[CAUT] A440 percussion

[Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel)]

There's a standard joke at the Cincinnati Symphony is that they tune to
A-441 and play at 442. The orchestra DOES tend to get sharper as they go
along and I think this is a very common natural tendency. A kind of "pushing
the envelope"...finding the edge where excitement begins to become
unmusical. It is definitely better to err on the side of being a little
sharp rather than the other way around and this is possibly what
collectively pushes the pitch upwards. I never let the piano get below A-441
and tune it with a lot of stretch. There is a natural system of checks and
balances in the orchestra and the percussionists have their bars set at 442
because they have to. They set the upper limit. I have had a few discussions
with the harpist (who sits almost inside the piano when it is in the
orchestra) about how she copes with the stretch on the piano. She (as almost
all harpists do) tunes with a strobe tuner. She just tunes it to A-442, no
stretch. There is currently a small controversy swirling about the celesta
because of an upcoming recording session. The orchestra's celesta is an
ancient rattletrap and they've finally decided it sounds flat...

Despite all this, the general intonation of the orchestra is excellent. They
make the necessary musical adjustments as they play and it somehow works
out.

Eric Wolfley, RPT
Supervising Piano Technician
College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred S Sturm [mailto:fssturm@unm.edu] 
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 10:01 AM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: [CAUT] A440 percussion

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 17:46:09 EDT
  Wimblees@aol.com wrote:
> 
> I found out about this a couple of months ago when the 
>harp player told me  
> she tunes to 442 to be in tune with the percussion 
>instruments. But  the oboe 
> plays 440, and no one has asked me to tune the piano to 
>442. 
> 
>For those orchestras that tune to 440, but use mallet 
>instruments tuned to  
> 442, doesn't the conductor complain these instruments 
>aren't in tune with  the 
> rest of the orchestra? 
> 
> This get's me to wondering if those who seem to be so 
>worried about it,  
> really know if the orchestra is tuned to 442 or 440? 
>Personally I think it is  
> just a case of "I want to be different", and/or "I am 
>sooooo good, that I can  
> tell the difference", when perhaps they really can't. 
> 
> Wim  
> 
> Willem Blees,  RPT
> Piano Technician
> School of Music
> University of  Alabama
> 
Well, Wim, do remember that most orchestra members have 
some kind of electronic tuner these days. Not up to our 
standards in accuracy, but definitely capable of 
discerning the difference between 440 and 442. So 
virtually any orchestra member could know with a fair 
degree of precision what the pitch is, regardless of the 
precision of their "perfect pitch." Furthermore, any wind 
player would be able to tell just by how the instrument 
responds in trying to match pitch, and string players are 
well attuned to how their instruments sound (timbre) at 
various pitches. I think you would find that the vast 
majority of professional orchestra members would know 
quite well what pitch the piano had been tuned to.
As for the audience or the critics, that's a different 
question <g>
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
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