#1566748 - 03/21/18 02:12 AM
When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
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Popmann
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This isn't from from discussion of tuning instruments to 432 for the spiritual awakening....I've been learning a lot of old tunes lately....and I'd venture that 90% aren't at 440. I would guess tape/session sped up slightly at some point and just stuck with that....I've been really focused on the mid 90s.....I knew we did this with tape machines....but, would Shania Twain's big one have been on tape? The ballad is so far north of 440 (and slow) I actually might guess they slowed the rhythm tracks to get it to sound deeper. Like maybe it was in Bb slowed down for sonic boom rather than A and sped up.
I think I'm just surprised to be going through middle 90s albums and finding all the pitch variance....anyone, say with perfect pitch, notice when this changed? Has it actually? It just seem like forever since I sat down to learn something and had to retune the guitar....it took me a minute just now to remember where the global tuning in the Kronos is....
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#1566750 - 03/21/18 02:20 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Timster
Artist #'s - 130, 298, 412
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Your talking about come on over? Notes I found said it was mixed in pro tools. Doubt if Mutt Lange used tape..but never know.
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#1566766 - 03/21/18 04:39 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: ulank]
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Jazzooo
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Pitch is just another tool of the producer, imo. I've sped up masters before to get them a shade brighter sounding, both tempo wise and harmonically. It happened so much in the '60s, both accidentally and intentionally, that I'm used to it. Beatles changed speeds a lot.
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#1566773 - 03/21/18 04:47 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Popmann
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Registered: 05/23/02
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Yeah, I'm aware....I'm not that young....I was surprised to find so many in the middle 90s with varispeed activated...I bet it's computers, which is when click tracks became "normal"....
And, The Woman In Me, Tim.
Edited by Popmann (03/21/18 04:52 AM)
Edit Reason: Not 192 after all
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#1566814 - 03/21/18 03:20 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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amiller
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Registered: 03/18/02
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Loc: Wilmington DE
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Here’s a very cool article regarding the history of pitch. Pitch is not a physical constant and has varied over the years.
History of pitch
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#1566815 - 03/21/18 03:42 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Timster]
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gonzo
purveyor of noise
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Registered: 08/16/99
Posts: 31451
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Your talking about come on over? Notes I found said it was mixed in pro tools. Doubt if Mutt Lange used tape..but never know.
LANGE recorded pyromania on 24 track,
just as an example.
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#1566820 - 03/21/18 04:40 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: gonzo]
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Xenophile
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I think I remember reading that radio stations would deliberately speed up the records they played to try to get an edge over the competition playing the same songs... thinking that playing them a little faster would make them more exciting.
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#1566822 - 03/21/18 04:44 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Xenophile]
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FalconEddy
Retired Mastering Marvel
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I think I remember reading that radio stations would deliberately speed up the records they played to try to get an edge over the competition playing the same songs... thinking that playing them a little faster would make them more exciting.
They could squeeze a couple of extra short commercial spots every hour. Paying customers.
. . Falcon
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#1566850 - 03/21/18 07:02 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: ulank]
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flatcat
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ISO 16 says A is 440Hz, from 1975. According to Wikipedia, it's been an informal standard in the U.S. since the 1920s. In the 19th century, A was around 435. It was anywhere from 400-450 during the 18th century because there wasn't an accurate way to measure it until the 19th century.
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#1566851 - 03/21/18 07:10 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: flatcat]
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cajun
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how does having perfect pitch work? is that based on 440?
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#1566855 - 03/21/18 07:28 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: cajun]
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Jazzooo
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"how does having perfect pitch work? is that based on 440?"
I believe it is for me.
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#1566856 - 03/21/18 07:29 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Jazzooo
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"thinking that playing them a little faster would make them more exciting."
I think this is often the case.
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#1566862 - 03/21/18 07:57 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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cajun
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Jazzooo,not challenging you, but questions about perfect pitch.
You can hear a note and tell what note it is?
You can sing any certain note within your vocal range?
If so, what happens when 440 is changed to something else by speading up or slowing down and the pitch is off?
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#1566865 - 03/21/18 08:14 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: cajun]
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Jazzooo
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"You can hear a note and tell what note it is? "
Yes, unless I'm really tired and then I hear everything either perfect or a half step flat or sharp. Also very low frequency instruments are more challenging.
