is a fact, gleaned from long experience in traveling and observation,
that many, verily, the majority of pretending tuners have not so much
practical knowledge of a piano as you should now have. We have no
doubt that you, if you have a musical ear, could, without further
instruction, improve an instrument that was extremely out of tune. You
could detect and improve a tone which you should find extremely sharp
or flat; you could detect and improve a unison that might be badly
out, and you might produce an entire scale in which none of the chords
would be unbearably rasping. But this is not enough. You should aspire
to perfection, and not stop short of it.

It may seem to us who are musicians with thorough knowledge of the
simpler laws of music, that a scale of eight tones is a simple affair;
simply a natural consequence; the inevitable arrangement; but a
historical investigation will prove our mistake. We will not go into
the complexities of musical history; suffice it to say that the wisest
philosophers who lived prior to the fourteenth century had no idea of
a scale like that we have at the present day.

In piano tuning, as in other arts, many theories and conjectures have
been advanced regarding the end to be sought and the means by which to
gain it. There must be a plan--a system by which to work. The question
is: What plan will insure the most perfect results with the least
amount of labor? In Piano Tuning, this plan is called the Temperament.

Webster defines the word thus: "A system of compromises in the tuning
of pianofortes, organs," etc. Later on we will discuss fully what
these compromises are, and why they exist; for it is in them that the
tuner demonstrates his greatest skill, and to them that the piano owes
its surpassing excellence as a musical instrument, and, consequently,