[Dobrescu George]

I think that there are enough kind and smart people around here that would point me to understanding from where and why such concept exists, whilst music is clearly made of all frequencies, and no one can ever separate a particular frequency, and this freq would be, i dunno, maybe between E and O sound?

 

[Roly1650]

I think that there are enough kind and smart people around here that would point me to understanding from where and why such concept exists, whilst music is clearly made of all frequencies, and no one can ever separate a particular frequency, and this freq would be, i dunno, maybe between E and O sound?

Here you go, a full explanation of concert pitch and why it's varied over the centuries:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pitch_standards_in_Western_music#History_of_pitch_standards_in_Western_music

Pretty logical once you think about it for more than seconds.

 

[Dobrescu George]

i mean, does it make a difference in real world music?
 
like, it cannot necessarly be clearer or hold any REAL advantages, right?

 

[RRod]

  i mean, does it make a difference in real world music?
 
like, it cannot necessarly be clearer or hold any REAL advantages, right?

 
Yes it can make a difference. Say you're a singer and you have to hit a note at the top end of your range. If the concert pitch is, say, 415Hz, then it will be easier to hit that note than if concert pitch is 440Hz. It has anecdotes about this in the article listed above.

 

[Dobrescu George]

   
Yes it can make a difference. Say you're a singer and you have to hit a note at the top end of your range. If the concert pitch is, say, 415Hz, then it will be easier to hit that note than if concert pitch is 440Hz. It has anecdotes about this in the article listed above.

i listen exclusively to recorded music. 
 
i still cannot get a grip on what a concert pitch is... sorry, i have no school in music at all.

 

[RRod]

  i listen exclusively to recorded music. 
 
i still cannot get a grip on what a concert pitch is... sorry, i have no school in music at all.

 
Musicians have to be in tune with one another. A good start for making this happen is to agree on the frequency of one of your notes. In the case of orchestras, that note is typically an "A"**. Before the orchestra starts playing the real music, the oboist will play an "A" at concert pitch (440Hz for many orchestras) and everyone will get an "A" on their instrument in tune with that note.
 
Each instrument will still have to make slight adjustments in pitch for other notes, but they can always refer back to that "A", and will thus generally know how they need to adjust other notes to keep the ensemble in tune. Without tuning, it would be a harder to keep that many people in tune together.
 
The concert pitch also affects how instruments sound. For instance, if a violinist wants to tune his "A" string to 450Hz, then he will have to make his string tighter. This makes the sound more brilliant. Similarly, each note a singer sings at 450Hz concert-pitch will sound relatively higher than at 440Hz, again making the sound possibly more brilliant but also possibly more shrill in the upper part of the voice.
 
** the western musical scale uses 7 letters: A B C D E F G

 

[Dobrescu George]

   
Musicians have to be in tune with one another. A good start for making this happen is to agree on the frequency of one of your notes. In the case of orchestras, that note is typically an "A"**. Before the orchestra starts playing the real music, the oboist will play an "A" at concert pitch (440Hz for many orchestras) and everyone will get an "A" on their instrument in tune with that note.
 
Each instrument will still have to make slight adjustments in pitch for other notes, but they can always refer back to that "A", and will thus generally know how they need to adjust other notes to keep the ensemble in tune. Without tuning, it would be a harder to keep that many people in tune together.
 
The concert pitch also affects how instruments sound. For instance, if a violinist wants to tune his "A" string to 450Hz, then he will have to make his string tighter. This makes the sound more brilliant. Similarly, each note a singer sings at 450Hz concert-pitch will sound relatively higher than at 440Hz, again making the sound possibly more brilliant but also possibly more shrill in the upper part of the voice.
 
** the western musical scale uses 7 letters: A B C D E F G

okay, now i understand... but is there any way to know if an album was recorded on any particular pitch,?..
 
and what religion, or why would somebody tell me that they would use a converter in foobar2k for converting everything to 432 pitch? Again, i am asking because as an audiophile i talk with people about music, and i heared the theory that if something was recorded in 440 hz he/she should change it to 432 for the better?...

 

[bigshot]

Most everything today is tuned to A440. The only exception I know is the Vienna Philharmonic which still used antique horns that were designed for A443. No matter what pitch a band is tuned to, it's still relative pitch. But I would imagine you want to listen to your music at the correct pitch. The only reason you might change it is if you want to play along with an instrument that is tuned differently.

