<HTML>Mark, As a professional brass player for the past 35 years, I have encountered more than enough organs in large (often well-off) churches that were below A440 sufficiently to cause major problems.  Even if one has sufficient tuning slide range to accomplish lowering the instrument to that pitch, it is frequently touch and go being able to adjust one's internal clock, so to speak, to a point that it allows one to stay in tune with the organ and other players at that pitch level.  Fiendishly difficult.  Woodwind instruments simply do NOT have the possibility to adjust that far without major revisions to the instruments.  And if strings are involved, might as well forget even trying, since reducing tension that far on the instruments makes them sound exceptionally funky....most will simply ignore the instrument and play at their usual level, which is an..er..interesting sound! There used to be a number of left-over 19th c. organ emplacements in the Chicago area that were routinely found to be about a half step low......most couldn't be raised to A440 owing to the length of pipes (without major overhaul to adjust lengths).   Luckily, by this time, most of those are no longer serviceable and have been replaced/rebuilt/remanufactured to current standards. As for an instrument that is that high in pitch--it will cause at LEAST as many problems for the other players as one that low, and maybe more, since there is usually more room to tune downwards than upwards.  But in any case, it will be most uncomfortable, and they will get what they deserve for leaving it in that condition, if that is what they elect to do. PLEASE try to do everyone a favor and get it back to A440....442 we handle regularly, but 440 is just FINE!!!! Stan Ryberg Barrington IL P.S.      MANY musicians will be glad you asked! <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 18:50:46 -0500 From: bases-loaded@juno.com Subject: how high(low) do you go? List - Another first... Went to tune a piano to a pipe organ at a church, and found the pipe organ 28 cents SHARP!  Yep, sharp....And it was JUST tuned....I am more accustomed to 15-20 cents flat.  Anyway.... I convinced the music director that tuning the piano that high was not advisable, and he agreed to A-440. Which brings up the following query... How high are you willing to tune a piano, when circumstances require it? A-442 would be about 8 cents high, right?  I assume you would go there? Would you go 10 cents?  15? Conversely, when tuning to a pipe organ, as mentioned, I find that typically they are 15-20 cents low, although I have one within 4 cents (sometimes).  My question here is more oriented to the use of 'other' instruments when tuned this low....i.e., how low can OTHER instruments be expected to 'play along' with tunings that are below A-440?  5 cents? 10 cents?  15 cents?  Just how long ARE the mouth pieces of most wind instruments?  Can they be expected to elongate themselves as much as 18 cents to match a pipe organ and still be playable?   Any wind players out there? Looking for parameters... Mark Potter bases-loaded@juno.com     </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>