"Standard Tuning" for Mandolins in the teens and twenties?

[Backlineman]

I would assume this topic has probably been covered, so if there are old threads on this topic please let me know. While disassembling an old baby grand piano the other day I noticed on the Harp a stencil that read "International Pitch A435” The Piano was built around 1910. So I started to wonder if I should try tuning my teens and twenties instruments to A435 to see what they might have been built to sound like? I’ve heard all the theories (conspiracy or otherwise) about A432 vs A440 tuning. But it seems that while lot of people may find A432 tuning more pleasant, natural, and what ever else, in fact A435 was pretty well established as a “standard” until some time around WWII when A440 gained acceptance.
I wonder if anyone has tried A435 tuning with mandolin family instruments built in the teens and twenties? Is there any tuning recommendations documented in Gibson catalogs or music trades from this period prior to the shift to A440? I wonder about what effect a “higher” tuning at (A440) might have on the string tension, tone, how an instrument ages, and a variety of other factors on Mandolin Family instruments that may well have been designed and built, to be tuned and played at a lower pitch.

[Bruce Clausen]

It'd take you under five minutes to try it and then let us know what you think.

Before people started using electronic tuners obsessively (the 1980's where I live) string instruments were all over the map. Pitch wandered far and wide over the course of a gig as players adjusted to each other. The standard pitch matters mostly when you're playing with a piano or other fixed pitch instrument.

[barney 59]

It was pretty common for people to carry around tuning forks back in the day(my day) so we were not likely to be too far off tuning to each other. I think we tended to have better ears back then simply because we HAD to listen and didn't rely on some digital readout telling us we were in or out of pitch. Maybe it's age but mostly I think it's laziness but my ear isn't as good as it once was before the digital revolution made tuning so easy, now I tune with my eyes!
From what I have read "standard" tuning almost didn't exist and changed by region or fashion whim or whatever-(repairs to the frayed ends of the church organ pipes might result in raising the " standard" pitch for the whole town!) If I were to decide to try and replicate how a vintage mandolin might have sounded along with lowering the pitch to 435 ( or 432 for you Harmonic Convergence fans) I'd also try and find some non hex core strings which I believe might be possible to find. I believe the American Federation of Musicians adopted 440 in 1920 and that's pre- Himmler for the conspiracy fans. A higher pitch (440) would result in a brighter tone than at 435 --but 435 will definitely make you unpopular at jams and make playing along with recordings difficult. It does make sense though if you have an old instrument or are really into old styles of music to try and recreate the conditions that musicians might have had back then. You might also try picking cotton all day,drinking a mason jar of corn liquor(to dull the pain from the bleeding fingers) and playing all night at your new lowered pitch.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

From what I read over the years, pitch was all over the place until a 1938 London conference. Here's an essay on the subject:
http://www.wam.hr/sadrzaj/us/Cavanagh_440Hz.pdf

Gibson referred to their preferred pitch ("international pitch") at least twice. In a, I believe, 1921 catalog and their 1923 Service Manual, p. 24: http://www.mandolinarchive.com/docum...al/page24.html

Here's what Roger Siminoff found out about Loar's approach:
http://siminoff.net/cms/wp-content/u...rHear-9-06.pdf

[JH Murray]

So I wonder if this change in pitch from A as 435Hz, to the modern 440Hz has changed how we compose songs. The human voice can only go so high. Have composers chosen keys in lower ranges to compensate for this shift, or are we all being asked to push our voices higher?

[Phil Goodson]

Methinks you're overthinking a measly 5 cycles per second.

[Misty Stanley-Jones]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard)

"Prior to the standardization on 440 Hz, many countries and organizations followed the Austrian government's 1885 recommendation of 435 Hz. The American music industry reached an informal standard of 440 Hz in 1926, and some began using it in instrument manufacturing. In 1936 the American Standards Association recommended that the A above middle C be tuned to 440 Hz.[1] This standard was taken up by the International Organization for Standardization in 1955 (reaffirmed by them in 1975) as ISO 16.[2] Although not universally accepted, since then it has served as the audio frequency reference for the calibration of acoustic equipment and the tuning of pianos, violins, and other musical instruments."

The footnotes referenced are pretty interesting. This article is also interesting: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo..._Western_music

[Misty Stanley-Jones]

"At the beginning of the 17th century, Michael Praetorius reported in his encyclopedic Syntagma musicum that pitch levels had become so high that singers were experiencing severe throat strain and lutenists and viol players were complaining of snapped strings" from the second article.

[LongBlackVeil]

try humming into your soundhole, now try raising and lowering the pitch. You will eventually find a note that is more resonant than the rest. Thats the resonant frequency. Honestly the teens mandolins werent built for any certain pitch or tuning. They were just put together,

Loar did tap tuning which means his mandolins were built for a certain resonant frequency. But i imagine these resonant frequencys have drifted over the years due to age and movement of the wood etc.

[Backlineman]

Methinks you're overthinking a measly 5 cycles per second.

Probably your right. No doubt I've played at A435 or lower many times before and didn't know it. (and probably higher than a 440 as well) Before I started using clip on tuners, I only tuned electronically if I was recording or changing strings.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

As to post #5, I doubt that 5 Hz make much of a difference. Other than that, transposing is the key word, which is admittedly hard to do or sometimes almost impossible in classical instrumental music with key board instruments in non-equal temperament. For singer's however, I don't think there is a certain hidden secret in the key - unless they have absolute hearing.
I may add that Bill Monroe (A 440) was among the first country music artists to chose his (musical) keys so he could sing well. In country music B major hadn't been very popular before him. Monroe himself rose "Blue Moon of KY" from key of A up to C on and "KY Waltz" from D to E, if I'm not mistaken.

