<HTML>In a message dated 1/11/02 12:48:07 AM !!!First Boot!!!, joegarrett@earthlink.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">All, A comment was made, "I can see no justification for raising the pitch....." I will give ONE very strong reason: EAR TRAINING. If some continue to leave pianos "where they are", etc, for little Johnny to practice on, we will never get rid of the horrible phenomenon of "Tin Ears". Please consider this. Music is to be loved, enjoyed and to ease our day to day stresses. IMHO any piano that is out of tune or not at proper pitch does none of that. Respectfully, Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon) </BLOCKQUOTE> Joe Music can be loved at any pitch. Consider that Mozart, Bach, and most of the great composers, probably didn't have a piano or organ tuned to A440. Yet, they somehow managed to produce some pretty fantastic music. As far as ear training is concerned, there is no reason for a piano to be at A440. Ear training is not identifying which note is which on the piano. Ear training is the ability to sing and hear intervals. Once a pitch is given, ear training teaches how to sing another pitch. So it doesn't make any difference where that pitch is, in reference to a piano, even it the piano is out of tune. Unless one has perfect pitch, very few people are going to know the difference. I am sure, like most of us, I have sung many a hymns a step or two higher or lower, and never knew it. And if I did, it didn't bother me, or any one else in choir. All we had to know was the starting note, and off we went. Now I am not advocating we tune all pianos at what ever pitch we find it. But they don't need to be there for ear training. Wim </HTML>