"You can sing any certain note within your vocal range? "
I think this is a misconception, although the answer is 'usually.' My voice is far from perfect, so I might hear a note in my head but it might come out a little wrong when I sing it. Singing is a skill, and I'm not that skilled in it. Perfect pitch isn't a skill that I can tell, it's some form of intuition or mega-recognition of tones. That doesn't mean I can reproduce them perfectly, though.
"If so, what happens when 440 is changed to something else by speading up or slowing down and the pitch is off?"
If the difference isn't too dramatic, my relative pitch kicks in and I can tell that originally a note was an A. If it changes to a B because it's been sped up, I might hear it as a B but with kind of weird artifacts around it. But it also might just lose me because when I sense it was arrived at artificially, I get a 'why should I care if I can identify that note?' kind of ennui that gets in the way.
One of the strangest experiences I've had onstage was sitting in with a really good gypsy jazz guitarist and his group. The keyboard had the pitch shift button jammed, so I had to transpose on the fly. Sweet Georgia Brown at a fast tempo should have been in F, but I was playing it in C#. Playing in one key but hearing it in another gave me a huge headache and creepy feeling.
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#1566868 - 03/21/18 08:21 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Jazzooo
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"perfect pitch is the ability to identify a frequency in isolation. "
You mean by the number? I've never heard that definition. If the note I hear is between an A and a Bflat, what do I call it?
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#1566871 - 03/21/18 08:41 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Xenophile
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The keyboard had the pitch shift button jammed, so I had to transpose on the fly... should have been in F, but I was playing it in C#. Playing in one key but hearing it in another gave me a huge headache and creepy feeling.
I don't have perfect pitch, but detuning a keyboard more than a half-step gives me a "creepy feeling" too. Detuned by a Major 3rd feelsl REALLY weird. I do that when I am learning songs by ear when our singer wants to do it in a different key than the original... So my fingers learn the tune in the key he wants, but it is sounding the same as the original while I am earing it out. He used to give us pitch-shifted copies of the originals, but those were awful for me to try to learn from.
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#1566879 - 03/21/18 09:40 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Popmann
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"perfect pitch is the ability to identify a frequency in isolation. "
You mean by the number? I've never heard that definition. If the note I hear is between an A and a Bflat, what do I call it?
The nomenclature of your "calling it" anything is just that. What you were taught to call it. The abnormality is recognizing the pitch, which is the same as frequency, in isolation. I would imagine YOU would call it some pitch in between A and Bb. But, what you CALL it isn't related to the Xmen level brain "alternate wiring" that allows it.
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#1566881 - 03/21/18 10:18 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Jazzooo
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That's interesting. I never thought of applying my ability to identify picthes or hear notes to numeric frequencies. I don't actually know any other numeric frequencies, now that I think of it.
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#1566889 - 03/21/18 11:42 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Popmann
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....the "numerals" are just physics's way to denote (ha!) the frequency of a note....it just is a more granular one, since it allows for explanation of all the ones in between western "scale" notes. You just call 440 A because you learned that was what to call it--the "gift" is being able to ID the pitch by itself.
I actually wish the most learned of people with such a gift would get to really transcribing music recordings accurately, because I feel like there's still SUCH a gap between what gets played and what gets written for people to learn. If you've ever seen Beato's kid--where he'll play some dense 13 note chord and he can name the notes top to bottom instantly--it's both amazing, and I'm like "so how come ALL the music books for 60 years of popular music are universally WRONG?" --I mean, I know it's a rare gift....and since you'd have to ALSO understand the writing....and have to have some amount of collaboration with people who can PLAY the instruments being transcribed (since sound isn't flat pitches)....but, you'd think that somewhere we'd have been able to work that out....
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#1566897 - 03/22/18 12:54 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Marty Gilman]
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Jazzooo
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I've paid for sheet music of classic songs that had the wrong chord changes, so I think we've still got a ways to go.
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#1566904 - 03/22/18 01:39 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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ulank
Forum Person
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....the "numerals" are just physics's way to denote (ha!) the frequency of a note....it just is a more granular one, since it allows for explanation of all the ones in between western "scale" notes. You just call 440 A because you learned that was what to call it--the "gift" is being able to ID the pitch by itself.
BINGO!
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#1566909 - 03/22/18 02:39 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Jazzooo]
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Popmann
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Registered: 05/23/02
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I've paid for sheet music of classic songs that had the wrong chord changes, so I think we've still got a ways to go.
