Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum C.HA.S. equal temperament

I am fairly sure he was directing his criticism to me. BDB's replies are so cryptic as to leave one in doubt as to what he is talking about or to whom is is talking.

I will restate that any theoretical 12TET or UT is not only capable of being exactly mathematically defined, but also precisely tuned on a pipe organ. It is not possible to precisely translate an exact theoretical ET or UT to a piano due to iH. We all know this.

As rXd stated, each piano tells you what to tune.

No, I was not referring to your previous post. I had already responded to it, and there really was nothing to add.

I use the muting strip in the temperament section and up to the break in uprights and down to the bass. From about e5 or so I use the Papp mutes and I always tune the right strings first up to the highest treble.

Yesterday I tried to mute strip only from a3-a4, tuned the C.HA.S temperament as good as possible, tuned the unisons clean and then I started to expand the temperament. It was more time consuming, because sometimes you have to go back to the temperament section and do some really fine adjustments.

I usually tune every piano twice, only if it is very very close to "already in tune" I do one pass. So I am quite sure, the tuned strings will stay there where I want them.

Long time ago I read the book of Otto Funke. He stated that the piano should be tuned only with one or two mutes, the temperament section included. I am not sure if it will be possible in a reasonable amount of time. Or if it will be better.

As I have already stated earlier, my tunings have become much better since I use Alfredo 's instructions and his way to tune the temperament. It is possible that the unisons change the ratios a tiny amount, but I don't think that it influences the overall harmonious sound. I once listened to the video and I personal opinion is that the Ibach sounds quite nice. Alfredo confirmed me, that it is not a real C.HA.S tuning, but on the way.

I keep on training it, and I hope I will get it one day.

Yes. Anything that makes us listen more carefully, for whatever reason, can only be a good thing. If any one aspect begins to take second place, the whole tuning suffers.
What is the point of purifying fifths and their derivatives and extensions in the unshakeable faith that it makes the tuning more "harmonious" when doing so increases the speed of the M thirds and their extensions, making them more out of tune. (Remember that what we glibly call beat rates , particularly RBI 'a are heard as simply out of tune by listening musicians).
The consensus of history teaches us to allow an unnoticeable narrowness in the fifths and its extensions in order to slow down the rapid beat rate of M thirds & tenths to make them sound more in tune to musicians. Let's not even begin to consider minor 7ths.

Tuning according to ones faith in the latest separation of music and tuning and losing sight of the needs of musicians isn't particularly clever is it?

I love the sound of a fairground organ. The more out of tune the better but it has no place in the work I do.
Tuning according to ones own untutored preferences is somewhat akin to enjoying the smell of ones' own jam tarts.
Making any temperament acceptable to musicians who really, really, really listen is hard enough without putting blind faith in unnecessary cleverness invented by those who have repeatedly proven their lack of experience in the bigger picture thus making matters worse.

It's a very special sound, isn't it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTnGI6Knw5Q

I may owe you an apology for posting the video, since it now appears to have been a work in progress, and not exactly per Alfredo's description. The title you gave the video is "CHAS temperament aurally," and I did not read that as meaning "aurally" as opposed to "precisely to mathematical specifications." On the other hand, I didn't know that Alfredo was stating such precise measurements. I thought that he himself was an aural tuner, and I suspect still that he is, but is giving precise measurements that he is assuming will be adjusted slightly for inharmonicity. (This was part of the larger argument over CHAS long ago: To me, Alfredo was postulating a temperament, while assuming that tuners would make adjustments for IH, in the same way that people speak of using ET, but in practice must make adjustments. People confused the temperament with the actual tuning of a given piano, and thus accused him of trying to enforce absolute mathematical rules on all pianos. His first language is not English, too, and heads butted...Let's not rejoin the old battle.)

Regardless, although I can understand some worries over a few unisons in your video, I still hear the overall sound as lovely. By the way, what was it that you were playing? What part of what piece?

Hi Jake,

As usual, reading your words is refreshing, for how sincere and respectful you are, and gentle. I read here that you sent me an email but I do not get them from my website now, as I am changing the host. Did you get my PM?

As for the tuning you posted, here below is what I replied to Toni when he shared it, I too liked that tuning very much.

"Ciao Toni,

Your tuning sounds beautiful, what ever it is, you did a great job. And yes... it sounds pretty familiar indeed.

