![]() ![]() For one, the exact pitch does vary with temperature and humidity, so even if you experience no changes following tuning, it will have an effect of a few hours at most with playing through your favorite pieces. In the book “Grand Obsession” Perri Knize spends several years and 371 pages to weave the story of getting her Grotrian grand to perform with the right voicing of the hammers and the right temperament, and remained distraught until she discovered one particular temperament.įor me, I have experimented with several of the major temperaments and on the little squares, I am convinced that it makes little difference. For the person with heightened senses, the difference in temperament is the difference between poor to ordinary, and sublime. But how much for each? So much has been written and recorded on this subject. A compromise must be arrived at which allows fifths to be somewhat flat, and thirds and fourths a bit sharp. For a 1784 Broadwood, the total tension on the instrument at A=415 is 1168 kg, and 1313 kg at A=440, or a 12% increase for one semitone.Įlectronic tuners can get you to your chosen pitch, but what of the temperament? This refers to the various schemes for addressing the fact that you cannot have perfect fifths, fourths, and thirds in all keys. This should be born in mind when raising the pitch we can increase tension by a significant amount going from A 415 to A 440. Where T is tension, L is length, p is density, PI is 3.14159…, and D is diameter of the wire in meters. Tension goes as the square of the frequency, so by raising the pitch we increase the tension as the square of the difference. What you ultimately choose will also alter the string tension on your instrument. If you play with ensemble players and can transpose, A 415 is convenient, but if you want your players to tune down, as close to A 440 as possible will probably make more friends for you, and choosing A=430 to 435 at least has some historical precedence. If we were to compromise and agree on A 430 we would not be wrong, but your piano may have been at many pitches over the years. However, if your piano was shipped to France or Germany you might shift that pitch down a few cents (100 cents make a semitone). The majority are between A 430 and A 437, with most at A 433. For the period that is of most interest to us, say, 1770 to 1800, we find in England a distribution of pitches in vogue, the lowest statistically relevant being A 410, and the highest A 447. It would be inappropriate to quote extensively from this book, you should think about adding it to your library, but in short, he has pulled from measuring standard woodwinds, technician’s notes, and various apocrypha a range of pitches in use at various periods. But for any given time the pitch was at several different values depending on the technician, musician, or local custom.īruce Haynes has given us “A History of Performing Pitch – The Story of A” Scarecrow Press, Oxford 2002 which runs to nearly 600 pages (and $100!) on the subject of pitch. Right in that pitch did indeed tend to move upward with time, generally rising from A= 400 in the late 17th C to the value today of A=440 hz. This assumption is both wrong and right! Wrong, in that pitch was geographically different for different places at the same time, and different for different musical groups, orchestras, and individuals also at the same time. ![]() ![]() We as a community labor under the assumption that the value of A, (the pitch or ‘cammerton’) began at some fairly low value and increased with the decades settling at A=440 Hz sometime in recent history. Invariably we will come to the question, “How shall I tune my square piano, and to what pitch?” ![]()
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