I mean...it's tragic....other than that Beatles Complete, I've never even SEEN remotely full scores of popular music. Guitar tablature was good for a while on the guitar side, but not long after it started, I'm convinced there was some computer program that started taking transcriptions of piano players and "tablaturizing" it... literally defeating the purpose of tablature, which wasn't supposed to be "instead of traditional notation"--it was a specific guide to guitar playing--all the specifics that a staff can't really communicate. Position and fingering specific articulations--if those aren't RIGHT, don't HAVE them.
I find the lack of study material truly odd. I mean--when you can't get a piano book of Billy fucking Joel's piano parts....like the actual piano parts....not the chords and the vocal melody.....the actual parts he plays to accompany himself singing....I don't think it's a useful study in what makes Billy Joel's sound, you know? Ditto Elton. Ditto, frankly everyone....where's my Joe Sample anthology for my R&B EP study needs?
There's this huge hole in passing down knowledge, I think....when a generation or two later, someone wants to study the music of "the recording period".....the Boomer generation, the biggest contributors to that era by amount....are dying and leaving behind what are fast begin reduced to mp3s of their work.
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#1566911 - 03/22/18 02:53 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Jazzooo
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While I agree with everything you just said, at the same time...I learned Billy Joel's piano parts and Leon Russell's and Paul McCartney's and Elton's by ear and in doing so, developed my own style that combines what I heard and how I attempted to recreate it. I could have read the music, but I'm glad I didn't in this case.
There are times you want an exact transcription of a piano part, like Martha My Dear--the part is iconic, so play it the way he did. But I can see why they dumb down other parts--I bet most casual students don't read well enough to follow the true variations you find in any of those player's parts. I once performed a string quartet I was writing on piano into my notation program and after an hour of tweaking and correcting I looked at it and said "I don't think I could play this from reading the page!"
I was talking about getting the basic chords wrong on a pop song. I see that all the time in sheet music. Who ever was transcribing just didn't have the right set of ears.
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#1566914 - 03/22/18 04:19 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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amiller
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Registered: 03/18/02
Posts: 5266
Loc: Wilmington DE
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Adding more to the “perfect” pitch discussion, one of my previous bandmates has perfect pitch, but her pitch center would drift from time to time. She could definitely name a note without hearing other notes before hand, however, sometimes she would claim that the note played was a little sharp or flat. When we checked it against a fork or other tuning device half of the time she was wrong. She admitted that her perfect pitch does drift a few cents in one direction or the other.
Also, she didn’t have a very good singing voice. There’s no way of knowing whether the translation from her brain to her vocal chords is the problem or her perfect pitch drift is the issue. It could be, that on any given day, her internal pitch is off a few cents and that’s what she locks on to when singing. Or, maybe her mechanical mechanism to sing well just isn’t that great.
I remember reading about learning to develop perfect pitch, a notion I reject. Anyway, the author drew a comparison between color and pitch. For example, the note “A” may sound like the color yellow and the note “E” may sound like red. If this comparison is somewhat accurate it could explain my bandmate’s pitch drift. After all, there are many shades of yellow and red and all other colors. And, depending on the lighting and many other factors, our perception of any given color may vary from day to day.
...yikes, that sure got long winded quickly.
Edited by amiller (03/22/18 04:23 AM)
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#1566928 - 03/22/18 01:37 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: amiller]
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Popmann
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Registered: 05/23/02
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I would imagine anything but wonderful relative pitch, because music is literally relative and contextual at all times, presents its own challenges.
That said, I think pitch perception, is something that shifts. I put in maybe an 12 hour day playing mostly guitar yesterday, and by the end, I was ready to throw my guitars out a window because I was having trouble keeping the intonation....was that my seminar of pitch getting keener or worse over the course of the day...or autonomic muscles getting quivery/tired so I was no longer making the little compensations? I dunno-but, at the point I go over to the analog strobe and find the guitar in tune and what I play NOT....time to STFU....put it down...watch some brainless TV....it's not a stretch to imagine that if your pitch perception is more absolute that you would imagine every element BUT you is out of tune.
Side note....my hands hurt. I might have to retire them thick strings #gettingOld....when learning the tune that started this, tuning 13s 30+ cents sharp on the acoustic was like....misery inducing.
