SANTA BARBARA CHAPTER
April Meeting: (2nd Monday)
Date: Monday, April 11, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Piano Kitchen
430 Rose Ave., Santa Barbara
The Santa Barbara Chapter met in person in March. We have revised our meeting structure just a little to give more time and focus to programs, especially aimed at less experienced members, since we find ourselves in the unique dynamic/opportunity of our membership being comprised of several very experienced tuner-technicians and several new/learning techs.
Our program was the beginnings of a series on aural tuning principles and techniques, presented by Jim Connolly. We talked about equal temperament and how/why we stretch tunings. We reviewed which types of intervals are "wide" or "narrow" in ET, and we practiced tuning a 5th with some tests to check it. Naturally, this included practice listening to beats.
Our technical discussion covered "self-tuning piano" concepts (intriguing but problematic, still requires technicians), the phenomenon of "plate ring" (one possible solution: adding mass to struts, such as a magnet, to change its ability to resonate), and how to integrate a piano into ensembles where the other instruments can tune differently and on the fly (violins, for example, will often play a bit sharp in order to stand out, in which case the piano need not be stretched quite so much, so the violin has more room to stretch).
Our next meeting will be a continuation of the aural tuning skills exploration on Monday, April 11th at the Piano Kitchen in Santa Barbara.