On 9 Jul 2002, at 17:26, D.C. Carr wrote:

> I was thinking of this when I read something Judy posted recently
> about her tuning machine showing much more mud than she heard.   I
> suppose we could get a jury together to vote on whether she's right or
> the machine is.  Or maybe she's right to follow the machine?

I should point out, I tune modern pianos, and that was what I was
talking about. And my machine is no Korg, it's a Sanderson Accu-
Tuner, costing a large multiple of the amount the korgs cost. It is a
precision instrument, when it says it hears something, I am sure it
hears exactly that.

On the low notes on a heavily-strung, greatly foreshortened
apartment piano, there is lots and lots of mud happening
simultaneously. Harmonics and partials that do not coincide. Beats
at all sorts of levels, at different rates and pitches. I can move
things up and down and listen for clarity for a fairly long time, or I
can trust the machine setting. The machine will tune exactly to the
double octave, for instance, if I set it up to do that. Better tuners
than I can zero in on that exact thing aurally, but I have never
learned how to do it reliably, I just have to move the pin around and
listen and listen and listen till I think I have it best. And my
experience is that usually that lengthy process produces nothing
more ethereal than what I get trusting the machine to know where
the double octave is. Or the double-octave-and-a-fifth. Whatever.
On good quality concert grands there's joy in tuning by ear. On
sawed-off apartment consoles there isn't, and the machine saves
time.

But it's not the machine you guys are talking about. And you
seldom need it for harpsichords, unless the room is really noisy or
you are in a state of panic about other things (like being about to
play the concert yourself...)

Judy