Official Luthiers Forum!

Dave, I agree I get a bit too worked up about things like this sometimes. I
suppose I'm still young and full of angst.

Where I suppose I should give Buzz more credit is in bringing this issue
more in to public discourse. Even if discussions are often centered around
praising or bashing his work, they are happening, and because of it I
believe a lot more players are at least somewhat aware of flaws in our
scale than there were even fifteen years ago. There have always been
frequent attempts at systems to cure our tuning ails, but few have
reached the publicity that Buzz has.

I agree that the level I tech training may be a bad idea. I have watched
the video myself, and think it does not offer training complete enough for
many techs to truly understand what they are doing. They may be
shooting themselves in the foot here, as the bad work could certainly
drag the reputation of the system down (not that I'd cry about that,
obviously    ).

It's encouraging to here that more folks today approach the system as a
flexible starting point, rather than a rigid end. It still doesn't soothe my
patentability/public domain peeve (I know, let it go David), but it gives
the system more potential. Ironically however, I think it also nullifies the
system as a system, and simply goes back to the age old skills of a
good technician.

As to the 8 string, I'm with Rick about the Thomastiks, and I'm not
associated with anyone with an interest. You are really pushing the limits
I think, trying to get an E1 from a 28" string, but a less rigid string like
Thomastiks could certainly help tame some overtones. Since they also
feel a bit looser, you could probably try to up the gauge a bit. I'm not sure
of availability of custom gauges, so you may have to piece a set together
from bass and guitar. They are among the more expensive guitar strings
(still cheap when you compare to what violinists pay), but worth every
penny in my experience.

And yes, "a dark art" is a good way of describing stretch tuning on
pianos. You will rarely find two tuners who will stretch the same notes the
same way, yet both will likely sound excellent with perhaps a slightly
different color. There's no quick or easy way to describe it, and though
I'm not a professional piano tuner myself, I know enough of it to
appreciate it's complexities. It's why most pianists will find a tuner whose
work they prefer and stick with them as long as the can. It's also quite
incredible to see just how different the tunings must be on a harpsichord
or early forte-piano.

Mike, I've heard of Haverstick, but never heard or read much of his work.
If you're interested in microtonal scales however, I think Harry Partch's
"Genesis of a Music" is a must have. I believe it's currently in print.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

[QUOTE=David Collins] "a dark art" is a good way of describing stretch tuning on
pianos.

I finished my six year piano tuning/repairing apprenticeship back in '73'. I was told the first twenty years would be the hardest , and at the time, thought that to be a joke.Not so ! I was also told I would need to get a thousand tunings under my belt after my apprenticeship before considering myself a tuner .I took note and true enough, almost to that exact number, a revelation took place .
I find it difficult to describe stretch tuning ,and you are correct in that each tuner tends to stretch in a different way. I'm now semi retired , but must have been doing something right, as the majority was concert work and quality grand rebuilds . I have had more than enough pianos to service and ceased to take on any new clients many years ago.
In recent years ,I find tuners to be stretching too early , but that's just my opinion. I prefer to start sharpening ( a mere whisker ) after F57. The curve gets steeper towards the very treble . There are a number of reasons to stretch. Too much to go into here,but one of them being that the human ear perceives any pitch around 2000 Hz.and above as being flat when tuned to perfect octaves . Initial stretching in the first few octaves can be calculated quite easily as the beats are quite audible , so their speed can be compared and adjusted to suit. I go for an almost bell like quality in the higher treble notes. Something you just feel and can't really describe . The very bass is set slightly flat of true pitch. Concert Steinway's give an enormous "growling " overtone down there when set correctly . Enough to stand your hair on end ! Setting the wrest pin ( tuning pin) is as much an art. Relieving all tensions and equalizing the string's tension each end of it's speaking length. There is also voicing ,, action regulation and many other things to take care of
We had a string making machine where I undertook my apprenticeship , so I became a string maker as well and studied scale calculation.I really enjoyed this task. Sorry , I've never got around to studying the 'B' string thing on guitars as yet , but I'm sure guitar string makers have thought of everything they can offer.
I once set a very early Broadwood on "Meantone "temperament so that the University students could experience what those early compositions (should ) sound like.Interestingly enough ,they didn't seem to like it and was played very little. Shame really ,as the meantone gave dramatic affect that was intended for the composition.

