tuning from reference pitch

>>The monochord measurements were available, so one could tune a keyboard to
>>the monochord, if one could get enough precision on the monochord.
>
>I must ask if there is anybody on the list that has tried this, with
>acoustic instruments? I have, and the resulting ET was not E.

I've tuned pianos, a clavichord, and a giant hammer dulcimer to a variety
of tunings, including ET, using a variety of electronic timbres as the
source. Except for the dulcimer, the results were never very good.

In fact, my Peterson strobe tuner has an audio function, which will freeze
the strobe like ice. But tune a piano to stop the strobe and it beats with
the sound, or tune a piano to the sound and the strobe moves. I shudder to
think of the results a monochord would produce!

>no evidence that anyone knew the techniques that would make it was
possible. >You cannot just "feel" your way to an acceptable ET on a strung
keyboard, it >has to result from a system of cross measurements.

There's an interesting question: How accurately do piano tuners tune? It's
interesting because different measuring devices and even different human
tuners will turn out different tunings. They may all sound good, yet if
you swap a few notes from one tuning into another, you get a bad tuning.
It's a place I like to call timbre country... everybody's listening to
something different. Perhaps it's best just to say that they make
adjustments as small as 0.1 cent.

What I find strange is that if they knew string lengths for ET, why not
beat rates?

-C.

In a message dated 5/7/99 1:56:47 PM, clumma@nni.com writes:

>How accurately do piano tuners tune? It's
>interesting because different measuring devices and even different human
>tuners will turn out different tunings.

Greetings,
Interesting question. I tune pitch to within .5 cents, but unisons must
be under .2(total) or they will be hard to keep consistant. Often, unisons
actually sound better when out by about .2 cents, (Weinriech effect), but it
has to be very carefully done.
The modern, state of the art, tuning machines produce consistant tunings
with a tolerance of .1 cent. This is a negligible amount, so it is safe to
say that two tuners with the right machines are going to be indistinguishable
from one another to the vast majority of musicians.
Regards,
Ed Foote

Carl Lumma wrote:

> In fact, my Peterson strobe tuner has an audio function, which will freeze
> the strobe like ice.

How much do those things cost anyway?

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