for the guitarists and others

[markhowie]

Aloha all

have you ever tuned to A=423 hz insted of A=440 hz
check this out:http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19022&postcount=13
tune up and let me know how you get on....

love to us all
mark

i dont eat frogs legs.....berk

[harx bhullar]

hmm..

Pitch
by Christopher Lawrence

Go to hear a modern orchestra in the UK and the chances are that they will be playing at A440. Hear the AAM in a baroque programme and we will be playing at A415, while for a classical programme we will be at A430. And last month’s Monteverdi programme was at A440. Just what does all this mean?

A440 means that vibrations at a frequency of 440 Hertz are treated as the note A above middle C and that the rest of an instrument (or indeed group of instruments, eg an orchestra) is tuned in relation to that starting point or ‘anchor’. The higher the frequency, the sharper the pitch; the lower the frequency, the flatter the pitch. A415, for example, is exactly a semitone lower than A440.

The concept of a standard pitch is a 20th century one (although there has been a natural convergence throughout the history of Western music), and A440 is the closest thing to a standard pitch, but even now there are national variations, eg A442 is common in the USA and A445 in Vienna. National, or simply regional, variations were that much greater in the baroque era, with for example the norm in France being A392 or lower, while Bach would have been working with organs at A480 in Leipzig and Weimar. Furthermore within the same town there would be differences in pitch between the opera, the church and the home. (Indeed it is said that in order to save money on costly metal, organ builders often shortened the pipes thus resulting in a higher pitched organ).

For an organisation such as The AAM pitch is an important issue, since it affects the choice of instruments for different repertoire in an attempt to create the most appropriate sound that would be recognisable to the composer. This is particularly an issue for wind players, where the length of the instrument is the critical factor in determining its pitch and thus several different instruments are needed to cover a range of repertoire. And it is not only instrumentalists who are affected: the human voice has not changed much physically in the last 400 years, and so there will be times when a soprano will be very glad that her top C is at A415 rather than the version a semitone higher at A440!

[harx bhullar]

And from wiki:

History of pitch standards in Western music

Historically, various standards have been used to fix the pitch of notes at certain frequencies[1]. Various systems of musical tuning have also been used to determine the relative frequency of notes in a scale.

[edit] Pre-19th Century

Until the 19th century there was no concerted effort to standardize musical pitch, and the levels across Europe varied widely. Pitches did not just vary from place to place, or over time—pitch levels could vary even within the same city. The pitch used for an English cathedral organ in the 17th century for example, could be as much as five semitones lower than that used for a domestic keyboard instrument in the same city.

Even within one church, the pitch used could vary over time because of the way organs were tuned. Generally, the end of an organ pipe would be hammered inwards to a cone, or flared outwards, to raise or lower the pitch. When the pipe ends became frayed by this constant process they were all trimmed down, thus raising the overall pitch of the organ.

Some idea of the variance in pitches can be gained by examining old pitchpipes, organ pipes and other sources. For example, an English pitchpipe from 1720 plays the A above middle C at 380 Hz (info), while the organs played by Johann Sebastian Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A = 480 Hz (info), a difference of around four semitones. In other words, the A produced by the 1720 pitchpipe would have been at the same frequency as the F on one of Bach's organs.

From the early 18th century, pitch could be also controlled with the use of tuning forks (invented in 1711), although again there was variation. For example, a tuning fork associated with Handel, dating from 1740, is pitched at A = 422.5 Hz (info), while a later one from 1780 is pitched at A = 409 Hz (info), almost a semitone lower. Nonetheless, there was a tendency towards the end of the 18th century for the frequency of the A above middle C to be in the range of 400 (info) to 450 Hz (info).

The frequencies quoted here are based on modern measurements and would not have been precisely known to musicians of the day. Although Mersenne had made a rough determination of sound frequencies as early as the 1600s, such measurements did not become scientifically accurate until the 19th century, beginning with the work of German physicist Johann Scheibler in the 1830s. The unit hertz (Hz), replacing cycles per second (cps), was not introduced until the twentieth century.

