Posted by Rick Denney on December 04, 2002 at 15:49:38:
In Reply to: Re: mirafone pitch posted by Jim Andrada on December 04, 2002 at 01:38:35:
I wonder if people think 442 sounds more full of life just because everything else is played at 440? I'm sure your wife would not think so, and I'm not qualified to question her expert perceptions. But in my ignorance, I'm skeptical of perfect-pitch claims when the claimant suggests that out of tune single notes cause them pain. They bristle when I suggest this is how they've trained themselves to react. Pitch seems so variable in time, location, and concept that any true standardization seems mythical. And what about pitch expansion--the tuning of a piano so that the upper octaves are sharp and the lower octaves flat with respect to the reference pitch?
I had to persuade my piano tuner to raise the pitch on my 1887 original Hazelton grand to A440. It was tuned to International Pitch, which I recall is about A430. He thought it would be bad for the piano, but I told him the piano was well past its stated life anyway so who cared? No yelling was required, but then I'm not that picky about perfection (he is a Bosendorfer and Fazioli dealer and I'm one of his least picky customers, heh, heh). The piano survived (to say the least).
Rick "who thinks the 'personality' of a piano seems remarkably linked to that of the owner" Denney