Prepping instruments for mixed pitch concert
Ahhhh... the joys of doing Early Music. In the Baroque era, there were many different pitches all across Europe for the A reference pitch.... generally, they were just whatever the local organ was tuned at... and these pitches would vary from town to town, country to country, and change throughout time. In the modern day, we have the A=440Hz reference pitch... although there are more than a few orchestras that are pushing higher and higher up to 443Hz in an effort to sound more brilliant or something...
So, in the Baroque era... we have documented evidence for pitches as low as A=392Hz all the way up to A=466Hz! And it wasn't too uncommon to mix instruments with different reference pitches... as winds and organs were not movable in pitch, whilst strings and voices were. Fine... organs wouldn't travel... but winds would!
In the modern day Early Music movement, we TRY to be authentic as possible... but there is practicality to be considered. If you are performing Baroque music from lots of different places... well, it wouldn't be practical to keep changing the reference pitch all through the concert! And so, the A=415Hz reference pitch was adopted for most of the High Baroque era music... with 466 for earlier German, and 392 for French.
Modern day harpsichords have this designed in mind... with the ability to move the keyboard so that you are playing in a range of 392/415/440/466 pitches, all of which are a complete semitone shunt. But having four options is rare... one is definitely normal, two is common, and three is unusual. Our larger harpsichord has a 415 and 440 option...
... but in our next concert, we have a musette (a sort of indoor bagpipe...) which is tuned at 392! Which we don't have on the harpsichord. So, we will have to mix pitches... with the harpsichord tuned at 440Hz (a whole tone mix is better for temperaments than a semitone mix).
... and I will use one violin tuned to 392 when I'm playing with the musette... and another at 440Hz when I'm playing only with the harpsichord (and no musette).
Yay... mixed pitch fun!
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Very interesting. That is an aspect of music that I had never really considered before.
It is really an Early Music sort of thing... modern day musicians (including classical) never really think about it.
Swapping violins and handling different pitches in one show sounds like a real challenge. That's true dedication
All in a days work for an Early Music nerd!
I have never played an acoustic piano, and I do not know about pitch to the extent you analyzed it. But I think the electric piano with its ability to slightly change pitch with the tuning setting solves the pitch problem. One can even go to the extent of moving the pitch to a semitone, a tone or even more; even up to an octave.
Ah yes, the electronic keyboards do have an advantage there! But we like the feel and response of the old acoustic things!
I didn't realize modern harpsichords are designed to adjust to multiple pitches. Very cool!
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Yeah, it is a pretty crude shunt of the entire keyboard mechanism to the right or the left, so that they start plucking/hitting the next string on the line!
$PIZZA slices delivered:
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I'm sure I heard that the accordion was one of the factors in standardising pitch. Another reason to not like it? ;) I've heard people say certain tunings are 'better', but I guess they feel different. I tend to just use 440.
Oh, I didn't know about that! But if it was not movable, then that would have helped solidify pitch standards.
I'm a bit up in the air about the pitch reference being anything special... but temperaments, that is a completely different thing!
Youngest has started his music course at TAFE and is really enjoying it, I've been hearing bits and pieces about what's going on in class and how much fun he's having with his new friends, and I'm now wondering when he's going to come back and tell me all about this and I'm likely to be just as confused XD
Haha... it is much less confusing when it is described in person with an instrument to demonstrate!
He does describe it in person with an instrument to demonstrate and I still have no idea XD