[Backlineman]

From what I read over the years, pitch was all over the place until a 1938 London conference. Here's an essay on the subject:
http://www.wam.hr/sadrzaj/us/Cavanagh_440Hz.pdf

Gibson referred to their preferred pitch ("international pitch") at least twice. In a, I believe, 1921 catalog and their 1923 Service Manual, p. 24: http://www.mandolinarchive.com/docum...al/page24.html

Here's what Roger Siminoff found out about Loar's approach:
http://siminoff.net/cms/wp-content/u...rHear-9-06.pdf

Thanks for all these links. I read the Siminoff piece on "What Loar Heard" once before, and am glad to have re- read it now. If Siminoff is right, and I'm sure he is, Loar instruments were built and "voiced" to be tuned to A430; even lower than the "magical" or "natural" A432, and well below both the "international standard" of the time A435, and the current standard A440. I guess for a "tap tuned" instrument like and F5 the difference in tuning to A440 would be significant, or maybe it's just a great and wonderful mistake that players and listeners love the sound of these instruments tuned to A440 today.

[LongBlackVeil]

Thanks for all these links. I read the Siminoff piece on "What Loar Heard" once before, and am glad to have re- read it now. If Siminoff is right, and I'm sure he is, Loar instruments were built and "voiced" to be tuned to A430; even lower than the "magical" or "natural" A432, and well below both the "international standard" of the time A435, and the current standard A440. I guess for a "tap tuned" instrument like and F5 the difference in tuning to A440 would be significant, or maybe it's just a great and wonderful mistake that players and listeners love the sound of these instruments tuned to A440 today.

a great instrument will sound like a great instrument regardless of whether it is tuned to the exact pitch that it was designed for. Plus like i said, that resonant frequency is no doubt different now than when loar originally put them together

[Bruce Clausen]

Methinks you're overthinking a measly 5 cycles per second.

Yep. Tuning A to 435 puts you a little under 20 cents flat compared to 440. On a warm evening your mandolin or guitar probably already fluctuates that much.

[Capt. E]

Cajun accordions are "just tuned" where certain reeds are lowered "5 cents" or so on the 3rds and 5ths producing the characteristic cajun accordion sound. The technique does not work on pianos and such, it sound "off", only on diatonic instruments (tuned in one key).

[mandroid]

Was there an agenda in the Vienna halls of the Austrian Government, to profit from those extra cents short of 440,

like shaving a little gold off each coin?

[Jeff Mando]

It'd take you under five minutes to try it and then let us know what you think.

Before people started using electronic tuners obsessively (the 1980's where I live) string instruments were all over the map. Pitch wandered far and wide over the course of a gig as players adjusted to each other. The standard pitch matters mostly when you're playing with a piano or other fixed pitch instrument.

Right-o, Bruce! I once spoke to Connie Gately (rip), who played guitar with Big Mon in the 50's, he said they just tuned to each other every night and he would come back from touring and be a step and a half sharp! He used Mapes strings with a 14 for a high E, so you can imagine the string tension on the bridge! (maybe that's where Monroe got that high voice....)

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Was there an agenda in the Vienna halls of the Austrian Government, to profit from those extra cents short of 440,

I'm not sure how Vienna and the Austrian Government came in here.
Lynn Cavanagh ("A brief history of the establishment
of international standard pitch a=440 hertz") wrote the following not long ago:
"... in 1896, A=439 Hz became a recognized pitch standard in Britain. In North America, meanwhile, the pitch of pianos
and orchestras not only remained unstandardized in the first decades of the twentieth century but continued to creep upward."
And in a footnote of that same article:
"It is worth mentioning that, whereas Lloyd says that the B.S.I. endorsed A=440 as a result of an
international conference for which the B.S.I. made the “business arrangements” held in London in May
1939."

[Graham McDonald]

By the mid 20s A440 was a (though perhaps not 'the') standard in the US. There is a mention in a Music Trade Review from 1926 announcing that a tuning fork company had been awarded a contract by the US government Standards Dept to make A440 tuning forks. That does suggest the A440 was widely used for at least a few years leading up to that. The C256 (A432) argument is philosophical rather than anything else trying to connect musical pitch to the harmony of the universe or some such, but does make for amusing reading. Roger's thesis about Loar's interest in C256 is possible, but it would have but him (and the F-5s) at odds with how most people tuned their instruments.

cheers

[Bruce Clausen]

Glad to see so much good info posted here.

While tuning up on stage for a symphony gig a few years back, I asked the harpist what frequency she tunes too, as she can't retune during a concert. She told me our orchestra starts concerts at 440, but tends to end them close to 445, so she tunes to 442. I imagine that is a pretty normal situation.

For what it's worth, the fork I bought new here in Canada in the late sixties carries the legend "British Standard A", but with no mention of a frequency. It plays at 440.

[Marty Jacobson]

She told me our orchestra starts concerts at 440, but tends to end them close to 445, so she tunes to 442. I imagine that is a pretty normal situation.

Interesting. Is that due to the hot stage lights (not to mention 600 BTUs per person on the stage)? I know it can get hot sitting up there in a tuxedo.

[Bruce Clausen]

Yes, eighty-odd players under lights can make for a warm stage. And hotter than a tux is that old wool tailcoat kept in the theatre basement for the occasional mandolin player who hasn't got his own— two sizes too large and not cleaned in years.

[Fretbear]

I may add that Bill Monroe (A 440) was among the first country music artists to chose his (musical) keys so he could sing well. In country music B major hadn't been very popular before him. Monroe himself rose "Blue Moon of KY" from key of A up to C on and "KY Waltz" from D to E, if I'm not mistaken.

Jimmy Martin took the credit for having WSM make this shift to a "higher and lonesomer" sound, but you know Jimmy......