Interval Training
Tools
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These traing tools may seen trivial to many but for a beginner, or someone who started tuning with an electronic tuning device (ETD), they may prove to be helpful. Knowing keyboard intervals is essential to being able to tune aurally.
To get a good handle on tuning a temperament (or octaves) aurally, it is absolutely essential to know certain intervals automatically and immediately. If the aspiring technician masters these to the point of being immediate, than they can dedicate their skills to tuning any given string without fumbling to remember the test notes. These simply have to be memorized to the point that one can visualize everything! Even without a keyboard.
Interval Test Tool (ITT):
The training tool currently contains 6 tests that one can practice to quickly identify 5ths and 4ths above and below, as well as Major 3rds below, and Minor 3rds above, any given notes. Take this test to the point of your answers being automatic and correct all the time.
http://www.goptools.com/intervals.html
Temperament Test Note Tool (TTNT)
This training tool contains one test and will present a series of 5ths and 4ths and the user must select the correct test note to use for any given 5th or 4th. With each correct test note selected, there is a dialog box that will further explain the how the test should work for slightly narrow 5ths and slightly wide 4ths. If the aspiring technician masters these to the point of being immediate, than they can dedicate their skills to tuning any given string without fumbling to remember the test notes and how they work. These simply have to be memorized to the point that one can visualize everything! Even without a keyboard.
http://www.goptools.com/ttnt.html
Comments:
Passing the aural portion of the PTG Tuning Exam may seem daunting. However, we believe that if you absolutely nail the above, to the point of automatic, you have won half the battle and can actually concentrate on tuning, and checking, any given tempered 5th or 4th.
If one can practice, and learn to differentiate slightly faster or slower beat rates, and know the test notes and how they work cold, the aspiring technician will be doing decent temperaments fairly soon. Further temperament tests are discussed in this programs Help Manual.
Some temperament methods use the tuning of contiguous thirds within one octave. However, it is still necessary to know your tempered 5th and 4th tests. For now we will leave this method for another discussion.
Finally, in the words of the late Bill Garlick, my instructor: "You can't tune a piano until it is in tune" So, whip through the temperament and midrange in 5 or 10 minutes, and then start tuning and listening to beats.
Tremaine Parsons RPT