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Kees:

Seeing as how this realization was what urged me to start this Topic, yeah let's explore it, but let's also remember this is just one example.

First, Dr. White's sequence was recognized as the standard way to tune at the time. That is not to say that it was the "best" or "correct", but it was the recognized standard. His sequence ended with tuning F4 to A#3 and checking with the F3-F4 octave. And like all checks, it proves or disproves that the preceding intervals were tuned correctly.

Perhaps you remember this demo. It was part of a somewhat embarrassing Topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU-4Tg_AiFA&feature=youtu.be

At 3:43 F4 is tuned to A#3 and the octave is checked, without the benefit of RBI checks. I was that confident. Interestingly the octave sounds great even though the M3:M10 test shows it to be quite wide of 4:2.

But let's say that octave wasn't so good. What would that mean? It would mean that one or more SBIs was wrong, that's all. It's just another check. So you fix it. What's the big deal?

Or let's say you start expanding the temperament downward and get into some oddly wound strings. So you decide to adjust some notes. But why jump through hoops of getting the octaves just so until it is time to expand the temperament?

Yes, it can be argued that until you know how the octaves lie (lay?) you cannot get the temperament right. But I think it depends on where the significant errors are. If you cannot get the RBIs to be progressive, anyway, (which you have shown with run-of-the-mill spectral analysis ) does it matter if expanding the temperament with an octave that would cause the RBIs to be unprogressive matter? You could expect both the temperament and the expansion to be a bit random. Some progressions will benefit, some will be harmed. The ones that are noticeable are then fixed. This would have been the case in expanding the good, but imperfect, temperament in the video. So what's the big deal?

Another error that seems to be completely ignored is string stability. They will always drift a little bit. Again, randomness will help sometimes and hurt other times. But the more strings you are using to set the temperament, the more inexplicable problems you can have. Tuning an octave adds more strings, and tuning more than one octave adds even more. Is it necessary when you will find out if there are random adjustments needed as you expand the temperament regardless of whether you define the octaves first or not? I don't think so.

But let's say that, as a comparison, we tune the F3-F4 octave toward the beginning and continue with Dr. White's sequence. We come to A#3 and find that we have to leave other intervals like A#3-D#4 and F#3-A#3 a little different than we like, but F#3-D4 is actually improved. Maybe we should move both F3 and F4? Or.... maybe we should just start expanding and see what really needs fixed as we hear more M6s! So what was gained by defining the octave first?

Ah, but this is a moot point when CM3s are tuned at the beginning of a sequence. Then you do need octaves, don't you? What a pain! I guess that is what you have to do if you don't tune with a 4th and 5th sequence. I would guess this is where the perceived necessity of tuning octaves first started, which is poppycock.

Thanks for sharing that nice lecture Jeff.

I understood everything, so it's not "poppycock", which is a word I was not familiar with, but Google tells me the synonyms are "nonsense, rubbish, claptrap, balderdash, blather, moonshine, garbage, bullshit, hogwash, baloney, piffle, twaddle, bunkum, drivel" so I think I get the idea, except that the "Urban Dictionary" tells me "piffle" means "The act of having sex in an amphitheater".

Kees

You are welcome, Kees:

Let me add a phrase to the definitions of poppycock. Sometimes people say "Thanks for sharing" when they mean "Poppycock."

And understanding an argument from the Flat Earth Society doesn't mean that you think the earth is flat. But we can still respect beliefs that differ from ours.

I was thinking that it is possible to set a ladder of CM3s and produce an octave, rather than starting with one. F3-C#4 beats the same as C#4-F4 with an 8:4 octave. Of course this would be pretty rough on a spinet, although you could just make C#4-F4 beat a bit slower. So here is another way to show that octaves don't have to come first.

But, please, what do you think about what I posted?

Jeff, I looked at your video. Quite impressive for speed. I won't go into the accuracy issues because pin setting and NSL issues are uppermost in my mind and accuracy is of no importance if it won't or is not expected to stay there.
on a more recent post you said that it can be expected that Some notes will drift. This has also been said by others on this forum who should know better.

While I know that it was for demonstration of tuning and was an old video, I heard almost no evidence of pin and NSL setting in your video. It didn't help that you lowered each string by a comparatively enormous amount before tuning. This in itself will create instability even with the most assiduous pin setting. (I, Personally never move a string more than I have to and then only in the direction I want it to go. But that's just me.
You are not alone, I have seen videos by the legends who do the usual excessive lowering before tuning "to prevent string breakage". even they would achieve better stability if they didn't do that and, not to be judgemental, the finished result leaves room for improvement in most of them.

