It is interesting that orchestras are so concerned about the pitch of the piano, but no one ever notices the pitch of the percussion instruments. The ones at UA were all pitched at 442. I presume that's standard for all percussion instruments. Same for the harps. I like the idea of having four or five tuning forks tuned to 440, but marked at different pitches. Let's see if a violinist can pick out the correct one. Wim -----Original Message----- From: RON MAY, RPT <ronmay_rpt at bellsouth.net> To: Pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 2:38 pm Subject: [pianotech] CONCERT PITCH 440/442? Surprisingly, in our?little piece of paradise known as Vero Beach, FL We have a Symphonic Association for which I am proud to be the tuner. ? Since January 1 we have had seven (7) world class?symphony orchestras and 5 terrific pianist. These symphonies?consisted of the Dublin Philharmonic, The Czech Symphony, The Munich Symphony, The Estonian National Symphony, The National Philharmonic of Russia and two concerts with our own Bervard Symphony of which we are very proud. this is very much like all of the programs put on by our association annually. ? All symphonies and artists coming from Europe requested?A442 which at the associations?direction I produced. That is until about two years ago.? I understand that Hamburg Steinway also demands or at least suggests 442. The problem is that?our piano is used in a large church where it is played with a great pipe organ.?There are also numerous recitals, concerts, etc using the piano weekly and other than?our symphonic association and the European concerts, the piano?is and was maintained at 440.? This meant that every ttime the piano was tuned to 442, I had to go back in and bring it back down to 440 which even with this small difference, required a couple tunings because of stability problems. ? I had questioned this with the association prior to every concert.? Fortunately, a member of the association has a PHD in piano performance and is in total agreement with me but we tried to keep everyone happy ---that is until a well known European symphony came to town with a really great pianist.?As usual, I?went up prior to the concert and met with the director and the artist to check on any possible problems with the piano. While talking, I asked them, "Why do we need 442 instead of 440"? to which the director started stamering around about the violins, the horns, the this, the that. The 1st violinest overheard the conversation and came running up all excited-and in broken english -Piano at 442 right - right. I answered yes, Its 442, ?I would just like to know WHY'? ? The concert went on, It became time for the pianist to take his place at the piano, The violinist came forth to tune the orchestra to the piano.? She struck A4 on the piano, walked away from the piano and 5 or 10 seconds later strumed what she thought she heard and tuned the orchestra she thought to the piano. I heard a beautiful Beethoven Concerto played on a beautiful piano tuned to A442 ----with an orchestra that was closer to 435.? I was upset. ? I thank sombody on this list that made this suggestion some time ago ?which we now use. ? I wrote a form letter from the Symphonic Association Piano Technician that merely states that, "We will be happy to tune the piano to A442 for you, however, This fine piano is maintained at A440 to?satisfy the ?majority of the artists as well as the church. If you wish the piano tuned to A442 we will be happy to do so, however,?it will require that the piano be retuned back to A440 immediately after the concert and we will have no choice but to charge you $500.00 for the several tunings it will take to bring it back to 440.. ? Since then we have had no problems---that is until about 2 weeks ago.? We had an orchestra,(no pianist) coming in demanding a piano and for it to be tuned A442. When we informed them of our situation they said fine, we will bring our own piano which they did.? It was some kind of an electric keyboard that I would bet was maybe 439. ? Ron May Vero Beach -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090429/f7d7aa47/attachment-0001.html>
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