From c_schonberger@yahoo.com Wed Jan 19 13:48:15 2011
Subject:Re: tuning (was Re: Perfect Pitch)

Yes it is kind of arbitrary. If it wasn't for electronic music, we probably still would have many different tunings.
My dad played the alto sax and clarinet and later was big band leader in Germany. So I know that in Europe during the 50s through 80s 442 Hz was the standard for jazz and popular music o fthe time. Most bands had international members including Americans.
Later I remember the horn section complainig about the "low" tuning used by keyboarders (Hammond - including the European 220V 50Hz A/C versions, Rhodes, synths) and guitar and bass players. Most wind instruments at the time were made to be as close as possible to equal tempered scale at 442 Hz.
In classical music, the violinists very often were known to push the tuning higher to make it sound more "shiny". So many orchestras went up until 443 Hz (higher would certainly cause wind instruments to sound badly out of tune in certain ranges and would cause mechanical stress on the piano). Funny thing is that some classical violin players I know also play and compose rock music (very often prog rock) and "switch" to the 440 Hz tuning in that style.
 
Christian
 

--- On Wed, 1/19/11, Jason Stanfield wrote: