Saturday, April 19, 2025

how to tune a piano to et using a single reference pitch

This could all be hogwash but I thought it was interesting.

the first few intervals are downa 4th till you get to c4 which is a tritone away. Down again a 4th to g, up a fifth then d down to f, d is the maj 6 of f or f is the minor third in d. After that f3 to f4 is octaves.

Step Note Direction Beat Rate (approx.)
1 A4
2 E4 Below 0.9 bps
3 B3 Below 6–7 bps
4 F#3 Below 3–4 bps
5 C4 Above 5–6 bps
6 G3 Below 2–3 bps
7 D4 Above 1–2 bps
8 F3 Below 4–5 bps
9 F4 Above 0 (octave)

This gives you a base for equal temperament from f3 to f4 which you can expand outwards tuning to octaves and checking against 12ths (octave and a fifth) to get the rest of the notes.

No comments:

Post a Comment