On Nov 9, 2009, at 8:06 PM, Jim Busby wrote: > All, > > Once again there is a push here at BYU to set A442 as our pitch > standard. The Director of the School of Music is behind it, and is > also the Philharmonic Orch conductor. The problem I see is that most > guest artists specify A440. Sooooo… if someone visits we’ll have to > drop down, then back up, back down, up, down… I’m getting dizzy just > thinking about it. > > Any strong arguments against? Or am I just “bein’ contrary” as my > kinfolk would say?? > > Thanks. > Jim Busby BYU Very practically speaking, do all your wind players (students) have 442 instruments? Are all BYU owned wind instruments 442? The question should be asked. Conductors and directors don't necessarily think in these practical terms. It takes quite a financial investment to make a pitch change actually happen. Talk to your wind faculty. Back in the late 19th century, when the French were trying to standardize to 435, the main reason pitch moved back up was because all the winds were made at higher pitch, and nobody was paying the musicians to replace their instruments (in fact, lots of winds at that time were at 456 or so, from a history of "Chorton versus Kammerton," essentially church pitch (415) versus military band pitch (460 or so)). It wasn't actually the strings so much as the winds who pushed pitch back up, and it was simply a matter of the pitch their instruments were made at. We are closer today, but there are still practical issues of people needing to buy a new instrument to play decently in tune at either 440 or 442. They aren't interchangeable for winds. (Or percussion - but percussion pitch is far less critical). Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091109/9b4c5aaf/attachment-0001.htm>
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