Tuning standard: How authentic is A=440?

[Red Henry]

Has anyone on the list ever tried tuning their F-5 (original or copy) mandolins to the pitch used in the 1920s? (Possibly A-435 or thereabouts) -- The often-heard complaints about insufficient F-5 bass response might be different at the lower pitch the mandolins were designed for. Try it yourself!

Red

[swampstomper]

Red, where is your source about the 1920's standard pitch? I don't doubt you, I've just never seen a source. I've also seen reference here to the thicker string gauges standard in the 1920's, again w/o a source. That would certainly agree with a lower standard pitch.

Just curious.

[Red Henry]

There are many sources available about standard pitch. One of the most convenient is Wikipedia, although that entry gives the impression that A=435 was a more widely used standard than it perhaps was, with several standards (mostly well below A-440) in use during the early 20th century.

Red

[Hans]

Roger Siminoff has a good article on it. I've also been told that some orchestras are tuning higher than 440 to give the audience that extra brilliance push. Might be a substitute for lackluster performances.

[Capt. E]

I have been working on learning to tune by the method violinist use. Since they do not have the advantage of having frets, they must first tune the A string to some standard (usually provided by the Concert Master or a tuning fork) then tune the other strings to the A string in perfect 5th's harmony. It takes a good ear to do this, something I am trying to improve. If you will listen to an orchestra tuning up, you will notice these double stop "checks" on tuning by the violinists. I don't think 440 or 435 etc is the issue, but that a band or orchestra must be "in tune" with each other, just as strings are "in tune" with each other.

Sometimes I believe the 435 claim comes from playing old records on a turntable that runs a touch slow.

[Red Henry]

Right. And a higher pitch that A=440 was in vogue with some orchestras for a while, referred to as "philharmonic" tuning.

But my point was that if you tune a typical good F5-style mandolin to a slightly lower pitch, you'll often get more of that good thunky bass sound that many pickers want.

Red

[JeffD]

There is a thread on this, but I am unable to find it. Someone was tuning vintage instruments to sub 440 pitches to see if the instruments had better tone or volume at pitches which were more standard at the time they were made and at which they more likely to have been made to play - at least if you adhear to this theory.

[GTison]

Have you tried it Red? What did you think?

Oh thanks for the interesting post , and just when I thought this site was bogging down.

[Red Henry]

Have you tried it Red? What did you think?

I have, and so have most folks, whether they realized it or not. When you're first bringing a mandolin up to pitch, whether after changing strings or adjusting the bridge or whatever, as the strings stretch you may have it nearly in tune with itself but at a slightly lower pitch than normal, before you do the last one or two tuning "go-rounds".

While the instrument is still several cycles below 440, go ahead and tune the strings to each other, and play for a while. You might be surprised at the additional resonance which many mandolins have when as little as 5 or 10 cycles below standard pitch. And I suspect that that response was what people heard when they originally designed and played Gibson mandolins long ago.

Red

[Flattpicker]

Did people tend to use the same string gauges 80 years ago as now? It seems that would be a big factor.

I've had various instruments, including mandolin, I'm sure, fall slightly below 440. And I've tuned guitars, especially, below pitch for one reason or another. 300-year-old violins, though reinforced somewhat, are now playing at pitches much higher (far beyond 5 cycles different) than they were designed to resonate at, and orchestras keep pushing the limits still higher, as high as 448.

This reminds me a little of the scene in Spinal Tap where Nigel Tufnell talks about the sustain on his Les Paul. But, I haven't tried the 435 experiment as prescribed here and I don't own an old Gibson, so I can't really say more.

[Big Joe]

Yep. My understanding was that the frequency used by Loar was A=321. I won't swear to it, but that is what comes to mind. It would definately alter the sound output in some way. There has really not been a frequency standard set even to this day, though the A=440 has been considered so far to be the standard for about 30 or so years. The Loar instrument was originally considered a classical instrument. The larger strings coupled with the diffrerent frequency used for tuning would give a much different tone. Which is better? I don't really care as long as everyone is tuned together .

[Red Henry]

Old Gibsons were really not the only instruments I was referring to. I expect that newer copies of them would respond the same way, and there sure are a lot of those around.

