A little out of sync is a fatter sound and much more interesting...a little out, not HT out... '-] David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 ----- Original message ---------------------------------------- From: "Porritt, David" <dporritt at mail.smu.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Received: 11/10/2009 5:20:02 AM Subject: Re: [CAUT] A440, once again... >Jim: >Just in the past 2 weeks our orchestra conductor has asked me for 441. I'm >currently keeping our concert hall pianos at 441 and I'll see what comments (if any) I >get. The percussion instruments are all set high from the factory. Our double reed >teachers (both principals in the Dallas Symphony) want their studio pianos at 441 >since that's where the DSO lives. Actually though they get a 441 from the principal >oboist everyone else in the orchestra hits that a little high. The organ in the >symphony hall is tuned at 443.5. >When we tune a piano we set A at one place and carefully tune everything else to >match as perfectly as possible. The symphony is not that way. In reality, if all the >violins played exactly in tune it would sound like one violin but louder. Since that >isn't (can't be) done that mixing of the slightly different pitches and varying vibrato >speeds gives the sound we're used to hearing. When hearing a solo piano played, >we expect these beat free unisons and virtually beat free octaves or we're in >trouble. With orchestras it's not that way. >I love standards too and have toed the line on 440 but I think in some ways it's a >lost cause. It's been going generally up forever and I can't see that stopping. My >theory is that these people with super accurate pitch recognition perceive 440 as >boring and the "new" 442 is exciting. When that becomes boring, they (or their >successors) will want 444 or 445. I work for Director of the Music Division. If he >says 441 I'll tune 441. It's his school. >dp >PS Oh, that requirement for 440 in guest artist's contract is just so the piano is >tuned! I don't think the vast majority of them would know nor care. >David M. Porritt, RPT >dporritt at smu.edu >From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jim >Busby >Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 9:07 PM >To: caut at ptg.org >Subject: [CAUT] A440, once again... >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
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