I have to say that when I share Chas, I do not do it for an audience, like me when I listen to your playing. This may sound weird, but if I think about it, when the audience hear a piano that sounds beautiful, they first relate that to the pianist and how good he/she is, secondly to the piano brand, if they have a vague idea, very seldom to the work done by the piano tuner.

I share Chas and the relative beat-rates mainly for the tuner and for the pianist (for you and for you :)). The first can benefit because within the temperament the fourths-fifths relation is correctly defined, and the expansion of the temperament is guided by two more intervals, 12ths and 15ths, that together with fifths, octaves, 10ths and 17ths work as a monitor and can picture the trend of the tuning curve. In all this, I hope that more colleagues will soon understand that the "optimum" exists as a whole.

// SNIP //

For the pianist it is like a party, a totally fresh experience, especially on their own pianos. I wont tell you about the number of concert pianists that would not stop saying thank you.

On PW, one day I got.. //SNIP// ..this:

..."Sounds like a very nice equal temperament tuning. How does it differ from a nice equal temperament tuning that is not "Chas"?"

So I replied:

"If I can ask, which equal temperament are you referring to? If you asked someone for the current definition of equal temperament, the answer may be that it is "a variant of 12th root of two". Notice, a "variant" that is based - logically speaking - on a lame model and an approximate iH calculation.

Today we can see that a "variant" of that kind stays to Chas model's geometry like a roundish figure stays to a circle.

In these terms, your comment and relative question would be:

"Looks like a very nice roundish figure. How does it differ from a nice roundish figure that is not a circle?"

So, back to your recording, what I can say is that a beautiful tuning is bound to be very close to Chas, and some approximations may get hidden by the performance (a part from a D5 at 1:00 and a few secondary things). It is easier for me to say how the tuning can be improved if you record different chromatic intervals as you did, then we can be strict and do the tuner's job together.

Buona serata,

Alfredo"

There is no reason for you to apologize, but nice of you to think about it. I was the one who uploaded the video on YouTube. It was a video in a row of videos I sent to Alfredo. I usually made them available by a link, but this one was published for everyone, my mistake. But don't worry about that, really.
I think it is possible to tune the temperament as described by Alfredo. Since I started to tune the c.ha.s temperament he helped me a lot, analysed my videos and recordings and gave me detailed feedback of my work. I am convinced, that he is a great aural tuner with the ability to hear the smallest discrepancies in a tuning. And he never forced me into something that he thinks, it feels normal and free. My aural abilities improved a lot from his help and he gives me a lot of his time. I am very thankful for him. He acts like a good friend.

At the end of a tuning I always play something that I improvise. Fooling around and enjoying the sound. So I can't give you a name of the piece. Just an improvisation. Feel free to applause 👏👏

There is no reason for you to apologize, but nice of you to think about it. I was the one who uploaded the video on YouTube. It was a video in a row of videos I sent to Alfredo. I usually made them available by a link, but this one was published for everyone, my mistake. But don't worry about that, really.
I think it is possible to tune the temperament as described by Alfredo. Since I started to tune the c.ha.s temperament he helped me a lot, analysed my videos and recordings and gave me detailed feedback of my work. I am convinced, that he is a great aural tuner with the ability to hear the smallest discrepancies in a tuning. And he never forced me into something that he thinks, it feels normal and free. My aural abilities improved a lot from his help and he gives me a lot of his time. I am very thankful for him. He acts like a good friend.

At the end of a tuning I always play something that I improvise. Fooling around and enjoying the sound. So I can't give you a name of the piece. Just an improvisation. Feel free to applause 👏👏

I hope you'll make the improvisation into an actual piece. Seriously, now. I hear it as a late part of a solo piano piece--the climactic section of a nocturne?

Toni, can you share with us some of the methods that you use with CHAS tuning, and how they differ from the way you originally learnt to tune aurally?

On the basis that a picture (read 'video') paints a thousand words, I think that Toni's opening video on this thread is an excellent demonstration of the beatrates involved in any decent tuning. The basics are all there in the order (I assume) of tuning and testing. a-e-b-f#,test a-f#, continue to c#, test a-c#.....etc. etc.

If anybody copied just what they hear with prior knowledge of which side the beats should be, they can't go far wrong. It's a good starting point.

From there, if I were to use a strip, (I don't) I would put in the unisons of the temperament octave and test everything again.