Big Joe, I expect that you have a great ear. If you happen to try this on a mandolin or two, let us know what you think.

Red

[Phillip Tigue]

Since they do not have the advantage of having frets, they must first tune the A string to some standard (usually provided by the Concert Master or a tuning fork) then tune the other strings to the A string in perfect 5th's harmony. It takes a good ear to do this, something I am trying to improve.

Which is a BLAST when trying to accomplish a perfect unison...I proudly introduce the SEMITONE, known by its other names, the infamous "Diminished/Augmented Unison" and the dreaded "MINOR SECOND!"

[Red Henry]

Thanks for all the good responses. It looks as if we have two very interesting threads going at the same time (and I have some observations to make about orchestra tuning too). If my original topic drifts "too far from the shore," I'll just start it up again separately.

Red

[Earl Gamage]

Interesting topic. I am just reading "Music, The Brain , and Ecstasy" by Robert Jourdain.

He says history of tuning goes down to 420 cycles for middle A, and as stated above it was arbitrary, or no standard.

He also says the string sections in orchestras tuned slightly sharp to cut better and project more over the woodwind section. Sounds almost like a bluegrass band This concept (tuning slightly sharp to cut through the mix) has been discussed on the forum here and it seems like generally rejected. I'd have to reread the threads.

Also, some orchestras got as high as 465 middle A in the middle 20th century.

[Rob Gerety]

Of course, the problem often arises that everyone has to tune to the piano anyway. Even if there is no piano, you have to get everyone in the ensemble on the same page.

But I used to tune a guitar I owned down a full step and I liked it a lot that way. Of course with guitar I could slap on a capo to put it in standard if need be.

[Wolfboy]

My understanding was that the frequency used by Loar was A=321.

You do mean A=421, don't you? A=415 would be about a half step below A=440 (and is what a lot of Baroque instrumentalists tune to) and A=392 is about a whole step down. The only reason I know that offhand is that I've just been listening to Nigel North's recordings of Bach cello suites on lute - the liner notes say he's tuned to A=392, and when he plays Suite No. 1 in C I hear it as being in B flat. So A=321 would be way down yonder.

[Bruce Clausen]

Woodwind instruments manufactured in the 1920s for professional use should give us a good idea of what was standard then. Since a lot of these instruments are still in use today, I don't think there's been much change. On a symphony gig, I once asked the harpist what she tunes to, since she can't tune up on stage with the rest of the orchestra; shat told me our orchestra seems to start the evening at 440, but end nearer to 444, so she tunes up at 442. These are not big differences.

BC

[allenhopkins]

Woodwind instruments manufactured in the 1920s for professional use should give us a good idea of what was standard then. Since a lot of these instruments are still in use today, I don't think there's been much change.

When I bought my older son's first alto saxophone, it was a '30's model Beuscher (made in Elkhart IN). I took it to a wind specialist to have it looked over before I bought it in private sale, and he said it would need to have a "modern" mouthpiece because a '30's instrument would be designed for a lower tuning than A=440.

However, doing a bit of internet research, this may have been characteristic of Beuscher instruments specifically, rather than '30's woodwinds in general. Apparently Gus Beuscher made some innovations in the saxophone that included a slightly lower pitch.

[Erik Gran]

I have a piano from the 1930's, and my piano tuner tunes it to A=432, as he says it probably never was tuned to any higher pitch, and he doesn't dare to put it under the extra tension of tunig it to 440. FWIW.

[Lee]

Erik, I'm a piano tuner too and yours has made a valid decision. I'd be curious to know what make and model.

There's nothing magical or special about A=440. It's a completely arbitrary decision where to set A. And it's been raising over time.

Violins and mandolins aren't tuned to "perfect fifths". The fifth is narrowed slightly. But don't worry about that because at that level of accuracy, we're splitting hairs. Piano tuners love splitting hairs.

[David Collins]

Reference frequencies have been all over the map historically and regionally, and was nowhere near brought to uniform until well in to the 20th century (A-440 is still not even 100% universal today). I have a few tuning bells (basically a vibraphone key on a box with a spring-mounted hammer), one of which is a J.C. Deacon bell marked as A-436, though I retuned it to 440. It's probably from the 20's-30's, though I have another Leedy & Ludwig bell which appears to be about the same age, and is marked A-440.

