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After many years, I have decided that my computer plays back midi files at about a 443 tuning. (Meaning I have to tune 443 to be in tune) (I did not check all audio file types) I did not believe this for a long time because the difference was so small but I finally confirmed it using Audacity diagnostics.
Does anyone else tune other than 440 for any other or similar purpose ?
I can tell you that a well tuned play-along-CD is a rare find. Maybe never a lot but enough to be annoying.
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A = 443 is extremely common in professional orchestras. 
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Advanced member
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Oh all the time. Take a tuner to your music collection, you may be surprised at how common it is.
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If I hear 440 then 443, I know one is higher than the other. If you just play one for me, I would be unable to tell if it was 440 or 443, of course I could guess, 50 50 shot! Can any of you identify one or the other just hearing one?
Dave
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David Burns said:
If I hear 440 then 443, I know one is higher than the other. If you just play one for me, I would be unable to tell if it was 440 or 443, of course I could guess, 50 50 shot! Can any of you identify one or the other just hearing one?
Dave
Actually...I can't because playing w/ ears is very hard for me, because I can't tell any note by just hearing them that's why I always have my tuner, btw I'm using 443 because Pierre's violin is tuned in 443 :), Good luck anyways.
David,
My guess is that a person with perfect pitch would identify 440 as "A" and 443 as an "A" out of tune.....too high but not necessarily 443.
They would never think it was a "B" at 494.
The difference between 440 and 443 is 11.8 musical cents. Even I can hear 11.8 cents but, in my case, I would not be sure what the note is.
A good (old time) piano tuner is reported to be accurate to 10 cents and more recent studies say 5 cents. I'm not sure of the full abilities of someone like that.
In all my years I have only known one person who had perfect, perfect pitch. A young high school girl who played piano. She also may have been the best interpretive musician I ever heard and I'm not kiddin'
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We used to have a blind man come to tune my sister's piano. I only saw him use a tuning fork a couple times, most everything was by ear. He had a whole briefcase full of tuning forks.
Dave
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I can't name tones but I can tell whether they're tuned A440 or not, which is really weird but makes intonation super easy. When I listen to Bach in period tuning (A415) it sounds like my stereo is melting.
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Sounds like you have a good ear anathama. I can hear it too. As a matter of fact 440 sounds low to me and sometimes disturbing as well.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
I can't identify individual notes but I am pretty good at guessing keys.
For instance, the key of "A" sounds "happy" to me. Maybe it's the way that my violin plays ? "Ab" is "serious" but pleasant, etc. Maybe most beautiful. "D" is good fiddlin' sound, etc.
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I bet if you trained your ear you could recognize the pitches as well. You know the sound now but haven't memorized the notes by ear. Just the fact that you recognize the key means it has a special sound to you.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Incidentally, I am finding that I am more and more able to look at a piece of music and hear the tune. I can identify a lot of music without a title. I think with a violin I often resort to relative pitch ( 3 rds, 5 ths, etc. )
I know that is small potatoes as talents go BUT what amazes me is that I could not do that years ago. I learned that somehow.
I guess this what untapped abilities are all about. Not apparent until used?
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