loss of pitch

[Joe & Penny Goss]

Hi Susan,
Once heard about a world war 11 refugee who was a cellist. Seems that
during the war he had both ear drums severally damaged due to the  constant
bombardment and could not hear well enough to play. The doctors operated on
his ears putting skin from the thigh area in place of the damaged drum
tissue. The operation was a success, he could hear fine. The only problem
was that he now heard everything a fourth low and could not play with
anyone.
Joe
----------
> From: Susan Kline <skline@proaxis.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Breaking Strings and perfect pitch
> Date: Friday, July 03, 1998 2:06 PM
> 
> At 05:21 PM 7/3/98 -0300, John Ross wrote:
> >Hi List,
> >I haven't heard anyone mention the importance of having the piano up to
> >pitch, if a child is taking lessons or if it is being played with other
> >instruments.
> >If I run into a problem with broken strings, I always determine what the
> >piano is being used for. In the above two cases I feel it must be
> >brought up to pitch if at all possible. 
> 
> I might just add that it is particularly crucial if a young child, even
one
> not taking lessons, has absolute pitch. Once set at a certain level, it
> cannot be changed. In our tuning course, one of the students had perfect
> pitch, and grew up around a piano that was 1/4 tone flat. I asked if it
had
> changed once he heard normal pitch being used. No, he said, he still
> remembered what he had grown up with. He hummed a note, and said, "this
is
> what our piano was like," and then hummed another, 1/4 tone higher, "and
> this is standard pitch." He had the two scales coexisting in his mind.
> While it is a remarkable demonstration of tonal memory and the capacity
of
> people to adjust, I doubt he would have chosen to have to do this.
> 
> It's a remarkable capacity. I knew someone in his mid-sixties with
perfect
> pitch, who was having a lot of medical problems. His pitch sense had
> shifted a semitone low, and it was driving him nuts when he played, since
> he had learned a lot of the piano repertory by heart while "hearing" it a
> semitone higher. Has anyone else come across someone whose absolute pitch
> has shifted?
> 
> (I hope that this mention of perfect pitch doesn't start another round in
> the "it's not _perfect!!!_" discussion. Perfect pitch (absolute pitch) is
a
> term that, like Topsy, "just growed." It means the power to remember and
> identify pitches without losing track of them or forgetting them. It has
> nothing to do with _exactitude_, which varies a lot with different people
> who have absolute pitch. Some string players with perfect pitch whom I
have
> known had excellent, exact intonation, and others had a terrible time
with
> it. They knew it was F#, or whatever, but not how to place the F# with
any
> precision.)
> 
> >I do
> >however point out the piano will sound better at the pitch it was
> >designed for, and eventually it should be brought up.
> 
> I agree. In fact, today I tuned an 1882 George Steck grand, and moved it
> from just below 440 down to 435. The bass in particular sounded much more
> comfortable. Rounder, fuller, less edgy. I don't, however, know what the
> pitch standard (if there was a single one) was in 1882. Can anyone help
> with this? What sort of pitch would the people at George Steck have used
> when designing this piano? I can only guess that it would probably have
> been below 440.
> 
> Does anyone else do this sort of thing, since so many pianos which we
tune
> were designed before A440 became standard? I tune them to A440 if they
look
> strong and are going to be played with other instruments, but often tune
> them to A435 if they are going to be played alone. Sometimes they even
have
> a decal on the plate, saying, "Standard pitch: A=435." Partly I do it
> because I'm interested in how they sound when they are at their original
> pitch. 
> 
> Sorry about the endless length. Just unwinding from a very long week when
I
> saw too many pianos. Looking forward to two days to catch up.
> 
> Susan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Susan Kline
> P.O. Box 1651
> Philomath, OR 97370
> skline@proaxis.com		
> 
>