 

[RRod]

  okay, now i understand... but is there any way to know if an album was recorded on any particular pitch,?..
 
and what religion, or why would somebody tell me that they would use a converter in foobar2k for converting everything to 432 pitch? Again, i am asking because as an audiophile i talk with people about music, and i heared the theory that if something was recorded in 440 hz he/she should change it to 432 for the better?...

 
You could do a bit of spectrum analysis to get a sense for the tuning; find a section with a held note and find the peak for the fundamental. This is assuming you also know the temperament, which for most orchestral and pop music would be 12-tone equal temperament, but could be different for a cappela singing and other ensembles like string quartets. (That's probably too complicated an answer 

)
 
The effect of digitally pitch shifting the music from 440 down to 432 might not be the same as an orchestra actually tuning lower. As I said above, tuning higher or lower can affect the overall timbre of an instrument and thus the whole orchestra. As bigshot noted, if you happened to have a piano tuned to 440 and just HAD to play along with an album tuned differently, then pitch-shifting with the computer could be helpful.
 
**I just tried the spectrum analysis with a couple of versions of the opening of Mahler's 5th symphony. The recording with Melbourne came up at 440.9Hz and the recording with Vienna came up at 442.9Hz for the concert A. Lines up pretty well with bigshot's comment.

 

[bufferoverflow]

To the OP :
Your question is a very good example of why you should be extremely sceptical about everything 'Audiophiles' say on the internets .
 
To the rest of you guys :
Can't believe you didn't catch the oiled voodoo-snake, it's all about this New-Age nonsense :
 

440hz Music - Conspiracy To Detune Us From Natural 432Hz Harmonics? 
 
A=432 Hz, known as Verdi’s ‘A’ is an alternative tuning that is mathematically consistent with the universe. Music based on 432 Hz transmits beneficial healing energy, because it is a pure tone of math fundamental to nature.

There is a theory that the change from 432 Hz to 440 Hz was dictated by Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. He used it to make people think and feel a certain manner, and to make them a prisoner of a certain consciousness. Then around 1940 the United States introduced 440 Hz worldwide, and finally in 1953 it became the ISO 16-standard.
440 Hz is the unnatural standard tuning frequency, removed from the symmetry of sacred vibrations and overtones that has declared war on the subconscious mind of Western Man.

 
Damn You Hitler !!
 
EDIT :
It is correct that concert-pitch, for various reasons,  has changed over time .
Have a look here for a brief history-lesson :
https://www.piano-tuners.org/history/pitch.html

 

[Dobrescu George]

  To the OP :
Your question is a very good example of why you should be extremely sceptical about everything 'Audiophiles' say on the internets .
 
To the rest of you guys :
Can't believe you didn't catch the oiled voodoo-snake, it's all about this New-Age nonsense :
 
 
Damn You Hitler !!
 
EDIT :
It is correct that concert-pitch, for various reasons,  has changed over time .
Have a look here for a brief history-lesson :
https://www.piano-tuners.org/history/pitch.html

ok, i totally understand it, but why more exactly, and does this hold any real substance, or it is all a lie?
 
the people i talked about this to are not audiophiles by far, but music enthusiasts...

 

[bufferoverflow]

  ok, i totally understand it, but why more exactly, and does this hold any real substance, or it is all a lie?
 
the people i talked about this to are not audiophiles by far, but music enthusiasts...

 
 
Well, the 432Hz vs 440Hz  'debate' is pure New-Age voodoo :

 Music based on 432 Hz transmits beneficial healing energy, because it is a pure tone of math fundamental to nature.

The concert-pitch debate is another matter, it does make a difference to how music and certain instruments sound, but there are 'scientific' reasons for that,
not some mumbo-jumbo about being in synch with the natural healing- frequency of the universe .

 

[RRod]

  To the OP :
Your question is a very good example of why you should be extremely sceptical about everything 'Audiophiles' say on the internets .
 
To the rest of you guys :
Can't believe you didn't catch the oiled voodoo-snake, it's all about this New-Age nonsense :
 
 
Damn You Hitler !!
 
EDIT :
It is correct that concert-pitch, for various reasons,  has changed over time .
Have a look here for a brief history-lesson :
https://www.piano-tuners.org/history/pitch.html

 
Didn't catch it because it would never cross my mind. Why 432, though? I would think you'd want to base C on powers of 2, so put the C at 512Hz and then either do a just scale to A=426.7 or do 12TET to A=430.54. Perhaps 432 is close enough for government work...

 

[Daedalus1116]

"mathematically consistent with the universe"  "math fundamental to nature"
I simply can not believe that there are still this kind of idiots (remove if inappropriate).
Never the less, this is the funniest thing I have read on the internet.