Fw: [tuning] Re: Suggestion for Michael

----- Original Message -----
From: Petr Parízek
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Suggestion for Michael

Andreas wrote:

> Appearently Pavarotti considered the plain single frequency 438Hz
> as more consonant than the 2Hz higher 440Hz one.

Let me say, first of all, that the passage you quote doesn't make me reach any particular conclusion about 438Hz being more consonant for Pavarotti than 440Hz. The text doesn't say that the reason for Pavarotti demanding tuning to 438Hz was that he found it more "pleasing to his ear" than 440Hz. Secondly, don't forget that in some countries, even about 20 years ago, it was quite "frequent" to tune instruments to an A4 of about 435Hz (don't know about Italy, but generally, people usually prefer what they were used to in their childhood or so). For another thing, I personally DO like 438Hz more than 440Hz -- you know why? Because I like lower pitches. If, for example, I hear something like 460Hz when listening to "early music", then saying that "the pitch has been lowered so 460Hz is now a B4" is fine with me even though I "internally" think of it as a Bb instead of a B, while saying "the pitch has been raised so 460Hz is now an A4" makes me almost angry.

Finally, let me say something about my own experiments. Some of you may know that I have, during a few years of being heavily involved in that topic, made quite a bunch of "quasi-meantone" irregular temperaments with the aim of many intervals using precisely specified beat rates, in order the scales were easily tunable without electronic equipment. To get various "configurations" of beat rate possibilities, I often used different starting pitches, like an A4 of 438Hz for one scale, 437Hz for another one, 441Hz for another one, 430Hz for another one, 420Hz for another one, and many others. One day, I decided to use an A4 of 450Hz. I calculated the ratios from the specified beat rates, wrote them into Scala and played in the tuning for a while. And what happened? After about half an hour of improvising, I was so angry about the high A that I finally decided to use a different scale degree for A -- namely the one which originaly should have meant G, which was about 406Hz (even though I "internally" heard it as a G#). :-D Of course, by doing this, I eventually turned the Eb..G# chain of fifths to F..A#.

Petr