My point is this:
I firmly believe that anybody who has read these pages over the past 5-6 years and assiduously practiced and experimented with the content in order to separate the wheat from the poppycock, should by up there with the most solid tuners.

My further point:
Nowhere, but nowhere have I found more valuable information on pin and NSL setting than I have on this forum and that's just one aspect of piano technology.

I do not overlook the contribution that you have made to the logical and mathematical aspects of tuning. I know it has made me a better tuner in many respects over the past years since I have read your contributions.

I thank you and respect you wholeheartedly for that, Jeff.

rXd:

Thanks for your response.

The piano in the video is my personal Charles Walter console and setting the pins is a PITA! There is very little feedback, very hard to tell what is going on with the NSL or the twist in the pin. But how could you have any idea of what is going on with the pin setting since you could not see the hammer technique in the video??? The setting must be done without working the pitch back down. Perhaps that is why you thought there was no pin setting going on. There was nothing to hear on this piano, only see.

The reason for knocking all the pitches down first, and so much, in the demo was so that no one could accuse me of knowing ahead of time about where the pitches should be. I was trying to show that many of the criticisms of Dr. White's sequence are unjustified. It just so happened to work well with the current subject: setting the temperament before the octaves.

I do usually knock the pitch down first so as to have a fresh start on evaluating what is going on with the rendering and spring in the pin. But not as much as I did in this demo. This CW really needs knocking down to be sure of a "fresh start". I do not apologize at all with this beast.

I am trying not to be offended by your response to my statement on notes drifting while setting the temperament. The typical piano that I tune is probably much different than what you tune. Having a 40 pitch raise is typical. The relaxing of bends in the wire, I believe, are a major culprit in instability and impossible to predict.

But aren't you focusing on just this one random error that I am talking about? There are others that I did not mention, including scaling jumps. Did you understand my point about how random errors can add or subtract from each other, requiring adjustments that are best made while expanding the temperament? I hope you are not missing the forest because the trees are in the way.

Thanks for your understanding, Jeff. I too fly blind. With me it's diplomacy. I come from a part of my country where we tend to speak bluntly. I can say anything I need to convey with three grunts and a spit and be perfectly understood. Not only do I not know that there is a more diplomatic way to say what I have to say, I don't know that I don't know. More than once have I been taken out for a disciplinary drink, on occasion a disciplinary dinner by management to be advised by diplomatic example about my forthright communication style.
Please forgive me.

I worked for a CW dealer about 25 years ago and literally used to tune those uprights by the truckload. Do they still leave the pencil marks on the keys from marking out the weighting? I guessed it was your CW and you did day in a recent post that you expected pitches to move and I too would not use a downward final movement on those CWs. It was also not a pitch raise other than the iatrogenic instability caused by lowering the pitches so much.

If you were springing them down that far and back up the pin could not have been adequately set. Surprising as it may seem, having taught tuning, I can hear whether a pin is set from outside the room and walk in there and confirm it. Unbelievable does not equate with poppycock, I hope.

Far be it from me to teach you how to tune your own piano. (was that diplomatic or what? The words nearly stuck in my throat). That sentence is always followed by "but" which negates the whole effort it took so I'll abandon it. It is used sarcastically too often these days, anyway.

I just say the following in case anybody hasn't thought of it and in the hope that the fruits of my labor are taken in the spirit in which they are given.

Although it sounds unbelievable, there is a way of turning those springy pins without twisting them or springing them. It involves a fulcrum on the lever formed by the thumb with a lot of thumb pressure and the lever in line with the strings. This is quick and easy on a grand but I find it slow and awkward on an upright. My right elbow is at an uncomfortable angle. There is also a similar way using the left hand on the lever which I used for a couple of years but slowly abandoned over the years in favour of an outrageous cheat that was quick and surprisingly solid it was the exact opposite of the hundred year old 'legitimate' lever technique was easier for me with a more springy lever. (another current heresy) widespread use of a lever for tuning is relatively recent in Europe. By the fourth piano, I had it down but I had to spend a few more minutes on the first three afterwards. The skill I taugt myself with under pressure with help from more experienced colleagues have served me all my career.
That one advantage of dealer work. You have to be fast and solid to make decent money but the pianos are right next to each other. Not to mention the camaraderie.

