Today I Learned (TIL)

468 readers

1 users here now

Rules

Posts must begin with "TIL".
Posts must be about a specific fact. No "TIL about [ducks]."

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I also included a clause establishing concert pitch as A = 435 Hz (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

From pages 170 & 171:

[T]he multilateral treaties, conventions and agreements of an economic or technical character enumerated below … shall alone be applied as between Germany and those of the Allied and Associated Powers party thereto:

. . . .

(22) Convention of November 16 and 19, 1885, regarding the establishment of a concert pitch.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

The problem is pitch inflation.

Basically, tuning slightly higher than what the composer intended, will make the performance sound more brilliant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Oh, I understand. I kinda glazed over it saying concert pitch in the headline.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

444 is also insane, fyi

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What if it's death march as the second piece and your want to tune lower, do you need to re tune your piano or do you carry your 2nd piano in your pocket?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Well, you don't do that. You pick one frequency, in our case it was generally 442 Hz, and then you play the whole concert with that.

Re-tuning a piano can easily take an hour. And re-tuning an orchestra is just as well a multi-minute cacophonie. The audience would rather listen to a slightly too brilliant death march than that...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Speedrunners will it to A=500 before you know it