil Diamond. Am I right am I right??

No, and I am not supposed to tell anyone, BUT (it's Elvis!)

SHHHH......neither......I wish! LOL

That makes sense Bill...before we pounded the pins down in that upper treble section, the pins were not that difficult to work, now they are definitely tighter than the rest of the piano, but still are giving me grief. I am sure we can figure it out, and is most likely, as you say, due to the way I tune with the ETD.

I will check what I have, but as I recall, I don't have the "Bumble Bee Boogie". I am sure I can find something similar in my Ampico and LX collection. Another possibility are the musical libraries of other companies.

As I recall, Bill uses a extended tip for grands - to be consistent with lever technique across the piano? Are you changing anything (hand/body/lever position) in the problem area that might be causing instability?

Ron Koval
chicagoland

Hi Ron,

I don't think I am....I usually drop the pitch slightly before pulling it slightly sharp, then I bang on the note while nudging the pitch down to stop the ETD. A lot of the notes in that 5th-6th octave, after I have pounded the note to be correct, if I keep pounding, the note continues to go flat. I am sure it's the way I do it that's at fault. The rest of the piano does not go flat near as fast, and the unisons are much better as well.

I like to pull up to the pitch the a short snap with the wrist. I don't like to nudge down to the pitch as my last adjustment. I find the piano goes flat quickly with that type of move.


Elvis is dead isn't he?