Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Question for tuners who tune by ear

My ear is ok with the narrow 5th and wide 4ths.
I’m also ok with the wide major 3rds in ET.
What I’m not ok with is major 3rd + 2 octaves.
Example:
C3 and E5 played together - just so nasty!!!
I’ve tried making my 5ths narrower to solve the problem, but it’s not helping enough and my 5ths are starting to be nasty too.

Anyone struggle with this?
Is there a solution or it's just pure evil?

How much stretch is going on in your octaves? A beatless double octave? Or stretched?
Nick

I'm not a professional tuner so I cannot answer that question.
I can say that I'm within 2 cents of my ETD on average (verituner).
So basically, if I tune the entire piano by ear, I'm no further than 2 cents on each note when I doublecheck later on with the ETD.

I only use the ETD for the temperament octave as I feel it's the most efficient accurate way. I use E3-E4 for temperment.
Then I just move up and down from there - making sure octaves sounds good, 5ths are slightly narrow but sound good, and 4ths are slightly wide but sound good.


So I'm not counting beats at all.


This being said - I just finished a tuning that fixed the problem!
Here is what I did.
I artificially created a narrow temperment octave. Basically E3 is + 2 seconds and E4 is +0 cents and everything in between is spread out equally.
So B3 = +1 cents.

The E3+2cents with E4 +0 cents sounds like an acceptable octave.
Then I just tuned the entire rest of the piano focusing on the narrowest octaves I can, while making sure the 5th below is not too "beaty".

Now all these big major 3rds sound fantastic. Sounds good for Bach playing.

You might try the Young 1 temperament.

Are you aware of the fact that there are two discernable beats within the 5th? They are 3:2 and 6:4. The 3:2 is the one that beats "3 beats in 5 seconds" and the 6:4 beats twice as fast. Problem is that the 6:4 is often more prominent than the 3:2 and if you mix them up you end up tuning a nearly pure 5th. You would need to isolate the 3:2 by using 6th-10th test. That way you know exactly what you're listening to.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

One can tune an extremely accurate temperament with appropriate stretch parameters if one thoroughly understands and utilizes the 3rd-6th, 6th-10th, 3rd-10th, 3rd-17th tests.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

I think that as you were happy with the thirds but not happy with 3rd and two octaves, the secret is in ensuring you have non beating double octaves...an awful lot of folk believe stretching octaves produces a better tuning but it really shows in screaming double octaves and thirds. I know the temptations are strong to stretch but if you use big chords it's vital to stick to beatless octaves.In my opinion of course, many might disagree.
In your tuning scale is the lower E a wound string by chance?

What's the piano?

Verituner is very flexible as to custom stretches. I'd be happy to talk you through that if interested...

Ron Koval

C3 and E5 should beat about the same as C3 and E3. A3 and E5, and B3 and E5 should barely beat at all.

My E2 is the last wound string.

I'm not happy with any 3rds. Who can be happy with 3rds? Is that even possible?

Once again, you should try Young1 temperament.

Changing the temperament from equal temperament will make some thirds beat less, and other beat more. There is no way around that.

Why play with an uneven compromise when equal temperament exists?

Yes - I've tried Young1 a few years ago and some other historical temperments.

They make some nice 3rds 5ths and 4ths, but there is always some 5th or 4th and 3rd that are absolutely out of this world nasty.

I'm a big fan of ET.

I've tuned my 2nd piano in a narrow ET today - seems to really fix the problem.

Thought perhaps it was. The winding messes with the relationship to the scale.Just tune that beatless to e4 or even better set your scale f to F centred on C. it's best to keep your scale away from wound strings.
Your thirds just need to get smoothly faster in the scale, no obvious leaps when you check.

That might slow down the thirds maybe half a beat.
Is that the whole problem? Half a beat?

You mean by half a beat per second?

So I tuned the temperament octave tight.
I do E3 - E4 for temperament octave. Where E3 - E4 is as narrow as possible.
That makes the 5ths within it a bit more narrow than usual, and the 4ths wider than usual.
But it also makes the 3rds a bit narrower than usual.

Then I tune up and down from the temperament octave, focusing to keep the octaves as narrow as possible and all other intervals acceptable.

After I'm done, I compared with the verituner.
So E3 is +2 cents and E4 is +0 cents.

I also can say that C3 is about +2.5 and E5 is -2

So this M3 + 2 octaves now is a total of difference of -4.5 cents.

Yes half a beat per second for the M3rds. And maybe about 1.5 bps for the M17th.
But you would have beating octaves.

Yeah - the octaves beat slightly.
Why is it "socially" acceptable for 5ths and 3rds and 4ths to beat but not octaves?

My octaves are NOT perfect, but they are also not bothersome. They sound clean at first glance, but if you listen carefully - yeah they are not perfect.

I hope I'm not being bias because I don't count beats, but my ETD does internally in some method or another.
If I tune by ETD, C4 - G4 can beat lets say 1/sec and also C#4 - G#4 1/sec

BUT: the C4-G4 can sound nice and acceptable, and the C#4 - G#4 can sound ugly.

So what I'm saying is that just counting beats is not enough some times.

I suspect it has something to do with different overtones being stronger than others in different notes, even neighboring notes. And also the overtone pitches not being exactly spaced as the neighboring note.
Maybe the room effects it with different resonant frequencies surrounding the piano?

Probably because most pianists will notice a beating octave and a more beating double octave sooner than other intervals.
12ths will beat noticeably and that might be bothering too.
Ensemble string players would probably complain about beating 5ths.