Then tune outwards by completed unisons, checking absolutely everything . Leaving any artsy considerations aside, doing it this way ensures clean, still unisons that stay put for at least the length of time it takes to finish the tuning. Go back and make corrections if you hear the need. This also aids in pin setting, noticing any drift and how they drift. What is the position of the pin that caused the drift? What is the tension in the non speaking length? It is a lifetimes study. The best tuners I have known will never claim to have mastered it.

Believe me, there's no better practice for the all important unisons and octaves than having to tune another interval from them.

You may hear unisons differently when you go back to the middle notes with your ears attuned to higher or lower ranges of notes.

Consider the simple illogic of leaving unisons til the end when you are tired and time may be running short. Unisons are far too important to be relegated to an afterthought. Toni is a really good conciencious tuner let down by his unisons and that's only because he is treating them as an afterthought.
Same can be said of most of us.

I was taught to tune fourths and fifths all the same way in the temperament section. All the fourths have the same speed, all the fifths too. Also down to the bass the fourths have the same speed, also fifths. Upwards in principle the same but always using the double octaves as a check. And of course the beat speed progression has to be smooth. My mentor told me that the progression is sometimes not possible down the tenor break.

The biggest difference from what I learned years ago and now is, that the fourths and fifths have a beat speed progression in constructing the temperament. And down the bass the intervals become purer and purer. That how I try to do it. Always listening to a smooth beat speed progression.

I have still have some uncertainties, but that is the main difference to what I learned earlier. And not overstretching the treble. Before I began to relearn I had the tendency to over stretch the treble witch gives a loss of resonance in the sound.
Anyway: I am really happy with the results, and also smaller uprights sound better than ever. Read Alfredo ' s instructions and try it out.
Toni

My untrained ear may have something to do with the problem.

Does the octave stretch not come from the first tuned fourth e4-a4 and from the fifth a3-e4?
I don't tune the first octave a3-a4, it happens.

Every octave, whether or not within the temperament setting area, should sound as clean as is possible, and that depends on the relative amplitudes of the various coincident partials of the unisons that make up the octave. The temperament has nothing to do with octaves, IMNSHO.

I bet you cannot demonstrate how or why that is the case.



Even if it is a temperament based on something other than octaves being pure, which some people espouse?

If it were possible to fit a reasonably small number of pure intervals into an octave, there would be no reason for temperaments.

Thanks Toni for your response to my question. What I was looking for is a way to describe the method in a way that is succinct and descriptive which could be used as an abstract in a paper. The current description by Alfredo uses terminology that appears to fool people into an emotional response that encourages intrigue rather than convey any unique facts. I am glad that you seem to have put the theory into practice with the personal help of Alfredo. I know Alfredo has been very kind and polite with others in personally assisting with his approach and in his clearer explanations in threads in this forum.

The use of progressive 4th and 5ths is something I noticed originally in this thread. I was interested in this because I have recently coincidentally been putting emphasis on this approach with both temperament and expansion down the bass. Unright Tooner commented on how difficult it is to do this with any precision. I have been satisfied with something approaching progression but unable to execute, or determine, much precision. My experience is that 4th and 5th progression is variably and broadly irregular across the scale depending on the piano, so it is difficult to specify any rules. For example on some pianos the bass 5ths and octaves can both be almost pure across the scale, but on others they may diverge noticeable back and forth across the scale. 5ths are easy to hear right down into the bottom octave and are very useful in my opinion.

Does that mean that "iH overwhelms CHAS"?

I can measure the relative amplitudes of the partials (as can many ETDs upon which many professional tuners rely) and aurally and subjectively compare the various partial combinations relative to the measured results. Since you do not believe that partials exist, there is no possibility of you accepting the demonstration, so there seems to be no point.

I have already answered this . You should actually read what I have written. "iH overwhelms C.HA.S." If you want to tune octaves so they audibly beat, just like a 'nice' M3, go ahead. If you want to tune wide octaves on a pipe organ, be my guest, just not on any instrument I will play.

Hi prout,

I remember that you had already questioned the Chas "raw" frequency values, and that Kent Swafford - three years ago - had provided a neat and clear interpretation of Modern ET models, explaining how they may reveal their value.

That thread started with some usual insults and depreciation from the usual posters, but it became more and more interesting as Kent went deeper and deeper into his own observations. At one point, prout, I thought you had understood.

For those who like this subject, here is the link:

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2194834/1.html

Kind regards,

Alfredo