432 hz vs 440 hz

Started by chrisssj2, November 27, 2014, 10:38:24 AM

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jochanaan

Having perfect pitch, I most definitely notice the pitch difference between a period group and a modern group, and among various period groups.  Some of Marie-Claire Alain's organ recordings are on period organs that sound a half-step sharp to me; perhaps as high as A480! :o Yes, wind instrumentalists would definitely have to transpose, or have their parts transposed!
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Pat B

Quote from: jochanaan on March 24, 2016, 07:13:12 PM
Having perfect pitch, I most definitely notice the pitch difference between a period group and a modern group, and among various period groups.  Some of Marie-Claire Alain's organ recordings are on period organs that sound a half-step sharp to me; perhaps as high as A480! :o Yes, wind instrumentalists would definitely have to transpose, or have their parts transposed!

I'm not sure who you were responding to. My point was simply that Eb Major is Eb Major. A=440 is a convention, not one that is universally followed, and not a law of nature.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: jochanaan on March 24, 2016, 07:13:12 PM
Having perfect pitch, I most definitely notice the pitch difference between a period group and a modern group, and among various period groups.  Some of Marie-Claire Alain's organ recordings are on period organs that sound a half-step sharp to me; perhaps as high as A480! :o Yes, wind instrumentalists would definitely have to transpose, or have their parts transposed!

Perfect pitch is only "perfect" in relation to the time you were alive. Mozart was reputed to have perfect pitch also, one of the reasons (among others) that he could hear something played once and then go back and write it down 'as played'. But what he heard as 'A' was certainly not what YOU hear as 'A', although no less perfect, yes?

As for A=480 or more (!), yes, many organs back then ranged from 450 to 480. Other instruments ranged down as low as 390!  As Pat says, 440 is just a convention, adopted internationally circa 1850. It sounds right to you because in your lifetime, it has always been 'right'.   :)

8)
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jochanaan

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on March 25, 2016, 05:28:08 AM
Perfect pitch is only "perfect" in relation to the time you were alive. Mozart was reputed to have perfect pitch also, one of the reasons (among others) that he could hear something played once and then go back and write it down 'as played'. But what he heard as 'A' was certainly not what YOU hear as 'A', although no less perfect, yes?

As for A=480 or more (!), yes, many organs back then ranged from 450 to 480. Other instruments ranged down as low as 390!  As Pat says, 440 is just a convention, adopted internationally circa 1850. It sounds right to you because in your lifetime, it has always been 'right'.   :)

8)
Of course.  And before equal temperament was commonly adopted, anyone with a good ear could have heard the differences between the keys by their respective dissonances.
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: jochanaan on March 25, 2016, 02:44:34 PM
Of course.  And before equal temperament was commonly adopted, anyone with a good ear could have heard the differences between the keys by their respective dissonances.

Out of curiosity, Jo, when you were a kid, before you became a pro, could you hear a note on the piano and say "that's an e'' " or was it something you had to train yourself to do? I can't do it, I can say 'that is one tone higher than the previous tone' or whatever, but I couldn't say "C then D". I doubt I ever could, although you never know.   :)

8)
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zamyrabyrd

Quote from: jochanaan on March 24, 2016, 07:13:12 PM
Having perfect pitch, I most definitely notice the pitch difference between a period group and a modern group, and among various period groups.  Some of Marie-Claire Alain's organ recordings are on period organs that sound a half-step sharp to me; perhaps as high as A480! :o Yes, wind instrumentalists would definitely have to transpose, or have their parts transposed!

Changing pitch in the Baroque era according to where one happened to be playing, meaning the tuning of particular organs in churches, Chorton, and the more difficult instruments to tune in other venues (but I suppose you would know more about that) Kammerton, would have driven me bonkers. Singers have particular problems of passaggi that are not easy to negotiate when in that area. Moreover, a certain pitch feels a certain way. Sometimes you cannot hear yourself well, or even at all so have to rely on feeling.

I was thinking that the pitch sensibility back then had a lot to do with context, although JS Bach himself seems to have had a preternatural hearing and developed his Well Tempered Clavier based on more perfectly tuned keys, like C, compared to those with more beats in the other tuned intervals. This discovery came upon fairly recent research disproving that the early 20th century view that all keys are equal. http://www.eunomios.org/contrib/francis2/francis2.pdf

Anyway, different keys wouldn't be equal due to their higher or lower overtones. It's just that having to change all the time up or down must have meant musicians were extremely flexible back then, more than now perhaps or trained in a different way, although I prefer fixed pitch.
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71 dB

The title of this thread irritates me. It's Hz, not hz. Similarly dB, not db.

Hertz (symbol Hz) is named after Heinrich Hertz and decibel (symbol dB) is 1/10 (deci) of a bel (symbol B) named after Alexander Graham Bell.

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Dax

Beethoven's Eroica: opening chords - YouTube

I can't reproduce the link to this at the moment, but it's a bit of an eye/ear opener if you haven't already heard it.

jochanaan

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on March 25, 2016, 04:55:29 PM
Out of curiosity, Jo, when you were a kid, before you became a pro, could you hear a note on the piano and say "that's an e'' " or was it something you had to train yourself to do? I can't do it, I can say 'that is one tone higher than the previous tone' or whatever, but I couldn't say "C then D". I doubt I ever could, although you never know.   :)

8)
As soon as I learned the names of the notes, I could tell what one was when it was played.  Or more than one.
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Marc

This baby has a pitch of a'=502 Hz.



Schnitger organ, Grote Kerk, Zwolle, NL.

https://www.youtube.com/v/5UxsWkJErkw

jochanaan

Quote from: Marc on March 30, 2016, 07:53:24 AM
This baby has a pitch of a'=502 Hz.