Both of these methods I have gone into at great length with photograph and a lot of help from others in this very forum. I hope all my efforts in offering a viable but difficult option were not dismissed without being practiced at least for a few minutes. Turning a tight pin without twisting it? Poppycock!!!

To turn a pin without springing it would tempt a tuner to "pull it up and leave it" but this can be deceptive on most pins of most pianos including the CW.

In the lowering of pitch on your video, Jeff I couldn't tell if you were turning the pin in the block or merely springing them lower. I suspected turning them because with a well set pin and NSL it would not be possible to spring them down that far. One of my tests for a set pin is to try to spring it flat and if the speaking length goes flat, I know that I have to turn it in the block some more. But then, that's me. I would spring them a tiny bit sharp if I had to prove that I was tuning from scratch.

I hope this is of help to somebody somewhere. I have always worked alongside and accepted help from colleagues and still do. All of them have different experience.

rXd:

I am smiling. Since you confess to speaking bluntly, I choose to do the same. I certainly learned how sometime during my 24 years at sea. And you really shouldn't be worried about offending me. I am more concerned about allowing myself to be offended: "If neither foe nor loving friend can hurt you; if all men count with you, but none too much."

I think you are an ivory tower tuner. When it comes to pin setting, there is no one technique that works in all situations. And the only way to know what to do is to be able to know what is going on with the pin and NSL, which can only be known indirectly. Sometimes there is very little indication of what is going on.

But I don't want to get into a stability discussion. My PTL (Poppycock Tolerance Level) is pretty low right now. I will just say that you misunderstood at least some of what I wrote. It may be a void in your understanding.

You're probably right, Jeff.

More tea?

Coffee. Black, strong and hot, please.

Black as the divel and hot as heck.

Coming right up!

Could be that you are being patronizing. But why should that affect what I do?

When you have finished your coffee, Jeff, would you say random adjustments are a necessary evil or the essence of fine piano tuning?

Tuner error excluded as "pappekak".

Who said anything about random adjustments? Are you talking about making adjustments for random errors? And why wouldn't at least some tuning errors also be random rather than systematic? No one is perfect you know. Or should I say, I would hate to be perfect considering what happened to the only perfect Person.

And "fine piano tuning" is too ivory tower for me. I prefer robust tuning. The kind that is worth the price and lasts.

The very finest tuning is also the most robust because when the pitch of each string is centered perfectly in the "happy zone"-it takes more movement to produce an annoying change.

For example; if the treble is flattened to the max and the bass stretched the most flat-when the humidity rises a little the tuning sounds bad quickly.

Ed:

Some people might consider a "fine tuning" to be on the point of almost too much stretch, or extremely blooming unisons, or more of a well temperament, or who knows what. So I decided to avoid being pulled into such poppycock by stating my preference for a "robust tuning".

I agree you can tune the temperament without deciding on the octave in advance, though if you go through the circle of fifths and check octave at the end you will either accept or reject the octave so in a sense you have already decided on it, albeit with some leeway, but not tuned it.

An analogy that works for me is the ballistics problem: what angle should my cannon point to hit a target at a given distance and elevation, assuming we know the cannonball velocity?

Method 1 to solve it is to consider all ballistic parabolae that pass through the cannon and the target and look for the one which has the correct initial velocity. This is like the CM3 method.

Method 2 to solve it is to consider all ballistic parabolae for all cannon angles, calculate where the impact and search for the angle to gets you close enough.

In math it's a boundary value method versus a shooting method to solve these kind of problems. There is no "best" method.

About "randomness" I kinda think that's what give a piano it's character as an acoustic instrument. If you had a perfect scaling, strings that have partials that follow Youngs law perfectly, perfectly smooth voicing, and a perfect tuning, it would sound like an electronic instrument.

My personal taste, but I don't like the stuff that comes out of the big classical music studio factories, it sounds polished to death. (Sorry rxd.)

Kees

Sorry, Jeff.

"Black as the devil and hotter'n' hel" is a common description of coffee that I understand comes from the military. I think I first heard it on American airbases when I was in Germany. I never thought of it as patronising.
I, in turn may have misinterpreted your request to replace tea with coffee as a return to our friendly banter.

I can see that you are still perturbed. Anything I say at this point is liable to random interpretation and as usefull as a snooze button on a fire alarm.
I will, however, continue to see the silver lining even in the mushroom shaped cloud that this thread keeps on descending over this thread.

