Hello Knowledgeable Finale-ists,
As part of a conversation with a pianist friend today, we both were wondering why Concert Pitch A in America is 440 Hz and different in Europe. He said when he was touring in Europe, he had to request the American 440 Hz tuning and if the piano was tuned to the European standard, the other performers had a hard time playing.
As usual, Andrew's analysis is most excellent, and there are not two different "official" standards even though there continue to be local variations. But the statement above bothers me. He was touring in Europe and the European musicians had a hard time playing with a piano tuned to the European standard? Does not compute!
I know that in the last 500-odd years the range has been 440 plus or minus about 50 Hz.
That's one way to look at it, but it's a 440-centric way. The hard thing for modern musicians to understand and accept is that THERE WAS NO PITCH STANDARD beyond the pitch of the local organ. Chamber pitch in Paris, judging from surviving woodwinds, may have been the lowest in Europe. Pitch in Venice was reported to be the highest in Europe. In the Germanic Kingdoms there were at least 4 separate "standards" in use, but they were probably not tied to specific frequencies as we are used to. Some flutes survive with half-a-dozen different length middle joints to allow them to be played at different pitch standards.
When large groups of musicians came together (there's a very complete description of a 16th century wedding for which over 90 musicians were on hand), they could not and did not play together because their instruments were built to different pitch standards. Instead of a musician having HIS instrument, and taking it with him to a variety of different gigs as we do today, he would use the instruments owned by the church or the chourt or the chapel where he was playing, which were built to the local pitch standard. The inventory taken on the death of Henry VIII lists many, many instruments and sets of instruments, but there's no guarantee that the instruments at one castle could have been played with the instruments from another.
Does anyone on the list know how America came to have 440 and Europe has a different frequency?
Not so, as Andrew pointed out. I'll do a little more research and may have more detail to offer later.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
