orchestral tuning

[Dave Nereson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Avery Todd" <avery@ev1.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 3:25 PM
Subject: Re: orchestral tuning


> Ron & List,
>
> Something came up on the CAUT list today where someone said that
> trumpets were now being manufactured for A-442. Is this true? Or
> is it just an option besides A-440? Just wondering.


The brass instruments are tuned by pulling out or pushing in a U-shaped
section of tubing.  Only an un-tunable brass instrument, like a straight
horn with no slides or valves, or a bugle with no tuning crook (or whatever
that adjustable section of tubing is called) could be "manufactured for
A-442" or any other frequency.  The brass tune to some pitch (from a piano,
a pitch pipe, an electronic tuner, or the oboe, or a tone generator) when
they first get out their instruments, then after they warm up, have to
re-tune.  So the instrument is not "manufactured for" any one given pitch.
The tuning range with the movable slide is, I believe, almost a whole step.
Brass players?
    --David Nereson, RPT