I'll back off now.

I thought you made a very interesting point. One that gets obscured by Poppycock and errors (I am learning about them).

The random adjustments in question relate to all the unexpected variations in the sound of a piano that you cannot predict with ETDs or theoretical models. You know they will be there and that you will have to deal with them when you find them. If you are an Ed McM you will get rid of some but then find more.

Seems to me what distinguishes real pianos from pianos you can tune to root 43, an idealised Railsback curve, or some Holy Grail, are those random variations.

........My personal taste, but I don't like the stuff that comes out of the big classical music studio factories, it sounds polished to death. (Sorry rxd.)

Kees
[/quote]

Nor do I. Kees, ...,nor do I.

And for many more very different reasons. Much of it is also quite rough. I only ever listen to classical stations in the car and I note where in the world it comes from.

Some recording engineers never take their headphones off and, of course are never on the studio floor once recording starts. . The tuner is often the only one that moves freely between the live sound from a listening distance in the studio and the recorded sound in the booth.

Don't get me started.

Many session musicians are far superior to some (not all) big names. They are better recompensed and can go home to the stockbroker belt every night.

I also know which side my bread is buttered. An hours music represents 4/5 days of highly paid work for me. Easy, relaxed days when I get to continually scrutinise my own work. Something I would rarely do if left to my own devices. With that much time, we can certainly get nerdily perfectionist about the whole thing. A job will expand to fill the te allotted. Not necessarily a good thing.

When i was a musician I used to work with a broadcasting musical unit where the mikes were live all the time. If the first take was good enough, (sight reading) that take was used. Over-rehearsal does indeed kill the spirit of the music, I totally agree. Piecing together the best takes is even worse. I'm not arguing. I'm not arguing with my pay packet either.
There have been ongoing maintenance cutbacks in some studios so I'm glad you think it is still highly polished, excessively or not. I also learn what I can get away with and still produce a good tuning when time is at a premium as it sometimes is.

I know what I can change and what I cannot change and, hopefully, the wisdom to know the difference. fortunately, while I thoroughly enjoy my job, I'm not emotionally attached to it as a source of my identity and therefor keep my integrity.

The exec mgr. of the Wigmore Hall once playfully said I was "just a piano tuning whore" because, although I am one of 3-4 who tune the house pianos, I also turn up to tune some of the visiting piano of a different make.
I have been called a lot of things here too. Not such playful intent, often merely face-saving remarks. Leaving the psychology of name calling aside, they are backhanded compliments if they stop and think about what they are saying.

Of course the analogies that work for me are navigation. Take bearings from a gyro compass that have +/- 1/2 deg of accuracy and radar ranges that have +/- 1/10 mile of accuracy. Two bearings or two ranges that are 90 degrees from each other are good, but three that are 120 degrees from each other are better.

But when you plot three "lines of position", there is usually a small triangle. Oddly, the actual position is just as likely to be outside the triangle as inside.

But it is never a good idea to use more than 4 lines of position to fix your location. You can end up with two or more separate points where three lines cross. Then how do you decide where you are?

That can never happen with three or four lines. It can never happen with two lines either, but what if one of the lines is wrong from a simple blunder? You have no way of knowing without the third line as a cross check.

And then there is the ultimate cross check - how many feet or fathoms do you have below the keel? Does it agree with the position on the chart? And something that should be obvious is: before a ship runs aground, the depth beneath the keel decreases, eventually to zero. Hooda thunk it?

Anyhoo, I won't try to figure out direct tuning analogies for all this. Just that sometimes one thing is trusted more and sometimes another. Happens both in tuning and navigation.

I was navigating a Coast Guard Cutter and we ran aground once. The Captain was a very level headed man. He said "We aren't looking to blame anyone. Right now we need to know which direction is deeper water." I used every bit of information we had, it all agreed, and I had to tell him that our position was in the deepest part of the channel. See, we didn't know the channel had shifted. If we had paid attention to the color of the buoy (which we were getting ready to set in it's position - ahem - ) it would have been obvious where the channel actually was. Hooda thunk it?

Anyhoo, tuning can be like that. If the fourths, fifths and octaves are right, you know you are in the channel. If the RBIs are right too, you know which side of the channel. But if the RBIs are right and the SBIs are wrong, well the channel shifted or something obvious is being overlooked.