On Thursday, January 25, 1996 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-8, Adam Blaise Polito wrote:
I need to know the frequency of each open string, mainly for standard tuning, but other tunings would be nice if anybody knows the numbers.
Appreciate it,
Adam
As to the 440A theories, I thought I would throw in my understanding. I've done some piano re-engineering of strings for a 1895 Victorian grand piano I restored originally tuned at A-435, and thus did quite a bit of research on this subject. Over-
simplification: Harpsichord years, "A" was at around A-425 to A-430. Victorian parlor home mid-size grand pianos were tuned at A-435, and full-size concert grand pianos were tuned at A-440 for projection purposes into a large hall. This was the core of
todays standard, which evolved into A-440 for all instruments so they could synchronize. A-440 only came about as a consequence of fabrication of the huge cast iron harp frames in pianos, and was not possible in earlier times.
If a piano tuner today tunes from the A-440 note and goes up and down octaves from that, and each note and octave is tuned relative to the previous notes for harmonic purposes, the shorter the piano, the shorter the octaves are. So, an upright spinet
piano will have short octaves, and a 9' grand piano will have larger octaves (closer to theoretical perfect). If you use a computer and tune a spinet upright piano and stretch out the octaves to theoretical perfection, it will have strange reverbs and
overtones. It has something to do with the real-world adjustment of a wave length that is shortened by the thickness of a piano string.
Some guitar players like to tune their guitar down 1/2 step to A-415.3 claiming it sounds better, and matches with vocals better. The effective communication for band members playing together, is that if you are playing a song in C (tuned down 1/2 step,
otherwise G#/ Ab) then you would communicate that you are playing in that scale. Your G would be F#/Gb for them, etc. By the way, I just got a Snark Super Tight H.Z. clip-on guitar tuner, that has a function with the notes in Hz, and a triangle flat
button on the back which lowers the scale 1/2 scale every time you push it, thus reading your first E string as an E note tuning, but at 311.13 Hz which is D#, etc with all the strings down 1/2 step, but reading EADGBE as you are tuning it.
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