If you’ve played the piano you may be familiar with the term “A-440”. You might wonder what this actually refers to and if it’s something you need to be concerned with. Today we are going to go into detail on this subject and share everything you need to know about what A-440.
All sound is simply a series of vibrations that go through the air. The strings on a piano go through a certain number of vibration cycles per second – this is what actually produces the sound we hear. If you were to put a piano string under a microscope and slowed it way down, you would see the string moving back and forth for each vibration cycle. The air around the string also vibrates at the same frequency and when it hits your eardrums you will eventually hear the sound from the vibration the string has produced since your eardrums will sympathetically vibrate at the same speed.
So what does this all have to do with A-440? Everything! The A note above middle C should produce 440 vibration cycles per second when it is properly tuned. This is where the term A-440 comes from. You can actually test this on your own piano using a tuner or a tuner app on your smartphone.
Is it a bad thing if your piano is not tuned to A-440? It could be. Modern pianos are meant to be tuned and played at A-440 so they sound their best when they are tuned at that pitch. Some people actually like to tune their pianos a bit higher than A-440 because it produces a brighter sound they prefer. Some European orchestras tune to A-442 or even A-444 since they prefer that sound.
A-440 is the standard pitch for modern instruments.
This is especially important when you are playing with other instruments. Some instruments are able to tune up or down a certain degree and others don’t have this ability. If you were playing with someone who plays vibes or other mallet based instruments there is no way to tune these instruments. So, playing a piano tuned off of the standard A-440 pitch would sound quite ugly when played with an instrument tuned at concert pitch of A-440.
One more thing to note is that when you double the frequency of a note you simply get the same note an octave higher. So for example, if you play the A above A-440 you will produce A-880. Likewise, if you were to play an A an octave lower it would be A-220, or 220 cycles per second.
I recommend checking your piano periodically to ensure that it’s around the proper pitch. If the piano ever drops or even goes up in pitch it could take several tunings to make it stable again and achieve the correct pitch.
I hope this has been helpful for you and I would love to hear your comments about this subject. Thanks again for joining us at Living Pianos Info@LivingPianos.com