Before modern transit and communication, reference pitches were more likely to be regionally established, sometimes by the fork of a technician of the court, an orchestra, or sometimes the most prominent church organ. I work with a number of viola da gamba players, as well as work with a harpsichord builder, and they most commonly use A-415 today, which equates to about 1/2 step down from 440. You don't often find reference pitches much lower than that, and will just as often find them above 440 as well.

I don't know if Loar or other makers took the precise reference pitch in to much consideration or not when designing and tuning their instruments, or even if they did, whether the small variations would account for much difference in end design. Often times a particular instrument may indeed sound more appealing to a player when tuned up or down slightly, but I would argue this more likely to be an improvement of coincidence, and not by intentional design or voicing of the instrument.

It is my opinion that there is a certain romantic notion that appeals to many in the idea that there are subtle lost secrets like this of the old masters, or changes forgotten about over the years which have kept us from fully appreciating the original intentions. While this may indeed be true in regards to classical and baroque compositions which were written with different temperaments in time, I don't believe it follows through so much to the actual reference pitch, within reason.

If an instrument sounds more appealing at A-420, I would argue that it has little to do with the pitch standard at the time of it's creation, but more by the whim of the player and listener, which is perfectly fine. As alluded to above, differences in string type and material alone would likely outweigh such subtle changes if they were indeed ever precisely weighed in the design and voicing of an instrument.

Much is admittedly speculation here, with a few grams of experience and reasoning, but I just don't feel that slight changes in the original reference pitch is that influential. What's more important is tuning in context of who your playing with, or if you're playing alone, tuning to whatever sounds best to you.

[foldedpath]

I have been working on learning to tune by the method violinist use. Since they do not have the advantage of having frets, they must first tune the A string to some standard (usually provided by the Concert Master or a tuning fork) then tune the other strings to the A string in perfect 5th's harmony. It takes a good ear to do this, something I am trying to improve. If you will listen to an orchestra tuning up, you will notice these double stop "checks" on tuning by the violinists. I don't think 440 or 435 etc is the issue, but that a band or orchestra must be "in tune" with each other, just as strings are "in tune" with each other.

Which is a BLAST when trying to accomplish a perfect unison...I proudly introduce the SEMITONE, known by its other names, the infamous "Diminished/Augmented Unison" and the dreaded "MINOR SECOND!"

Yeah, no kidding. The fiddler and I go round and round about this in our Celtic trio. He's classically-trained (teaches classical and folk styles also), and he does the tuning-by-fifths thing. So only our A strings ever match. It actually doesn't sound bad on most of the fingered notes when we play a unison melody together, because I think he's compensating a little, to follow the tuning of the guitar and mandolin. But oh, those open G, D, and E strings....

And of course, there is no point in trying to learn how to do this on mandolin, unless you want the sound of contemporary microtonal jazz with every chord you play.

Sometimes I believe the 435 claim comes from playing old records on a turntable that runs a touch slow.

Right, any argument that depends on recordings from the early analog days is automatically suspect. There's an infamous dispute about whether or not blues singer/guitarist Robert Johnson's voice actually sounded the way we think it does, or was lower due to the original recording being a little too fast.

The physical science of sound was pretty well-established by the 1800's though, so I imagine if musicians were using tuning forks or pitch pipes, they would have been manufactured to deliver whatever standard pitch was in vogue. So there must be some physical evidence out there. It would be interesting to see a music supply catalog from the 1920's. What pitch tuning forks or pitch pipes were they selling at the time?

[Gail Hester]

Roger Siminoff has a nice article on this subject (What was Loar Hearing) here:

http://www.siminoff.net/pages/siminoff_downloads.html

Concert pitch back then was C256, A430.6. As I understand, tuning your Loar F5 down to that pitch kills most of the sound that we expect from a good F5. That may be part of why they were not recognized as such great instruments back then.

[D C Blood]

I notice that a lot of music stores tune their guitars and mandos a step or two below standard, possibly because that gives them a bit of an open, more "ringing" tone than standard??