The steel guitar does not have this problem, because if your chord is in JI tune with itself at the C fret, the bar acts as a capo that keeps it in JI tune with itself at the D fret. So we do not need ET for this problem the way a piano does. For the same reason, changing keys is not a problem for us, especially if the open nut postition is not involved.

We can get in trouble when we change grips, so that a string that was tuned to a JI 3rd, is not the 3rd for the new grip. In some of the main positions, we can take care of that by the way we tune the pedal and knee stops. Compensators can also help, as well as bar slanting. At some point, particularly on the C6 neck, you just can't fix eveything for all the different grips and using all the different strings as the root. For that reason a lot of people tune the C6 neck ET or close to it. Fortunately, with the more dissonant chords typically played on the C6 neck, ET sounds better than on the E9 neck, which uses more straight major chords.

A nice strong "octave" played to "set the scene" is played, and then "fill notes" or "color chords" are played in the space where the "scene is set". If a seventh doesn't sound right, back off, or turn it into a "unison" til it does. Good strong "root/fifths" do the same thing.

Mind ye, this happens in spans of less than a second. Only those that think quickly survive at all.

Like tempo, often it's a "battle of wills", and more than that, I cannot explain.

You can lose at any time. It's an option taken my too many in the name of "being right". You can noodle along looking for "agreement" or you can set it.

Espressing it in terms of charts, programmed specialised tunings, is way beyond me and my quarter century of succesfully playing in tune while in mostly 'hack bands".

I guess as close as I can come with my limited credentials is to say that like tempo, it MUST come from within. You HAVE to be CERTAIN. It can NOT happen soley with the "ear", though it cannot happen without it. It's like having a firm handshake without "squeezing".

In short, go out and play it like you own it, and do so until someone convinces you otherwise. ET electronic piani are the most convincing to me.

That's as much of my secret as I'm going to give away, but it's the whole thing.

Second only to the secret of having as much time out in front of yourself as you can where you know what is going to happen.

Now that's a real secret..

EJL.

[This message was edited by Eric West on 06 March 2004 at 01:11 PM.]

Now this was explained to me around 40 years ago by a professional tuner, but he may have been out to lunch; it sure makes sense to me, however. If I am wrong about this I am sure someone will tell me.
There are probably other reasons for tuning this way as have been stated above, but maybe this is partially responsible for the practice.

Why would professional concert artists, who have every piano they play stretch-tuned right before they perform, insist on this? It isn't because a tuning that is done properly will drop that quickly, I can tell you that. From the standpoint of the artist, they may not know technically what is going on, but the bottom line from their perspective is that pianos that aren't stretch-tuned just don't sound very good.

The fact is, even if you just tune the octaves beatless on a piano, and then check them with an electronic tuner, you will already find the phenomena of "inharmonicity" has produced a treble section that is sharp, with the opposite in the bass section.

If you're interested in the subject, find any basic book on piano tuning (public library?) and see what it says about "inharmonicity," and why pianos are always stretch-tuned. I went to school for a year to learn how to tune and repair pianos, I've read many books on the subject, and I've never heard the reason you suggest given as a primary one.

Frankly Dan, this is from the most basic level of technical knowledge that any qualified tuner has. The tuner you had, if he in fact told you everything he knew on the subject, may have tuned adequately, but he couldn't have had a very deep knowledge of what he was doing.

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I know it to be a fact that an acoustic piano begins going out of tune as soon as the tuner walks out the door

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What I've said is easily verifiable in any reasonably good book on the subject, or on the internet. You don't have to take my word for it.

[This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 09 March 2004 at 05:52 PM.]

I have experimented around with the compromise method that some advocate, where the relevant notes in question are tuned between JI and ET. I find that to be a very agreeable compromise, and would happily switch to it in a situation where my own limited abilities as a steel player (and an ear that hears an awful lot of ET) seemed to dictate it.

I do remember a thread (although I won't go to the trouble of finding it) where Buddy Emmons described what he does with his thirds on E9, and I think it ended up being essentially the same thing. It wasn't straight ET.

[This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 09 March 2004 at 05:07 PM.]

"I tune middle "C" with a fork, then I tune all the other "C" notes in unison, and then I just tune all the other notes so all chords are acceptable".

Not scientific, but it works.

In the argument of how to tune a steel, my opinion is that there's literally no "right way". Every method is wrong. This does not, however, preclude you from sounding good with either method. Once the bar hits the strings...all bets are off. From there on in, it's the player's job to make it sound good. Some master players can do this with either JI or ET, and the rest of us pick the one that suits us best.

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If a concert artist does a concert six nights in a row he will have the piano tuned six times. Why would he demand this if the instrument stays in perfect tune?

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You are correct that if the same piano is used on six consecutive nights, it will not be in perfect tune after even one full performance.

However, the assumption I believe you are making, that the piano in this particular situation would obey a rule that the further up the keyboard you go, the more you will encounter a general tendency of flatness sufficient to justify stretch-tuning, is incorrect.

You will indeed, after a single performance, tend to find more isolated notes in the upper half of the piano that are out of tune, but these will for the most part just be single strings within the three-string unisons of that section.

Further, when you get up into the very top of the treble, it would be common for there not to be any change at all.

It's even common for me to return to a good grand piano I tuned a year before or longer, and not have to significantly alter the top octave.

Something you have to factor into the equation, when you are considering how a tuning fluctuates over time, is that the major cause of tuning instability (let's say during a one-year period) will be humidity changes. The part of the piano that is most drastically affected by these annual changes is the center section, because that is where the soundboard (which supports the strings, and will absorb and lose humidity) rises and falls with these changes the most dramatically. The high treble, within a yearly period, is much less affected by humidity changes than the center section or most of the bass.

My experience has been that the tendency for the entire treble to flatten (and not just isolated unisons or notes) more than the rest of the piano, in a general sense, requires a period of time longer than the yearly cycle.

So, while the tendency you mention does unquestionably exist, one has to be careful about generalizing too much according to that one factor. The most clear-cut and common example of it would be a situation in which a good piano, all other things being equal, isn't tuned for a at least several years. One would then expect to see that the piano was progressively flat, in a comprehensive sense, as one progresses upward into the treble.

Although some grand pianos do have certain problems in parts of the upper half that adversely affect their ability to hold a tuning, it is usually possible (and necessary) for the tuner to deliver several very firm blows to everything he tunes in the upper half, without the tuning being noticeably affected.

[This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 10 March 2004 at 11:07 AM.]

Since you tune JI on C6, I would be curious as to how do you tune your F#'s on pedal 5; and your Eb on pedal 6?

Thanks,