Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum So in tune that it sounds terrible

Though I did introduce a question re UTs and sterile sound into this thread and , I probably should not have done so. I was simply curious as to others' experience in this matter. The thread really is wandering off topic.

Back to the topic...

I think it would not be the mass-produced spinet or console is not the problem.

This becomes an issue on first tier large grand pianos. The window of acceptable unison tuning is much larger than on a lesser instrument with a lot of false beats and other issues. When unison on a great piano begins to drift even slightly, there is a (comparitively) large window of acceptability before the unison starts to sound sour.

With budget pianos, the unison must be absolutely dead on. As soon as the unison drifts even slightly, the unison becomes intolerable. With the first-tier piano, the acceptable unison is a zone; with a budget piano, the acceptable unison is similar to a mathematical point.

I think there is some truth in the width of unison color that is or is not acceptable based on the quality of the instrument. In a different thread there was discussion on how false beating colors the unison, the immediate work-arounds as well as the more involved repair attempts. I think it goes without saying that a lower quality instrument will have more problems in that regard than others. An SKG 600 I deal with, I regularly brush up as the upper third of the piano becomes unbearable with the false beating added to minor out of tune unisons that would be much more tolerable on a well built and prepped instrument... One can only handle so many beats from a single note.

ET is the McDonalds of music.

Kees

While I refuse to eat at McDonalds, I am not sure if your statement is a positive or negative one. Could we not also say that Freedom is the McDonalds of Humanity?

Much, if not most tonal, and some not so tonal music, sounds better in just intonation. Since just intonation is not presently available on an acoustic piano ( it IS available on DPs if you have purchased the software), there has to be a compromise, so which is it going to be, such that the unisions will sound good when tuned cleanly?

(just one more O.T. moment...)

hahaha! Too funny!

You ought to copyright this and start selling bumper stickers. It would be a great conversation starter and you might even get some local media attention.

I have tuned for Peter Serkin. He played the Brahms B flat.

UT are (also) a mean to hide unison that do not sing, they exite the brain the same it is when unison are nicely done.

So also an habit that can stop the tuner in his learning curve toward stable and nicely sounding unisons, under some defavorable circumstances

Exactly! A wavering unison, a pedal squeak, a note or two that could stand some voicing, are the things that will get the attention of artists if they say anything at all.

The very idea that some people seemed to like a tuning in ET that had "ripened" better than a freshly tuned piano is what made me think that a piano perfectly tuned in ET was not the best sound. Believe me, it has happened. A lady complained that her tuning did not sound right on her Yamaha grand. When I went to check it, I could find no fault in the tuning, so I did nothing.

She called another local technician who has since become the most successful dealer in the area and hosts all of his salon concerts in non-equal temperaments and has done so for some 25 years. No artist ever asked him for ET.

When that technician checked my tuning, he said it was the most perfect ET he had ever heard and that the unisons were solid. So, he converted it to a Historical Temperament of some kind. The customer was delighted. When I saw her at one of those non-equal temperament events, she glared at me.

I suppose it depends on the area you are in but around here, UNLESS you can tune a piano in some cycle of 5ths based Well Temperament or Meantone, you are not the one they want. Time and again, people tell me that I have been retained as the technician because when I finish tuning the piano, it just sounds so much more harmonious and musical than when other people have done it and it seems to stay in tune so much longer too.

It seems to me that the ET only people are stuck with one dogmatic principle and are unwilling to learn anything else and therefore force the only way they know how to tune on each and every customer. The artists they serve don't ask for something specific because they have never been given the opportunity to experience anything but the one and only way the technicians who serve them know how to do.

Also, the track record of tunings which I encounter that have previously been tuned by ear is 9 out of 10 in Reverse Well rather than ET. Those Reverse Well tuning technicians all say the same thing as any of the ET only people do. They would swear on a stack of Bibles, a couple of Korans and a Torah to boot that what they do is ET but clearly, they don't even know what ET actually is. To them, ET is what THEY do.

It is no wonder to me why people don't like a piano tuned in Reverse Well very much until it ripens a bit.

Of course Bill it is obvious that you would have a bias for yourself, and take the opportunity to promote yourself, as per usual. All that you have just said is just that, your opinion and one sided story.

Yes, you may write well, yes you have something to offer but there is a limit that once crossed over results in rantings and ravings.

Interestingly, we never hear about tuners who do not execute a WT accurately. Do they not exist?

If ET is called reverse well when it is not accurately executed, and is "so detestable", then what is an UT called when not accurately executed and what is it's resultant sound and affect on the discerning ear?

What I find lacking in the UT's I hear, is the wonderful difference between major and minor. ET creates more tension by making the m3's a small as flat as possible and the M3's as sharp as possible. I don't think music such as Gershwin, Scriabin, MacDowel, Ravel, etc works as well without that effect.

It is well to remember that temperament is lowest on the priority list of pianist's regarding judgement of the state of a tuning.

