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Harpsichords and Related Topics

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From:
michael johnson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
michael johnson <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 7 Feb 2016 11:18:46 +0300
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Again Andrew, smack on the money.  

MJ



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Sunday, 7 February 2016, 02:01 +0000 from [log in to unmask]  <[log in to unmask]>:
>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
>
>On 6 February 2016 at 23:17:17, T. Diehl ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>
>Take for instance the widesread use of 415Hz, as if all that music were 
>played at that pitch all over the world during 200 years....A perfect 
>example of 'erasing' details by using an'historically responsible' pitch. 
>
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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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