[edit] Pitch inflation

During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely due to instrumentalists competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals. This tendency was also prevalent with wind instrument manufacturers, who crafted their instruments to generally play at a higher pitch than those made by the same craftsmen years earlier.

It should be noted too that pitch inflation is a problem only where musical compositions are fixed by notation. The combination of numerous wind instruments and notated music has therefore restricted pitch inflation almost entirely to the Western tradition.[citation needed]

On at least two occasions, pitch inflation has become so severe that reform became needed. At the beginning of the 17th century, Michael Praetorius reported in his encyclopedic Syntagma musicum that pitch levels had become so high that singers were experiencing severe throat strain and lutenists and viol players were complaining of snapped strings. The standard voice ranges he cites show that the pitch level of his time, at least in the part of Germany where he lived, was at least a minor third higher than today's. Solutions to this problem were sporadic and local, but generally involved the establishment of separate standards for voice and organ ("Chorton") and for chamber ensembles ("Kammerton"). Where the two were combined, as for example in a cantata, the singers and instrumentalists might perform from music written in different keys. This system kept pitch inflation at bay for some two centuries.

The advent of the orchestra as an independent (as opposed to accompanying) ensemble brought pitch inflation to the fore again. The rise in pitch at this time can be seen reflected in tuning forks. An 1815 tuning fork from the Dresden opera house gives A = 423.2 Hz (info), while one of eleven years later from the same opera house gives A = 435 Hz (info). At La Scala in Milan, the A above middle C rose as high as 451 Hz (info).

[edit] 19th and 20th Century standards

The most vocal opponents of the upward tendency in pitch were singers, who complained that it was putting a strain on their voices. Largely due to their protests, the French government passed a law on February 16, 1859 which set the A above middle C at 435 Hz. This was the first attempt to standardize pitch on such a scale, and was known as the diapason normal. It became quite a popular pitch standard outside of France as well, and has also been known at various times as French pitch, continental pitch or international pitch (the last of these not to be confused with the 1939 "international standard pitch" described below).

The diapason normal resulted in middle C being tuned at approximately 258.65 Hz (info). An alternative pitch standard known as philosophical or scientific pitch, which fixed middle C at exactly 256 Hz (info) (that is, 28 Hz), and resulted in the A above it being tuned to approximately 430.54 Hz (info), gained some popularity due to its mathematical convenience (the frequencies of all the Cs being a power of two). This never received the same official recognition as A = 435, however, and was not as widely used.

British attempts at standardisation in the 19th century gave rise to the so-called old philharmonic pitch standard of about A = 452 Hz (different sources quote slightly different values), replaced in 1896 by the considerably "deflated" new philharmonic pitch at A = 439 Hz.

In 1939, an international conference recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440 Hz, now known as concert pitch. This standard was taken up by the International Organization for Standardization in 1955 (and was reaffirmed by them in 1975) as ISO 16. The difference between this and the diapason normal is due to confusion over which temperature the French standard should be measured at. The initial standard was A = 439 Hz (info), but this was superseded by A = 440 Hz after complaints that 439 Hz was difficult to reproduce in a laboratory owing to 439 being a prime number[2].

Despite such confusion, A = 440 Hz is arguably the most common tuning used around the world. Orchestras in the United States and United Kingdom tend to adhere to this standard as concert pitch. In other countries, however, higher pitches have become the norm: A = 442 Hz is common in continental European orchestras, while A = 445 is heard in Germany, Austria, and China.

In practice, as orchestras still tune to a note given out by the oboe, rather than to an electronic tuning device (which would be more reliable), and as the oboist may not have used such a device to tune in the first place, there is still some variance in the exact pitch used. Solo instruments such as the piano (which an orchestra may tune to if they are playing together) are also not universally tuned to A = 440 Hz. Overall, it is thought that the general trend since the middle of the 20th century has been for standard pitch to rise, though it has been rising far more slowly than it has in the past.