I have heard unequal temperaments that sound dull, possibly because the major thirds are too flat for my ears. Other times, you get intervals which are so far off they make me cringe. I can never tell whether they are a characteristic of the temperament, or just bad tuning.

If I point these things out, the advocates of unequal temperaments claim that I have not given the temperament a fair chance. So I just tune the discussions of unequal temperaments out. MacDonald's is not my favorite eatery, but I would rather eat there than eat out of the dumpster of discarded temperaments.

Once I got used to the pure thirds and low sevenths, which for me, are the hallmarks of most interesting UTs, I have come to prefer UTs on organs, harpsichords and clavichords. To me, it makes the 'tierce de picardie' much more of a release of tension than in ET, and , when straying far from the original key, wanting to get back to the calmness. However, I have never, other than my own poor attempt at EBVT III on my BB, played a piano tuned in anything other than what the tuner thought was ET, so, given the iH issues on a piano, which, in my ignorance, I think is important to the overall temperament, I can't form an opinion one way or the other.

In almost 30 years of tuning I have only heard compliments on the clarity and ET in-tuneness of my tunings. I have never heard a complaint. The odd time I have to explain to people who neglect their pianos for years that the newfound quietness is a byproduct of a good tuning compared to the busy sound they have got used to in their out of tune piano.

As Ed mentioned, the original precision of a tuning is perishable with time and begins the moment we step out the door. Almost every time I buy fruit fully ripe, some of it ends up spoiling before its eaten. Tuning a really clean tuning gives the customer the best bang for their buck as far as how long the piano can be used before its decided it needs another one.

I find the analogy of ET to MacDonalds quite misleading. I've eaten at some "super fine" restaurants where the main course is 4 square inches of something appropriate for an split hooved ungulate and an artists rendition of drizzled sauce is sqiggled over the plate....only to leave with a half empty tummy and the desire to sink my teeth into a juicy burger or rack of ribs washed down with some micro brewed red lager. ET has been mentioned by numerous top tier tuners (who also tune UT's) as the most difficult temperament to tune to perfection. The handful of techs who tune UT's out of the tens of thousands of tuners worldwide who don't, need to stop pretending its an accomplishment on a higher level, and realize its a shortcut to a lower one.

Of piano temperaments old, strange and new.

In all of this discussion I try to remember that, "iron sharpeneth iron," but sometimes it can get maddening.

One of the most successful piano technicians - with a proven track record - used the most basic of temperaments. (Most today would define it as an amateur's method. See J Cree Fischer.) Armed with his simple temperament, for some 40 years he prepped performance pianos both hither and yon for scores of legendary concert pianists. The tech is long gone, as are most of the pianists he worked for. But his example isn't forgotten: Don't fix what isn't broken.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that times do change. If present-day professional pianists are asking us for something different, then by all means bring it to the table for discussion - e.g. how to either make it work or work better. Otherwise, some of what we do here is of such that made Mars Hill famous. And if that's what we want to do - well, it's a free country.

What of the amateurs - those who constitute the lion's share of our customer base? Instead of the tried and true, they may be asking for something different too. The decision as to whether or not to accommodate them is proprietary. Do we open our temperament book and ask: "Which one would you like this time, our #3 or #19?" We do so at our own peril. Best to have an exit strategy. If we do not, then I suppose we can talk about that too.

Bob the pre contrived exit strategy quite often can become the cause of a less than satisfying ET tuning. After all, if it doesn't measure up to the far stricter, quantative and refined checks and standards of ET, one can call it a UT, and still cash the cheque. That is, if one does not have a conscience.

I tune EBVT for only two customers who had enquired about it. I didn't really care about my own feelings towards it. I now carry 2 printed out sheets of the most complete aural tuning instructions and list of checks for both ET and for EBVT. One is a page and a half long, the other is 1/3 of a page; anyone care to guess which is which? LOL Show these to an enquiring customer and then tell them you have to charge the same for either tuning....people have enough sense to figure out where they get their moneys worth when its sitting right in front of them.

This thread certainly has moved far from the idea of DOA unisons being clinical or sterile.

OT, but can you tell me how long it takes for a piano to settle down once you have moved it from one temperament to another?

It would vary based on instrument quality and the venue.

But most importantly would probably be the amount the new temperament deviates from the old, whether going from ET to UT, or UT to ET, or UT to UT.

A 1/10 CM, for instance, could probably be about as doable as retuning to ET, considering the largest variations are only a few thousandths of a 1/2-step.

I think something else is going on here. When you tune a certain piano as perfectly as is possible it sounds "clinical". I assume you use clinical as I would "sterile" to describe a piano that sounds boring.

Just might not it have been the manufacturer/designers intent that the piano sound sterile when it is in tune?

I often find Grotrian, Petrof, Estonia, one Fazioli, and some others to have a less interesting sound than other grands. A perfect tuning exposes the true sound of a piano.