For Students of Piano Tuning.
If you want to learn to tune pianos by ear, you need to train your ear - there is no way around it.
Click the button to start the test right now, or read on to understand how the test works.
Tuning a piano by ear involves playing intervals and setting them so they are not pure – setting them so they create beats; beats that we hear and compare to other beats.
We also need to hear and tune quiet beat rates clean so that we have clean unisons. Dirty or sour unisons are the number one complaint of poor tunings.
Learn how to set beats with the Go APE Aural Piano Tuning System
The good news is that we are born with the ability to hear small differences in beat speeds.
The bad news is that piano intervals produce a large number of frequencies besides the one where the beating occurs, and without training, we can’t clearly hear the beats. And without being able to clearly hear the beats, we can’t hear the small differences needed to set accurate pitches, or set pitches at all!
I have created a simple ear training test and exercise that will tell you right now if you have the ear to tune pianos. But don’t worry. If you don’t, I can help.
Equal Beating Intervals in Equal Temperament
In equal temperament, there are intervals that beat very closely to the same speed. Sometimes we tune them equal, sometimes we check if they are not equal.
One pair of intervals that beat the same speed is G3-B3 and F3-D4. See figure 1.
Press the Play buttons below to hear these equal beating intervals
G3-B3
F3-D4
Each of these intervals beats at a different frequency. G3-B3 beats at B5 and F3-D4 beats at A5. See figure 2.
Press the Play buttons below to hear the filtered beat speeds.
G3-B3 beating at B5
F3-D4 beating at A5
In the ear training test, you will tune B3 (the red dot) so that G3-B3 beats the same as F3-D4. See figure 3 below.
How the Test Will Work
Each of these intervals is wide. That means the top note is sharp or the bottom note is flat compared to the pure interval size that produces no beating.
For G3-B3, it is beating because it is wide. If we raise B3, the interval will become wider and beat faster. If we lower B3, the interval will become less wide and will beat slower.
That is how you will change the speed of G3-B3.
Three Challenges
The test has three different challenges.
In the first challenge, you will hear a clearly beating A5 and B5. This makes the test very easy since there are no other frequencies to confuse your ear.
G3-B3 and F3-D4 have been filtered so that only the B5 and A5 are audible.
In the 2nd challenge, you hear partially filtered intervals. A5 and B5 are still audible, but the other interval frequencies are audible as well.
In the final challenge there is no filtering. You will hear intervals and all their frequencies. (Know that with computer speakers, there is still a small amount of filtering that occurs.)
You only have three chances to fail. The goal is to get within 3 % for each of the three challenges.
Don’t worry if you can’t do it. The point of the test is to show you what you need to work on, right now.
What These Challenges Show
You will find that the first challenge is very easy. The 2nd and 3rd challenge may be impossible for you. This is because your ear has not been trained yet.
But you NEED to be able to hear and tune these hidden beat rates.
These challenges also show that humans have the ability to hear small differences in beat speeds and that our sensitivity to these beats speeds is good enough to aurally tune pianos to a high standard.
That’s right! We are born to be able to tune pianos!
However, these challenges also show us that we need to train our ear to hear these beats clearly because if we can’t hear the beat speeds clearly, we can’t set the small differences in beat speeds needed to produce a highly accurate aural piano tuning.
Arguments Against Using Beat Speeds to Tune a Piano to a High Standard.
It takes time to hear beat speeds clearly. And if someone can’t hear beat speeds clearly because they haven’t spent the time needed to train their ear, then they may resort to dismissing beat speeds as not useful at all, or they may even give up on aural tuning altogether and rely on one of the many electronic tuning devices (ETDs) that claim to do a better job than the trained ear.
Tuning without using beat speeds is imprecise. There’s no doubt about that. But tuning using an ETD or just listening to the whole sound is inaccurate compared to the trained ear. That is also a fact that has been proven by measuring the beat rates produced by these two techniques when we have specific beat speed criteria to reproduce.
So, can listening to beat speeds be more accurate and more precise?
Some people try to rationalize that you don’t really need to hear these beats, or that tuning to specific beat rates is not as accurate, or that you can tune the interval by feeling the sound or listening to the whole sound.
Some people claim that listening to the whole sound is better. It isn’t. The resulting range in interval sizes is too big. This is a very imprecise technique.
Some people say that to tune a pure interval, for example, we should listen directly to the beating partial of the interval to be tuned pure, and eliminate it.
This is not accurate because we can‘t tune out a beating partial completely because we can’t hear differences in slow beats very well – I have proven this with my beat speed difference study – especially when there may be transient beats like false beats or hammer mating issues.
The final complaint people have with setting beat speeds is that they say setting a beat speed is not accurate.
Well, that depends doesn’t it? What beat speed goal are they setting? Maybe the goals they are using aren’t good enough? If that’s the case, then they will have to use those other imprecise and inaccurate techniques.
The Go A.P.E. Aural Piano Tuning System has beat speed goals that tune the most number of pure intervals. The Go A.P.E. system also sets each pitch using two or more goals for each note, goals that all work together to tune accurate and precise pitches.
Besides being extremely fast and easy to do, the Go A.P.E. system produces intervals sizes that sound way more awesome than anything I could do with only my ear.
So, if you’re ready to take the tests, just click the button below: