"Of course the point is that the tuner ought not to trust guess work but should try to know when he hears a beat-rate what it really is."

- William Braid White, Founding member of the Piano Technician's Guild and author of Modern Piano Tuning and the Allied Arts

Beats are a precisely defined feature of any tempered piano tuning, and the metronome has been available for over a century. Indeed, William Braid White stressed the importance of counting beats and suggested the use of a metronome over 100 years ago in his 1917 book "Modern Piano Tuning and the Allied Arts". He rightly pointed out that counting beats is the most accurate way to tune a piano. However, to this day, the process of precisely calculating beats is largely passed over without much thought, and the metronome is universally ignored as an instrument relevant to tuning. Instead, piano tuners aim blindfolded at what should be a clear goal and rely on subjective guesswork and rules-of-thumb for measuring if that goal is ever reached.

Yet, within the beats generated by the frequencies of each tempered interval lies the key for accuracy and consistency. Absent a metronome there is no way to truly leverage these beats. Tuning without a metronome is, in fact, like cutting lumber without a tape measure.

The Time Template Method revolves around the measurement of beats with a metronome or against other sets of beats generated by intervals. Equal Temperament School was created to provide resources and instruction for using this modern method so that it can be practiced by anyone and widely adopted.