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#1566931 - 03/22/18 02:03 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Memphis Monroe
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I’ve been playing with and researching this for a couple years now. I prefer 432 or 435. Mozart’s piano was tuned to 421. The problem I run into trying to record songs at 432 is the keys and soft synths don’t have the option for different settings of Hz as far as I know, which limits me if I want to record a song at 432. But, I do like it better. It has a more soothing or harmonious tone IMO. Proponents of 432 tuning will argue that it is aligned with the cosmos and the natural world (i.e., possibly the standard tuning used by the Greeks as established by Pythagoras). Supposedly, the number 432 is also reflected in ratios of the Sun, Earth, and the moon. It’s also supposedly found in the precession of the equinoxes, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, Stonehenge, the Sri Yantra, as well as other sacred sites, according to author Elina St-Onge. How true or legit any of that is it sounds cool, but what I do know is that hands down with more mellow music 432 is distinguishably better to my ears, soul, and heart. I think I prefer it for even more aggressive or rock’n stuff because maybe it’s just different, as I’ve been listening to 440 my entire life.
Edited by Gretsch 6120 (03/22/18 02:04 PM)
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#1566937 - 03/22/18 03:05 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Memphis Monroe]
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Popmann
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I've never had a soft synth that can't calibrate. Logic even has a global calibration....you can set the SONG to 432 and any soft synth you open will automatically follow that....FWIW. Only issue I had when I did a track at 432 was that I HAD to use a VI for the Hammond....because the real deal won't move from 440...and I learned after 15 years that cubase has no real varispeed to temporarily change the pitch of the recording like every recorder I'd EVER worked with previously.
That said....I wasn't really getting at choosing a different point of calibration instead of 440....consistently 432 would qualify as the same phenomenon. It was that for the first 50 years of recorded music, between turning TO pianos....and tape speed variations....the average album didn't deliver most tunes at a consistent calibration. Now, I feel like I could turn on the top 100 across every genre and something not locked to 440 would be the exception.
I think....as I've had a few days to think on this....it's when the paradigm of the two track was removed that is going to enforce "no speed/pitch changes at mixdown"---because as long as you record the mix back to the same multitrack (analog or digital) you effectively can't speed it up or slow it down. In combination with fewer and fewer analog pianos (electric or acoustic) being used**....means you never HAVE to start a recording anywhere but a standard calibration....and the lack of two tracks means you can't alter it at all during the mix process.
**because, for youngsters  --if you were recording at StudioX....and their Rhodes or C7 MIGHT....MIGHT be used at all in the recording--you would start by everyone tuning TO the immovable piano's tuning. Unless you ALSO MIGHT want to use a Hammond, which won't budge from 440....then it becomes a judgement call....but there was always the tape speed to change to accommodate....if with some sonic side effects.
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#1567011 - 03/23/18 06:00 AM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: Popmann]
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Jazzooo
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You know, thinking about this dialogue tonight while I enjoyed a solo piano recital by a monster player friend of mine...
It seems to me that the people who don't have perfect pitch are often the ones who seek to define it, maybe as a way of understanding it themselves. Note that I'm not suggesting this applies to you, pop, but it's something I've noticed. I had someone tell me that because it slips a little when I'm exhausted, then my pitch really isn't 'perfect.' I didn't give myself that title--it's been given to me by music teachers since I was a kid and through my teens, because I can always identify notes by the letter name. I can name individual notes in complicated chord clusters as well, and I can always tell if one player in an orchestra is even slightly out of tune. It's always been this way.
But...it's only interesting and useful to me if I use it in an artistic way. If I'm, say, on melodica and I'm playing with someone who is slightly out of tune and I think it will help, I will blow harder to flatten key notes and match their pitch. It's beyond knowing the note name, and has nothing to do with identifying the number of times per second that the sound wave oscillates. It's just a tool to keep me in tune with other musicians, or if I'm producing, to keep musicians in tune with each other.
I can't think of a musical use in my personal life where identifying 442 or 438 by ear would make a difference. I think identifying pitches by their stage names is more meaningful. Don't you guys?
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#1567039 - 03/23/18 02:52 PM
Re: When did this "everything at 440" thing start?
[Re: motown59]
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gonzo
purveyor of noise
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Registered: 08/16/99
Posts: 31451
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i have tuned to 415.3 Hz for about 28 years now.
if i work with an actual piano, i'll tune to it.
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How dare they f with the pitch.
Perhaps from the Adat onward to all ITB. I haven't really concerned myself contemplating it. I will say that learning all these 70s songs has me frequently tuning the guitar all over. 
