Read more
The new edition of the leading textbook and most comprehensive source available for both practicing piano tuners and academic researchers, on the theory and practice of piano tuning. By the former Royal National College lecturer in Piano Technology and Tuning Theory. 680 pages, with over 300 illustrations and tables.
The book covers in-depth theory and practice from elementary to advanced level. It answers common questions raised by students of piano tuning about the actual soundscapes and behaviour of piano tone that are encountered in tuning practice. It is suitable for both students and professionals of piano tuning, general readers, and academics with interdisciplinary interests in the subject.
Includes:
Why we need skilled piano tuners
Intonation and tone
The distance between theory and the art
Theory of sound
Temperament theory
Elementary "traditional" tuning and beat rate theory
What contemporary acoustics reveals
What attenuation is, and why it is so important
Beyond the 19th century model - How "beating" and "beat rates" really work
Beyond the 19th century model - How tempered intervals really behave in fine tuning
False beat phenomenon and its influence
The effects of bridge coupling
How real tone- envelopes behave in fine tuning
Inharmonicity and small piano syndrome
What octave stretching is, why, and how it works
Setting the pin - the theory behind it and how to practice it
Scale plasticity, logic, and tuning technique
Psychoacoustics and how to listen
Contents:
Acknowledgments
Piano tuning and this book
Part 1 - Background Theory
The invisible art and science
The essential ideas
Sound
Temperament Theory
"Traditional" piano tuning theory and elementary practice
The soundscape, spectrum and tone
Partial decay patterns
Part 2 - Fine Tuning Practice
Unison Tuning
Tuning the Scale
Octave tuning
Setting the Pin
Setting the pitch
Small piano syndrome
Hearing
The Kirk Experiment
Part 3 - Advanced Theory
The single piano string in one plane
The Weinreich Model
Two strings, two planes
The Trichord
Further comments on false partials
Inharmonicity
Glossary of key concepts
Select bibliography
About the author
Brian Capleton is an alumnus of Wolfson College Oxford, The Royal College of Music, Trinity College of Music (now Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), Dartington College of Arts, and Keele University. He holds a Doctorate in music and a Masters in Performance and Research. He was a lecturer at the Royal National College and worked for many years in the field of music performance and musical instruments. He currently lives in Cornwall and writes both fiction and non-fiction.