David, A book I studied all those years ago , and was made to write out in longhand is " A Treatise on the Art of Pianoforte Construction " by Samuel Wolfenden. It was written in 1916 !!, but is still quite relevant today. There are a number of interesting chapters on such subjects as scale calculation.
Please forgive my rambling here , and as Rick said :this has nothing to do with nut and saddle placement.


Craig Lawrence

_________________
CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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[QUOTE=KiwiCraig] David, A book I studied all those years ago , and was
made to write out in longhand is " A Treatise on the Art of Pianoforte
Construction " by Samuel Wolfenden. It was written in 1916 !!, but is still
quite relevant today. There are a number of interesting chapters on such
subjects as scale calculation.
Please forgive my rambling here , and as Rick said :this has nothing to
do with nut and saddle placement.[/QUOTE]

That sounds quite interesting, and since I'm as much a bookhound as
guitar tech, I'll have to track it down. My friend and former shop mate
David Sutherland, has been building and restoring harpsichords for over
30 years, and in recent years has taken an interest in building replicas of
the earliest fortepianos by Bartolomeo Cristofori and Gottfried
Silbermann. He has done a incredible amount of research and is hoping
to complete a book about the evolution of the fortepiano in years to
come.

We still help one another out with projects quite often, and watching
him voice the quills on a harpsichord, or tune a harpsichord or any early
cembalo instrument is something I've always paid close attention to. As
well as being tuned to A-415, he would never tune one of his instruments
to an equal temperament. With the richness and complexity of the
overtones they produce, they really do not take kindly to equal tempered
thirds and sixths. Plus I believe he typically tries to tune appropriate for
an era, be it some well temperament or some variation of a meantone. It
makes it easier to see how composition, performance, temperaments, and
the instruments themselves could have evolved together over time. Each
of these aspects of music must have historically been very dependent on
innovations and limitations of the others.

I haven't tried tuning a piano myself in at least 13 years, and at that
point I had no formal training other than a few books. Those tunings
made for a great simulation of an old bar room piano . I could
probably do better now, though like you said it would take a good many
years of study, guidance and experience to come close to mastering the
art. I know enough now to have a glimpse of understanding, and an
appreciation for the art. Beyond that, I'll stick with my own craft and be
content with listening in, and trying my best to analyze a tuners
motivations when I can.

On a side note related to fretted instruments of the baroque period, I
have a few customers that bring their viola da gambas in to have frets
retied. One of the distinctions between a beginner and a more
experienced player is how firm or tight they want the frets placed. For a
student instrument I will tie the frets quite tightly, in an equal tempered
spacing as many students prefer not to be burdened with reintonating
their own instrument until they stabilize skills in other areas. A more
advanced player however will often want the frets just tight enough to
hold firm in perfomance. They like the them to be just loose enough to
shift around the board, so that they can at least roughly intonate to
different keys in an irregular temperament.

Similar aspects of construction (stability vs flexibility of intonation) apply
to many wind instruments in the gradation from student to professional
levels. The more skilled the musician, the more they can do with more
control given over to them. Beginning musicians may be better off with
their notes more rigidly predetermined until they develop the ear and
technique to control them.

Anyway, thanks Craig. I guess I didn't know you were a piano tuner before
this. It's certainly good to have that perspective here.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Craig, thank you so much for that info. I have a couple of friends who are piano technicians, so I'm familiar with the issues, though I've never taken on tuning a keyboard instrument.   I did spend a very nice afternoon in the then Hubbard Harpsichord atelier in Paris where we discussed the whole voicing process for a quill plucked instrument, and we found a lot of common ground between the issues of building harpsichords and even solid body guitars.   It was great to run into a builder that different from me and that open to the commonalities.