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440 or 442?

From Daniel Stone
Posted May 11, 2007 at 05:00 AM

When a string soloist plays with an orchestra, does the soloist ever tune a few cents sharper? In other words, the orchestra at 440 and the soloist at 442 or 444?

I would think that would help the soloist stand out just a wee bit more, and also make him sound slightly brighter, or more cutting, than the section.

Is this ever done, or even standard practice?

What about with a piano soloist, where the equal-temperment is already mucking things up?

Some soloists in fact do that, and it can be heard on several CD recordings. Honestly, I hate that kind of thing. There should be other methods to make oneself heard than playing out-of-tune.

I have heard, however, from a singing friend, a trained soprano, that her teacher told her as a rule to sing "rather sharp than out-of-tune". Surely flat intonation literally is a downer.

As regards the original question, most orchestras I played in used a' = 442 Hz. That pitch is as good as standardized in Germany. If a concertmaster or conductor wants to play below that, usually the woodwinds immediately start complaining.

Best,
Friedrich

Good fun for the oboists is to tune the winds to A=440, the brass to A=441 and the strings to A=442 to see if anyone notices

We tune at 440, but some members of the wind section tend to drive the pitch sharp RIGHT AWAY.

We have occasionally had a string soloist tune &/or play a little sharp. To me it doesn't sound "bright" or "brilliant" or "cutting," it just sounds sharp. Sharp is not the same thing as in tune. Wind soloists tend to play sharp more than string soloists, in my experience. (This also happens with wind soloists in orchestras -- you can hear it notably on many Vienna Philharmonic recordings.)

When Midori played with us, she did NOT play sharp, even though the usual suspects in the wind section did.

When we have a piano soloist, the concertmaster plays an "A" (officially 440) on the piano. The oboist tunes to that, and the orchestra tunes to the oboe. I sit next to the oboist and can see that his tuner is calibrated to A-440 and also that he gives all three A's in tune, which is interesting because sometimes after the brass and woodwinds tune, his A sounds like it's out of tune; but in fact it's the same pitch he gave before.

To answer your question, though: I would say yes, get used to both. If the piano is tuned to 442 and your ear is tuned to 440, YOU will be the out-of-tune one. Same for if you audition for an orchestra. (I once had to play my concerto with piano in the finals of an orchestra audition: the room was cold, my instrument was flat, and the piano was SHARP. I kept trying to get up to pitch, but I know that my perception that the piano was sharp hindered me. I couldn't quite manage it, and was told afterwards "Sorry, your intonation with the piano was the deal-breaker." Insufficient adaptability = lack of career advancement, in this case at least. Get used to being flexible, that's my $.02.

Nathan: We knew that Mr. Skowronski was a viable 'trend setter' as he established using at least an A-442 way back in the 1970s. In fact, a 'brutal' but highly regarded NY critic and Skowronski crossed swords over the faux-matter, which caused a few of Skowronski's recordings to be lambasted and branded for totally 'out-of-tune' playing (anathema) by the solo violinist.

But, NOW, its the 21st century and "years ago a glimpse of stocking was thought of as something shocking, but heaven knows,"......etc., etc.!!

True 442+ regards,
Skowronski: Classical Recordings
Evanston, IL

From what I remember, the reason for the higher frequency A is to make the sound brighter. You must realise that the pitch A is a frequently changing thing.

In the baroque time, there was no standard A pitch. Generally, it was whatever the organ was tuned to. Sometimes this could be as low as A=410. The strings of the time couldn't handle the same tensions either, so it made sense for it to be lower. As the technology increased, they were able to make a brighter sound by heading upwards, until we averaged out at around 440 for a little while, and that has become pretty standard. Then the top orchestras decided to head upwards a little bit for a bit more of a brighter tone.

Personally, I don't think that we should head much higher than 442, simply because we will eventually be playing so out of tune from what the piece was written for it doesn't make sense anymore.

I'm reminded of the LA Phil auditions I've taken. At the last one they had a little bell they donged, right at the side of the backstage area, before each candidate entered to play. It was a 442 A, "Tune to this," the proctor admonished everyone.

I just bring a chromatic tuner to every audition to make sure I'm at 442. You really don't want to step out there and be slightly flatter than everyone else.

