David asked: "What is the pitch for a pianoforte? A = 430?" David, I believe you should have asked: what is the pitch for a Forte Piano? We tune piano(fortes) every day of the week at 440cps.<G> If you are referring to Forte Pianos of the 19th century or earlier, then it depends on the age/origin of manufacture. A good example would be Swenson's Web page. It has a section on "Musical Pitch". A good start. Also, the back of the "On the Sensations of Tone", by Helmholz. Once you have read those two things, you will get an idea how difficult the question is to answer. I, personally have derived a pitch of 425cps for any piano pre 1850. After that, I tend to use 435cps, if the piano is in good condition and the age is between 1855 and 1880. These pitches, I have found, are reasonably "safe" to use. However, one should really assess the heft of the construction and basic integrity of said construction, before proceeding. If there is any question of the piano's ability to sustain these pitches, I recommend tuning the instrument @ A#=440cps. That way, it will at least, kinda, match up to modern pitches/instruments, ....just a 1/2 tone flat. This later approach is, of course, my last ditch approach, IMHO. Regards, Joe Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon) Captain, Tool Police Squares R I -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100124/511b14cf/attachment.htm>
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