Jonathan, splitting hairs!    When you transpose you need to tune in the new pitch position so you can be flexible as your last paragraph explains.    Pitch is just about enabling you to standardise to other instruments.    There will be a pitch your harpsichord sounds and likes best.   Mine usually like to hang around 412 but I am finding with p-wire they do hold 415.    Why that is the master, Stephen Birkett might know, I certainly don't.
MJ



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Sunday, 7 February 2016, 13:16 +0000 from [log in to unmask]  <[log in to unmask]>:
>To change the subject a little bit, we're all used to tuning to "415", 
>but how many of you actually use 415 vs 415.3? It's a small difference, 
>but, in the all-too-common case of university instruments that have to 
>transpose back and forth without retuning, tuning to 415 leaves you 
>under 440 - certainly not desirable, especially when much of the 
>'modern' crowd seems expects 441 or 442 these days.
>
>With that in mind, I usually tune to 415.3, and never get complaints 
>about the pitch being too high. But it certainly is a small difference. 
>For that matter, do instrument builders - flutes and recorders I mean - 
>factory-tune their instruments to 415 or 415.3 typically?
>
>Or am I just splitting hairs here - it certainly is a small difference.. 
>Half the time for concerts I have to tune to 418 anyway, since the stage 
>lights will cook the harpsichord down before the first chord is played! 
>And I don't know of any instrument here in Montreal that's stored 
>somewhere with a stable enough climate to avoid wandering .3Hz...
>
>Curious what others do, and whether it has ever become an issue?
>
>Jonathan
>
>
>In 06/02/16 09:01 PM, Andrew Bernard wrote:
>> Hi Theodore,
>>
>> I don’t think you can really compare fingering and pitch standards in
>> the one basket. Fingering - a matter for the performer, wth many
>> factors. Pitch - a standard necessary to allow musicians to play
>> together, and to enable scaling design and so on. While playing high
>> as per much Italian practice, or low as per other European practice
>> is a matter of taste and the instruments you have, you all need to
>> tune together. Nobody has ever suggested 415 was a broad historical
>> standard. But since many instruments tend to sound good at lower
>> pitches, 415 became established in modern times because 415.3 is
>> exactly one equal tempered semitone below modern concert standard
>> pitch 440. Apart from anything else this makes transposing
>> harpsichords simple and effective. 392 is also good because it is an
>> ET tone lower than 440. If you want to play ensemble music, then
>> using 415 seems to me to be a useful compromise for something
>> generally a little lower than 440. I never thought anybody was under
>> the illusion that this was an international concert pitch standard in
>> the harpsichord era.
>>
>> Andrew
>-- 
>Jonathan Addleman -  http://www.redowl.ca
>
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Note:  opinions  expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the  individual con-

tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-

versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to

[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .

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