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Looper's Delight
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| 442 is the standard in Japan nowadays. Of course in the early music world, historically informed practice (HIP) takes into consideration the various pitches in various cities in various times. For example Bach regularly had to switch between organ pitch and house pitch. However, the further back in time you go, the more guesswork it is. Most lute tutors simply state: tune the first string as high as it will go without breaking. Wikipedia: Some idea of the variance in pitches can be gained by examining old pitchpipes, organ pipes and other sources. For example, an English pitchpipe from 1720[2] plays the A above middle C at 380 Hz, while the organs played by Johann Sebastian Bach in Hamburg, Leipzig and Weimar were pitched at A = 480 Hz, a difference of around four semitones. In other words, the A produced by the 1720 pitchpipe would have been at the same frequency as the F on one of Bach's organs. The take home message is that there was no standard until very recently. My view is that for contemporary music you can play at whatever pitch you choose, but if you are trying to recreate music of the past, as it was heard then, you should take pitch into consideration. It is asking a lot of singers to sing a tone higher for works that were not meant to be sung at that pitch. Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan |