Thine Hallow Pitche

[David Ilvedson]

With my symphony customers who are playing at 442 in the concert hall, 442 seems very appropriate for their home...;-]
If these same customers wanted 440 one time and 442 the next I would suspect you would have a problem...
Any change of 8 cents is going mean some instability.  That means going through the piano twice and more $ from the customer.  If it needs to come back down it will need tuning twice and more $ again.  Our symphony here in San Francisco tunes to A442, mainly because of the former concert master's insistance...I believe.  Question:  wouldn't it be a pain for other instrumentalists to switch between 440 and 442?  Don't violins have to be set up for the different pitches?  

I think most tuners would have no problem with A442 if everyone would stick to it.  But then we would have musician "purists" insisting upon the old standard of A440 and remarking about how much better it sounds there.

David I.

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On 3/1/01 at 6:24 PM Kristinn Leifsson wrote:

>O.K.  Carol wrote about the pitch thing.
>
>We normally tune to A440, but the symphony tunes to A442  We don´t take 
>them as far as A444 (unless perhaps when stock tuning new pianos). I heard 
>A444, is concert standard in Austria and the Czech Rep., but that´s
>another 
>matter.
>I have customers that play in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and I don´t 
>hesitate to bring a piano up to 442, as long as the strings etc. are 
>healthy.  In fact, any time I tune a piano I ask whether there are other 
>instruments going to be used with it.
>
>I have NEVER had a problem resulting from tuning an instrument to A442.
>There has never been a broken string at a concert I have tuned for.
>
>So what´s the deal with the holy pitch?  Are there many tuners out there 
>that will absolutely NOT bring a piano above A440,
>and will -quote- "sooner quit their jobs than do it" -unquote- (hi 
>Carol).  I´m not talking about whether to charge more etc.  just the 
>principle of the thing.  I know this has been covered many times before, 
>but please.
>
>Carol knows that I think it´s ridiculous, if the instrument is healthy. 
><g>  What do other people think?  And what about other Europeans?
>
>
>Kristinn "Psychotuner" Leifsson
>Reykjavík, Iceland