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Wendy writes:
| I'm not a big fan of electronic tuners either - my favorite tuning "device"
| is a tuning fork.. no batteries to run down, and no annoying little needle
| jumping around alternately indicating both sharp and flat on the same string.
I'm not a fan of either, though I own two of each. They both lead to
groups that are less well in tune than they'd be without the gadgets.
What I've seen all too often is someone with an untunable instrument,
typically piano or accordion, plays an A, but there are a few dummies
with tuning forks or electronic tuners that take the attitude "I'm in
tune and the piano or accordion is out of tune." The result is that
the group is out of tune.
Electronic tuners do have the advantage that they can be calibrated
to an untunable instrument. As a keyboard player, I've found that it
can be useful to become familiar with how one calibrates the common
models. I can sometimes sneakily calibrate them when the owner isn't
looking. Then they think they're tuning to A=440 when they're
actually tuning to my instrument. But sometimes I can't get away with
this, and there's no good way to get the group in tune.
The worst culprits seem to be fiddlers, who often have the attitude
"Damded if I'll tune to an accordion". (Since I'm also a fiddler, I
can get away with such an observation. ;-)
--
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
-- Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella
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