Mathematically, C at 256Hz is a correct pitch but i seriously doubt that putting A at 430Hz will ever catch on at the orchestral level.

I am sorry and I will sound like a jerk for saying this, but in the end, it makes no difference. One should be able to play at many different A's, whether is may be for modern playing or that of any era of performance practice. If you can't play in tune to different A's, then you are not listening for the right things.

Cheers!

There will always be those players who want to blend, and those who don't.

"i think this is the reason why the great european orchestras like the berlin and vienna have such a different sound then american orchestras.. they tune as high as A445 most of the time..."

Funnily enough, European orchestras tend to sound quite a bit darker than American ones. You'd think they'd tune lower.

Standard pitch in Germany is 442-443, and everyone says the Berlin Phil tunes at 444 (I think) for that extra 'edge'.

Christian, I was one of those who was really thrown by the shift from 440 to 442/443. I think it came from expecting to hear (or better feel) a certain tone colour, not getting it, and becoming very confused. I've adapted now, but I do need a few minutes before I do a studio gig to get myself back to 440.

Megan - I understand. I used to get thrown off by trying to play to some inner concept of pitch rather, like Nathan said, to what I was hearing and resonance. Listening for the right things helps. I guess the small difference makes the necessity to correct notes a little more prominent with changing A's as distances change, but that I overcome better. I find that Nathan's perspective solves many issues. I guess my answer was jerky - perhaps tired that day form hours of students finding excuses for stuff instead of getting it done...

Jim - actually, after a while you can, but one hundred percent certainty is not an absolute. But, often these days I can guess and be right quite a bit of times. I guess that you ear becomes sensitive, though for most people it makes no difference.

Cheers!

I definitely agree with what you're saying, and with Nate. One should be able to adjust to all sorts of different A's - without it, you're lost in the professional world. It's puzzling why that can be so difficult. I wonder if it really comes down to resonance - you get used to your violin resonating a certain way when you play at a certain frequency. I'm glad Nate mentioned that violins resonate better at 440 because I've always felt the same way and wondered if I were just hearing things. When you retune your violin, the string resonances are the same but the violin's own resonance is now different - and I think that can be confusing. For me, funnily, I think it might even be less of a question of pitch than one of resonance - I don't remember the sound of a note as much as the way it affects my violin...hard to explain.

In situations where I'm surrounded by harmony, or where I'm in a section, I really don't find different pitches (well, slightly different pitches) to be a problem - but the first few measures of something, or exposed passages, or solistic settings make it all much more difficult.

-------

(For the record, an orchestra never adjusts its pitch to the soloist's 'A-of-choice', as somebody suggested above!)

I was thinking that at 442 two cycles happen in about 0.004 seconds (tcyc = 1/f). It's interesting that there's no other way we could physically perceive that short of an amount of time.

Funny thing: Those pegs keep on turnin' every year, but I don't seem to be getting any brighter!
Maybe a few more cents will do it.....

First, I (no one else) tune by ear. This is easy because I have close to perfect pitch (although it isn't PERFECT perfect). Second, our second violin tunes the best he can to my violin within a reasonable amount of time. Since he doesn't have fine tuners, this is the instrument we tune to. Basically I tune twice, first to my own ear and second to him, who tuned to me.

You could think of it this way: I act as the tuning fork, which provides a pitch, and he acts as the oboe, which is difficult to tune and becomes the tuning standard. I guess it doesn't sound so awkward...isn't that pretty much how the orchestra tunes? :)

to Jay... I was just thinking about something very similar the other day when I tried to explain to my mom how trumpets, saxes, horns, and clarinets are in a different key from the typical C instruments. I tried to explain it by proposing that maybe the instruments were invented before a common key for that instrument was really established, and then eventually a certain company dominated the market with their key becoming the dominant key for that instrument. If anyone knows the real reason, please share it. My imagination likes to convince myself it knows everything sometimes, and this is probably not true.

She goes Four...forty...CHOO!

[Thomas Beecham] was rehearsing with violinist Jacques Thibaud. At the start of rehearsal the oboist, as usual, sounded an A so that orchestra and soloist could tune up. But he was nervous and his A wavered, over quite a range. Shir Thomas turned to Thibaud with a broad gesture. "Jacques, take your choice!"

From Nathan Milstein's book, "From Russian to the West."

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