PIANO TUNING TEMPERAMENT
ANALYSIS AND SCORING
By Mark Cerisano, RPT
howtotunepianos.com
This is a free analysis generated by a recording of M3's and P4's submitted to me by one of my subscribers.
Contact Me Now if you would like a free analysis of one of your temperaments.
Piano: Mark Cerisano
Submitted by: 017
BEAT SPEED PROGRESSIONS
YOUR M3 RESULTS:
Goal: Chromatically increasing by 0% to 12%
Mark: 88% (Goal 80%)
M3's Unfiltered
M3's Filtered
YOUR P4 RESULTS
Goal: 0.5 bps to 1.5 bps
Mark: 97% (Goal 80%)
P4 Unfiltered
P4 Filtered
HOW TO USE THE GRAPHS AND AUDIO TO IMPROVE YOUR EAR
1. Listen to the recordings while looking at the graphs.
2. Listen to the filtered recordings and try to confirm aurally that the beat speeds are following what the graph says.
This improves your "Beat Speed Difference Sensitivity" - Your ability to hear small differences in beat speeds.
3. Listen to the unfiltered recordings and try to hear the specific beating partial within the unfiltered recording.
This improves your "Tuner's Ear" - Your ability to filter frequencies at will.
GRADING OF THE TEMPERAMENT
INSIGHTS
You must understand interval sizes in the following courses:
Equal Temperament, and Wide, Narrow, and Pure Intervals,
in order to follow the logic explained below.
IMPORTANT
This is a traditional refinement procedure.
It requires you to finish the temperament before you can have any insight.
It also requires you to test multiple intervals before you get any valuable information.
The Go A.P.E. Sequence allows to to self correct before you are finished.
Also, because of the incredible accuracy in the Go A.P.E method, you fix notes the way they were tuned. (No searching high and low for reasons why a note is wrong)
Analysis
The interval speeds were very good. However, we can hear that F3A3 is a little too fast. But there were no other intervals to confirm either F3 too low or A3 too high. It would be interesting if we could have tested the octave sizes F3F4 and A3A4.
However, since the F4A4 was included in the submission, we can listen to the Skeleton, F3A3-A3C#4-C#4F4-F4A4.
The Skeleton (F3A3-A3C#4-C#4F4-F4A4)
Tuning F3 and F4
Notice that the Lower Skeleton M3's, F3A3-A3C#4-C#4F4, all sound similar, and there is a big jump from C#4F4 and F4A4.
The similarity in the Lower Skeleton indicates C#4 may be accurate, but the big jump in the Upper Skeleton means F4, and hence F3 (if the octave is correct) is too low, making F3 too low and F3A3 too fast.
Large errors in the setting of F3 sometimes require the C#4 to be reset after the F's are corrected so that might have corrected the high C#4.
Tuning C4
In the Go A.P.E. System, C4 is tuned within the "window" B3D#4 and C#4F4.
Before tuning we confirm the window. When we listen to B3D#4 and C#4F4, we hear that there is no window.
The Window, B3D#4-C#4F4, doesn't exist!
In the Go A.P.E. system, we fix this before moving on. We fix it by checking each note in the window, the way it was tuned.
If we were to check the F4 the way it was tuned (the Upper Skeleton), we could have noticed the huge jump between C#4F4 and F4A4 which means F4 is to low.
Raising it would have returned the window between B3D#4 and C#4F4, and then C4E4 would have sounded obviously slower than both, and C4 would have been tuned lower.
Conclusions
While this is a very good temperament, The Go A.P.E. System may have helped the technician to improve this temperament.
Traditional Refinement Procedure (Obsolete)
In refining a temperament, we identify two or more problems that suggest the same note may be too high or too low, and then change that note to fix multiple problems.
This reiterative method helps us improve the temperament bit by bit.
This is why it is imperative that, if you want to improve your aural tuning, you must improve your beat speed recognition.
Exercises like these can help greatly.
You are encouraged to read the analysis and confirm aurally that you can hear the findings, and understand how the improvements suggested would improve the beat speed progressions.
In this way, you will improve your ability to rationalize the logic, and improve your ear to be able to hear smaller and smaller beat speed differences.
Improving these skills will greatly improve your temperament.
Keep up the good work and don't give up! You're getting better all the time!
Mark