Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Concern over not passing the Tuning Exam

I thought this deserved its own thread.

This was listed as one of the main reasons technicians don't take the exam.

I am finding one of the most powerful ways to test your own readiness is to give yourself the tuning exam. All the popular electronic tuning devices (Reybern Cybertuner, Tunelab, Verituner, Accutuner,)have the Tuning exam scoring program built into them.

I've been using Tunelab for this purpose. Its great because the sharware version is free. You just have to put up with a delay every 17 notes you tune.

By using the exam features you can accurately create a detuning, time yourself tuning a temperament and midrange, and then measure and score your tuning. I have found the feedback to be right on. This way a person can replicate an exam situation and have a real sense of how well they will do.

The best way to alleviate concern over passing is to know that you are prepared. People's sense of what a good tuning is is all over the map. The exam separates the fantasy from reality.

Having participated in scoring several tuning exams I can say that most tuners skills are better than they give themselves credit for.
Getting ready for the tuning exam takes several years and quite a bit of practice and study.
Once you have put together 400 to 500 temperaments you will pass the exam. Some can do it with less. Where most people have problems is not setting temperament so much as stability. It is my opinion that getting the string to the correct pitch is easier than making it stay there. The standard PTG exam "test blow" can pale in comparison to an artist with strong hands.

Tuning stability is very important - probably THE most important aspect of what we do. However it is rare that someone fails the stability part of the test.

The most common area that people fail is the midrange: notes C3-B4. The tolerance is fairly tight (you need to be within one cent of the "master tuning" to get no points off. Each point is multiplied by 1.5. Thus you can have 13 errors and still pass with 80%

The tuning exam is daunting. First you are asked to tune a piano prepped like no other piano you see on the road - every other note is sharp and the next note is flat. Then you tune the piano in segments, which is not the way many people tune. Then you have to tune a temperament aurally when you might usually use an ETD.

Having said all of that, we tune in adversity all day long. Too little time, poor quality pianos, nervous artists, too much noise, not enough light. An RPT has to work well under pressure and in unfamiliar situations. The tuning test does simulate that.

Of the 6 exams that I participated in - no one failed the mid range.
The one person that had the least self confidence passed at CTE level.
I know this is not much exam experience but more people had stability problems than temperament.
This can be debated in another way - if someone scored 100% on the PTG tuning exam, would it be a tuning that a customer would like and would you take money for it?
This score says that you were within 1 cent and when comparing notes you could be off by 2 cents on an interval - not really acceptable.

This is all true but all the above mentioned things work to the ADVANTAGE of the examinee. For example the examinee is given much more time than is normal to use in everyday work: 5 minutes to tune A4 to the pitch source, 40 minutes to tune 24 notes in the midrange, single strings only (piano has even been muted off for you before you start!). You then have an entire hour to tune the rest of the piano, also single strings only. You then get 1/2 hour to tune 24 unisons in the middle of the piano.


So you actually get 2 hours and 15 minutes tune tune the piano but you only have to tune 24 unisons.

Another bonus is you don't have to tune the bottom 3 notes or the highest C.

The exam even gives 2 chances to set the pitch. If you fail the pitch section you get a chance to have it scored again after you tune the 24 notes of the midrange.

The alternating sharp-flat-sharp-flat also helps the examinee by eliminating most of the drift that would happen if raising or lowering an entire section. The detuning program is included with most electronic tuning devices so it is possible to practice using the same detuning that the exam uses.

Breaking the exam into sections and scoring each separately is also an advantage. This helps minimize the effects of drift on your overall score.

Another advantage is you get to tune on a well-scaled instrument. This means all the beat rates will be "textbook".

As you can see there are many things going in the examinees favor.