Schnitger organ, Grote Kerk, Zwolle, NL.

https://www.youtube.com/v/5UxsWkJErkw
More than a whole step sharp to my ears!  Almost a minor 3rd higher.  Definitely requires transposition by accompanying instruments! :o
Imagination + discipline = creativity

zamyrabyrd

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on March 22, 2016, 07:37:27 AM
IN my limited experience with vocal music, I have noticed a strong tendency for singers to either do only period pitch or only modern pitch. Of course this is a mere generalization because 'period pitch' can range from A=400 to A=450!!  But the commonly used number appears to be between 415-430. I say this based on fully 75% of my collection being period instruments... I didn't expect Otter, only ever having heard her in modern instrument performances (440), to do really well. But I was wrong, she was excellent. I believe the EC were pitched at 430, IIRC. I would think this small difference would be even more difficult than a larger one...

I'd find singing Mozart at a lower pitch much more comfortable, and of course Bach.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: zamyrabyrd on March 30, 2016, 10:19:41 PM
I'd find singing Mozart at a lower pitch much more comfortable, and of course Bach.

Yes, but I wasn't thinking of that, rather, I was thinking that if you were relying on your practiced perfect ear for pitch, that small correction would be even harder than a larger one. :)

8)
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Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Marc

Quote from: jochanaan on March 30, 2016, 03:19:52 PM
More than a whole step sharp to my ears!  Almost a minor 3rd higher.  Definitely requires transposition by accompanying instruments! :o

One of the first questions on the YouTube site: why is it played in C minor instead of B Flat minor?

(Which is of course a 'sin', because one of the performance demands is:

Key signature: The piece is written in B flat minor and has to be performed in this key. Transcriptions to other keys are not allowed.)

:)

Heck148

#34
Quote from: petrarch on November 27, 2014, 12:23:50 PM
There is an interesting paper I came across in the 90s, talking about "the case of the disappearing high Cs", basically a result of the reference pitch getting higher and higher and therefore losing high notes with standard instruments. The phenomenon of tuning the instruments ever higher is due to a desire to get notes with more "bite", related to the demands of good sound projection and perception in bigger rooms and auditoriums.

This phenomenon was common earlier in the 20th century - orchestras were tuning very sharp - A=446-47, IIRC - Vienna PO tuned so sharp that they had special instruments constructed...some US orchestras tuned very high also - Boston for one...
supposedly high tuning gave the strings more "brilliance" - but this had some very serious disadvantages as well - the high tuning caused loss of many mid-range or lower overtones - which was esp negative for the woodwinds....the high tuning produced a thin shrill tone, lacking fullness and middle overtones..also - excessively high tuning results in some bad intonation for winds, as shorter barrels, bocals, lead-pipes etc leads to some distortion...instruments manufactured to play at 443 maximum, are going to be "out of tune with themselves" at significantly higher pitches.
Also - for string players, the increased string tension was detrimental to the instruments themselves - increased strain on the neck was damaging to the string instruments.
most orchestras now tune lower - c. A=440, or A=442  - BSO tuned to 442 in the early 90s, a fact they sent to all candidates intending to audition.

jochanaan

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on March 31, 2016, 04:44:14 AM
Yes, but I wasn't thinking of that, rather, I was thinking that if you were relying on your practiced perfect ear for pitch, that small correction would be even harder than a larger one. :)

8)
It actually isn't.  Up to about a quarter step, it's easy enough for my pitch sense to adjust.  More than that and I have to start transposing in my head. :o
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Jo498

I remember a guy in another forum who found Carlos Kleiber's recording of LvB's 7th with the Vienna phil so painfully sharp (they used a very high pitch in the 1970s) that he made an electronically modified copy retaining the tempo but correcting for pitch because he loved the recording in all other respects.

As Heck148 indicates it seems that most orchestras went back closer to A= 440 since then
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Heck148

Quote from: Jo498 on May 03, 2016, 12:42:41 AM
I remember a guy in another forum who found Carlos Kleiber's recording of LvB's 7th with the Vienna phil so painfully sharp (they used a very high pitch in the 1970s) ......
As Heck148 indicates it seems that most orchestras went back closer to A= 440 since then

yes, I remember hearing of some orchestras tuning as high as A = 446, 447!!
that really trashes the winds and brass...you really need specially scaled instruments to cope with that.

nathanb

I had a guitar teacher in high school (not a classical guitar thing... he didn't teach kids to read music, but to play well by ear). Anyway, in between some interspersed technical lessons, he usually liked us to bring in songs we wanted to learn to play and he would work through them with you.

Anyway, being the angsty 16-year-old I was, I brought in some track off Ride The Lightning, and let's just say, I learned what "440" meant that night. He wasted the entire lesson saying "Well gosh darnit Nathan, this would be a really weird thing to do, but sometimes these musician types like to do this; I think they're calibrated to 444 Hz" and playing snippets over and over with his ear to the speaker. In fairness, I believe Metallica may have slightly sped up a couple of songs on that record, which would contribute to a frequency change.

For the record, I have this same fellow on record telling me that God plays a Gibson SG.

North Star

Quote from: nathanb on May 07, 2016, 06:37:06 PMAnyway, being the angsty 16-year-old I was, I brought in some track off Ride The Lightning, and let's just say, I learned what "440" meant that night. He wasted the entire lesson saying "Well gosh darnit Nathan, this would be a really weird thing to do, but sometimes these musician types like to do this; I think they're calibrated to 444 Hz" and playing snippets over and over with his ear to the speaker. In fairness, I believe Metallica may have slightly sped up a couple of songs on that record, which would contribute to a frequency change.
I thought they tuned to match the bell in For Whom The Bell Tolls on that album.
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