432Hz

[zefrenm]

Brings back memories of old piano tuners argument over temperament, and alternate tunings. middle-a has gone steadily up since the first caveman stringed a harp. now that music has been freed from the piano I can go as high as it wants middle until middle a becomes B-flat and the preferred key for guitarists and vocalists becomes F sharp. I have a 1920 gulbranson player piano that it took a while to find a piano tuner that could tune it to a-335 with a 1900ISH temperament , because I have plans to add a stack of violin pipes to it, and no one makes them for modern tuning. it's all personal choice, you're only limit is who and where and the knowledge of the people you're playing with.

[byacey]

If anyone is interested, Hermann von Hemholtz's work "On the sensations of tone", in particular the chapter called "The history of musical tuning in Europe".

That's a great book, but pretty heavy reading. I have a copy but the last time I opened it up was about 25 years ago.

Concert pitch has gone up and down over time, and varied from city to city. Often it was dictated by the pitch of the local church or concert hall pipe organ, and these organs were not built to any particular standard pitch reference. I read an article on this topic years ago, but I can't remember where I saw it. Wikipedia has this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... tern_music

[zefrenm]

too bad he didnt play anything in the Greek tuning lol

[subharmonic]

Aint nuthin to it
440 made me do it