Many modern ensembles which specialize in the performance of Baroque music have agreed on a standard of A=415Hz, about a semitone lower than A-440.

Seems you did some shoddy research there..

(i already knew it was bs, since i have a few years of music-history-lessons under the belt..)

[markhowie]

And from wiki:
Seems you did some shoddy research there..

(i already knew it was bs, since i have a few years of music-history-lessons under the belt..)

oh great master you realy know how to paste eh...!

how about aswering the f*cking question ......
have you ever tuned to A=423 hz insted of A=440 hz

alors tete de bit
va te faire foutre
conard

[klinker]

I have an acoustic guitar hanging up on the wall that I rarely use. What's the best way to tune to A=423?

[eternal_spirit]

Aloha all

have you ever tuned to A=423 hz insted of A=440 hz
check this out:http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19022&postcount=13
tune up and let me know how you get on....

love to us all
mark

i dont eat frogs legs.....berk

In a rush I'll try read and undertsand that link later. What notes you using? a standard tuning like this-e a d g b e? I tun my strings as low as possible for a better lower bass sound.
Although this is a good way to tune as well. Drop both e notes to a d (d g d g b d)

[supertzar]

It gave me the chills to read your question, markhowie. Not in a bad way...it's just that the number 423 is significant to me personally.

I see that kevinnyc specified 432 Hz. Did you intentionally change it to 423 with the idea that numerologically 432=423?

[markhowie]

It gave me the chills to read your question, markhowie. Not in a bad way...it's just that the number 423 is significant to me personally.

I see that kevinnyc specified 432 Hz. Did you intentionally change it to 423 with the idea that numerologically 432=423?

Thanks for showing me that one
you see i have a dislexic problem with certain numbers and letters .... (no there was no special intent in changing)
i downloaded a little program http://www.tucows.com/preview/341419
and even tuned my guitar to A=423 and it sounds great
ill try it at A=432 when my fingers get better (i cut two fingers two days running)

i do apologise for any confusion...!
@+ mark

[eternal_spirit]

[QUOTE=markhowie;24515]Thanks for showing me that one
you see i have a dislexic problem with certain numbers and letters .... (no there was no special intent in changing)
i downloaded a little program http://www.tucows.com/preview/341419
and even tuned my guitar to A=423 and it sounds great
ill try it at A=432 when my fingers get better (i cut two fingers two days running)

i do apologise for any confusion...!
@+ mark[/QUOTE

I don't use electronic guitar tuners, I tune by ear.
Can you simplify this? what notes are you tuning the strings to, does it start with an (A) Like in a standard tuning you would tune to an (E) Maybe I should read that link again.

[rainmaker]

For more information on 21 Tone Just intonation and how to construct a Just intonation guitar, visit danterosati.com and scroll down to the 21 Tone Just Intonation guitar link.

[eternal_spirit]

This is how I tune my guitar. Think of what the lowest note sounds like you can make with you're voice, it's like laaa or bum(like a bass low)

This is usefull for singing whilst playing. The lowest note on the guitar is the same as the lowest note you're voice can make. It's also usefull if you want to bend the strings, makes it easier.

Heres another tuning..... E A D E B E three E's means three octaves played in one chord,(without playing a bar chord it leaves the other fingers to move about to different positions)you can apply the same logic to different tunings.

[supertzar]

I like to tune a half-step flat. Then there is the option to drop the Eb down to C#. Drop C#, like Sabbath. :cool:

[multiverse]

...
alors tete de bit
va te faire foutre
conard

Wow! That's really not cool. Personally, I prefer the following quote:

A tous les êtres de la terre et de l’univers,
visibles et invisibles ; humains et non humains,
grands et petits :
Puissions nous être en paix
Puissions nous être en harmonie
Puissions nous être libérés.