You shouldn’t have to lack confidence in your ability to aural tune a piano.
An Online Piano Technician Resource
Learning aural tuning.
Over 8+ hours of video / 25 lessons on mastering the fundamentals of aural tuning, hammer technique, ergonomics, and stability!
Timothy Barnes, RPT
Timothy brings over 20 years experience to help you along your journey towards mastery of your aural skills. Timothy’s own journey from ‘ETD only’ to being an aural technician brings a wealth of experience and deep perspective showcasing the need for aural skills in this day and age.
His experience also spans working as a field technician, a concert technician, an RPT, and working as a CAUT (College And University Technician). His journey and the knowledge he has to share will inspire you at every step of the way as you learn and practice new skills, seek to master existing skills, and eventually add better skills to your toolbox. Setting yourself on a journey towards being an aural technician who is on a path towards mastery of these skills.
25 Lessons & Topics Covered
Aural tuning is a skill that is honed over time. But you can’t get started if you don’t know what you are listening for, how to compare aural intervals, or your hammer technique is creating instability that causes the pitch to drift all over the place as soon as you move to the next tuning pin. It is also an art because every piano is different, every scale design a new puzzle to solve, and optimizing the musical potential of the piano in front of you is always an adventure. Don’t wake up next year with only the skills you have today. Let’s go on a journey together as you pursue mastery of your trade!
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5 Lessons designed to answer all the questions you will have if you recently picked up a tuning lever for the first time or have limited ETD only experience with tuning.
What is a beat?
What is a harmonic?
What is inharmonicity?
What are Cents vs. Hz?
What is a Temperament?
By the end of these lessons you will have a working understanding of everything you need to dive into all the topics related to aural tuning.
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In the first 3 lessons we will cover in depth:
Aural partials and harmonics
Identifying partials in any note.
Identifying coincident partials in any interval.
By the end of this segment you will see aural tuning in a whole new light, be able to identify and hear harmonics, partials, and coincident partials in any interval.
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Lessons 4-8 cover in-depth all the things you need to know about:
Aurally tuning unisons using harmonics
Aurally tuning octaves and their corresponding tests.
Aurally tuning 5ths and their corresponding tests.
Aurally tuning 4ths and their corresponding tests.
Identifying 3rds are beating correctly.
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In the final 6 lessons we will bring it all together and talk about:
Setting A440 to the fork
Setting up your temperament
Tuning a two octave temperament using slow beating intervals.
Tuning a two octave temperament using fast beating intervals.
Tuning a one octave temperament.
Gaining speed and efficiency in your temperament.
By the end of this resource you will have all the confidence you need to aurally tune a piano and assess your ability to pass your certification exams from the PTG or other trade groups around the world. And if you are working with a mentor you will find your time with them is more valuable because they will not be teaching you everything from the ground up. Instead you can focus your time on more important higher level skills.
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Tuning stability is everything! If the pitch doesn't stay where you put it, nothing else matters. We cover:
Avoiding pain and using it as a guide.
Understanding your biological levers.
Tuning Hammers.
Using physics & tuning with your core.
Setting the pin.
Key pounding.
By the end of these lessons you will have all the skills you need to avoid pain, minimize the wear and tear on your body, and more efficiently tune the piano using the best techniques for stability. Allowing you to focus more of your time at each appointment on things like voicing and regulation.
Choose your package
Get started for free!
(5 Lessons)FREE
5 Intro lessons for learning the basics & technicians who are just getting started! Once completing these free lessons you will have the option of saving 10%-15% when you purchase additional lessons.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
Most
Value
For Mastering
All The Skills
(All 25 Lessons)
$600 $510
(Save 15% today - or - make 4 easy payments of $150 over 4 months)
Get access to the full online resource. Access to all 8+ hours of video lessons (25 Lessons total) covering all the topics of aural tuning, test notes, building aural temperaments, and all the lessons on tuning stability, hammer technique, and ergonomics.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
For Learning Fundamentals
(8 Lessons)$120 $108
(Save 10% today - or - make 2 easy payments of $60 over 2 months)
Access to 8 total lessons, 5 Intro lessons plus 3 lessons on understanding harmonics, intervals, & coincident partials. Once completed you will have the option of crediting this purchase towards purchasing additional lessons.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
Click Here if you are only interested in only the 6 Lessons on tuning stability, ergonomics, and hammer technique.
100% of proceeds donated to the Piano Technician’s Guild Foundation and trade groups around the globe to fund scholarships, exams, and ongoing education!
Hear from technicians who have benefited from this resource!
