A 440 Standard

Don A. Gilmore eromlignod@kc.rr.com
Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:38:46 -0500


This is very interesting.  457.4 Hz seems ridiculously high, doesn't it?  It
makes you wonder what their reasoning was.

457.4 is 66 cents sharper than 440.  That would mean that it is closer to A#
than to A!

In fact, if you called the system A#-457.4, then A-nat would be 431.73 Hz,
or about 33 cents flatter than 440.  That makes me think.  Why couldn't you
just rename the system like that?  You get the same notes (well, the same
frequencies anyway).  You get an A closer to the A that the piano was
designed for.  And you can get it by going flatter instead of sharper.
Technically you would be transposed a half step from what the music would
have sounded like if A-natural had been tuned to 457.4, but hey, you're
still closer to the original A-440.

But then I guess you wouldn't really get the "benefit" of tuning the
orchestra string section higher.  Oh well, I tried.  How about if they
transpose the music of the stringed instruments down a semitone and left the
rest of the orchestra scores alone?  Then the strings could tune to the
higher, better sounding tension without annoying the rest of the orchestra.
That way when everyone else is playing A, the violins would see Ab on their
score; but since their instruments are tuned a semitone high, it would sound
like the same note...and everyone is happy!

I too am alarmed at the tendency to go sharp with tunings because of the
obvious encroachment upon the ultimate tensile strength of the strings,
which are ostensibly pretty close to the breaking point anyway.  Since the
relation between tension and frequency is an exponential one, the tension
increases drastically as we raise in pitch.  For example, to raise the pitch
one octave (2 x frequency) requires a fourfold increase in tension!  The
tension has already doubled by the time you get an augmented fourth up.
Bang!

To raise the pitch from 440 to 457.4 would increase the string tension by
about 8%.  If the string had a tension of 150 lbs, this would increas it by
12 lbs.  Multiplied by, say, 215 strings, this amounts to 2600 lbs more
compression on the harp!  No thank you!

Don A. Gilmore
Mechanical Engineer
Kansas City

-----------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel)" <WOLFLEEL@UCMAIL.UC.EDU>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 9:16 PM
Subject: RE: A 440 Standard


> Before this subject is exhausted, I want to bring out this essay "The
> History of Musical Pitch in Tuning the Pianoforte" by Edward Swenson from
> Edward Swenson's web page... http://www.mozartpiano.com/pitch.html . I use
> it when teaching my tuning and technology class because I find it quite
> fascinating and illuminating. For example, by examining the table at the
end
> of his essay you will see that in 1845 the Vienna Conservatory was using a
> tuning fork of A-445.4 and that in 1874 Broadwood's tuners were using a
fork
> tuned to A-454.7.  In 1879 New York Steinways were being tuned to a fork
> measured at A-457.4. The middle of the 19th century generally saw pitches
> levels well above our "standard" of A-440. Mention is made of complaints
of
> the "monstrous growth in the upswing of musical pitch" in 1834 Vienna with
a
> tuning fork measured at A-445.1.
>
> Check it out.
>
> Eric Wolfley
> Cincinnati Conservatory
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Ellis [mailto:claviers@nxs.net]
> Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 8:36 PM
> To: caut@ptg.org
> Subject: A 440 Standard
>
> I think David Ilvedson is correct.  I think if we all went along with the
> A=442 idea, it would just keep climbing.  Just look at where A was 300
> years ago.  There wasn't much of an accepted standard, but what there was,
> was well below 440.  Then 200 Years ago.  Then 100 years ago the
> "International Standard" was 435 Hz.  It kept climbing, so everyone got
> together and set a new "standard" at 440 Hz, thinking it would stay there.
> Well, we see what's happening.  The manager of the Oak Ridge Civic Music
> Association tells me he has a degree in psychology, and that he is
> convinced it is a psychological thing.  I agree.
>
> Someone on this list, I forgot who, said it might be that these orchestras
> just want to make sure the piano is not flat.  That could be, but if
> someone tells me he wants the piano at A=442, I assume that's what he
means.
>
> Well, the 79-year-old D at Oak Ridge High School (the one the National
> Symphony will use next week) was 16 cents flat and badly out of tune when
I
> found it yesterday - having gone through the winter with no attention
other
> than getting banged on in the High School Band Room, and catching a few
> spit-wads.  I got a brief window of time with it yesterday, and it's now
at
> A=441.5 Hz.  This time tomorrow it will be solid at A=442 Hz.  After that,
> it won't get tuned again before the performance a week from tonight.  The
> problem is, there is no time window when I can get access to it.  Tomorrow
> afternoon is IT, and the weather is supposed to turn warm and rain next
> week.  But unless someone knocks it off its stage truck again, busts the
> artist bench again, breaks the lyre off again, drops the lid in the floor
> again, breaks another leg off again, or smashes the music desk again, it
> will be OK for the concert a week from tonight.  The ORHS auditorium is
the
> only large one in town with a big stage.
>
> This old piano is the same one that was once in Steinway's concert pool,
> got it's key frame re-made when Steinway got it's "Accelerated Action"
> patent, and came directly to Oak Ridge from Steinway during World War II.
> Sorry, but I have a bias, and I keep showing it around here.  That old
> piano has a unique history.  If ever an old piano was an old war horse,
> that one is.  But the younger generation does not realize it, nor
> appreciate it, and I have given up on a total restoration for it.
>
> Jim Ellis
>
>
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