After 3 years being an ETD only technician with a full schedule tuning multiple pianos a day, my aural skills only went as far as unisons prior to going through this online resource for learning aural tuning from the team at Gazelle & PianoScope.
At the time, learning aural skills seemed like an unattainable goal for me to learn by myself without a local mentor. I felt isolated because I had nobody to help me in person and finding a local mentor was proving difficult in my area. Between this resource from Gazelle and understanding how to better utilize PianoScope’s aural tuning features, I cannot stress how much this transformed my tuning experience. Within weeks, I was tuning aural intervals and shortly after that gaining the confidence I needed to build aural temperaments. Almost immediately after starting to go through this material I felt my ETD tunings improve because I was hearing things I had never heard before. I was also able to better differentiate between tuning issues and voicing issues within the piano. Then out of nowhere, after mentioning to a highly respected colleague in my local area that I was learning aural tuning by going through this material, I suddenly had an invitation to come meet them in person to have them listen to my tunings and provide feedback.
Over the course of the next 8 months I went from knowing nothing about aural tuning, to having the confidence I needed to take the aural portion of the Piano Technician’s Guild RPT tuning exam (and pass at a level much higher than I ever thought possible when I started my aural tuning journey!). I cannot recommend this resource enough to anybody who wants to sharpen their ear and their aural tuning skills!
Kenny H. - Well-Loved Piano
Together in collaboration with Pianoscope:
In 2022 Gazelle collaborated with Pianoscope which led to the creation of this ‘Learning Aural Tuning’ resource that donates all the proceeds to the PTG Foundation and trade groups around the globe. Since then we have added even more lessons to this resource! Wherever you are at in your aural journey the combination of this resource and Pianoscope will give you the tools you need to grow your skills as a technician, improve ETD accuracy, and confidently develop aural skills. With all you strive to offer your clients, Pianoscope gives you a deep and valuable feature set that is customizable to your needs.
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Easily and quickly measure the inharmonicity of all the notes on the piano! For a rough tuning it is sufficient to measure only twelve notes which takes about 12 seconds. With poorly scaled pianos, however, it is worthwhile to measure the entire range (which can be quickly done in under 2 minutes). You can use the time gained for extra voicing, regulation, fine-tuning, or other customer needs.
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Create an integrated aural feedback loop unique to the piano you have in front of you so you can hear and see everything you need to improve your aural skills. Pianoscope will show the relative strengths of each note’s partials which you can visually analyze, for example, in which partials false beats occur and how the spectrum behaves across the piano.
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Once the tuning curve has been calculated, Pianoscope helps you to transfer it to the instrument in any order you like. It automatically detects which notes you are tuning – faster than traditional apps – and gives you intuitive, graphical feedback.
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With Pianoscope, you get to decide which intervals should be as pure as possible and choose pre-built and customizable tuning styles. With thousands of tests, which would be impossible for a human, the program adapts for the tuning curve that optimally meets your needs.
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When you strike a key on the piano, Pianoscope reliably detects which note it is and automatically switches to the corresponding tuning target —faster than traditional apps.
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Pitch raise pianos that are severely out of tune and confidently move from note to note. The app calculates the over-pull for each note from the expected deformation of the soundboard and plate.
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Pianoscope gives you all the information you need to confidently navigate any piano, making it easy to combine ETD & Aural skills to overcome the inharmonicity of each and every note.
Choose your package
Get started for free!
(5 Lessons)FREE
5 Intro lessons for learning the basics & technicians who are just getting started! Once completing these free lessons you will have the option of saving 10%-15% when you purchase additional lessons.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
Most
Value
For Mastering
All The Skills
(All 25 Lessons)
$600 $510
(Save 15% today - or - make 4 easy payments of $150 over 4 months)
Get access to the full online resource. Access to all 8+ hours of video lessons (25 Lessons total) covering all the topics of aural tuning, test notes, building aural temperaments, and all the lessons on tuning stability, hammer technique, and ergonomics.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
For Learning Fundamentals
(8 Lessons)$120 $108
(Save 10% today - or - make 2 easy payments of $60 over 2 months)
Access to 8 total lessons, 5 Intro lessons plus 3 lessons on understanding harmonics, intervals, & coincident partials. Once completed you will have the option of crediting this purchase towards purchasing additional lessons.
(100% of proceeds donated to support in-person training opportunities.)
Click Here if you are only interested in only the 6 Lessons on tuning stability, ergonomics, and hammer technique.
100% of proceeds donated to the Piano Technician’s Guild Foundation and trade groups around the globe to fund scholarships, exams, and ongoing education!
