Standard Form 415: Fill & Download for Free

A few matters to unpack here:Haydn was a classical composer, not a baroque one;He was the latest of these composers, dying in 1809, compared to Bach (1750) and Vivaldi (1741);Henrich Hertz, who was the first man to prove the existence of electromagnetic waves and who the unit of the Hertz is named after, wasn’t even born until 1857, and the unit of frequency, which had hitherto been known in English as ‘cycle per second’, wasn’t named after him until 1930.Since not only did the Hertz as a unit not exist in the eighteenth century, but the basic phenomenon of which it was named to measure the frequency, electromagnetic waves, hadn’t even been conceptualised at that time, it should be fairly obvious that none of these composers can have used any value of Hz as a ‘standard’.Helmholtz, in On the Sensations of Tone, published a table comparing the pitches of various tuning forks and organs from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, showing that the Hz value of [math]A^1[/math] varied widely from place to place and time to time, from 415 in a Dresden organ in 1754 to 428.7 in a church organ in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, built in 1670 and repaired several times except with respect to its pitch.The table goes on to show various other Hz values of [math]A^1[/math] going up to a hair-raising 489.2 on an organ in Hamburg which had been played and approved by Bach. Helmholtz dryly notes ‘Herr Schmahl the organist is accustomed to transpose all music at sight one tone lower, which brings it to French pitch.’

“Perfect pitch” is actually “good pitch memory”.We know this from (a) accounts of musicians in the past who could tell or sing pitches at will, (b) combined with the knowledge that the “standard pitch” in the past was different at different times.For example, in the 17th century there were a variety of standard pitches for A (including the nice low one of around 392 (some organs even at 380), the “baroque pitch” of around 415, the high pitches on some organs of 467 (or higher, maybe to save tin!).The pianos in Mozart’s time were around 430, and piano tuning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was set to 435.435 is a little flat from 440, but 415 is a half tone flat, and 392 is two semitones flat (the A sounds like a G today).Pitch memory can be learned by those who don’t just take to it as children. There are various courses available. It was the fad when I went to music camp in the 50s, and I learned it. But it was quite a bit more trouble than it was worth for playing jazz in bars with old pianos that had been allowed to slip, for playing transposing instruments (like trumpet, clarinet, etc.), and for baroque instruments such as harpsichords. In all cases the extra interference wasn’t worth it, so I unlearned it.Most trained musicians prefer the development of acute relative pitch. This is a floating version of “perfect pitch”. There is a reference pitch, and all the other pitches are identified by remembering “where you are”.This includes “hearing the notes” as one looks at sheet music. With relative pitch one can “ ‘see’ what things will sound like” (a somewhat bizarre phrase in English), and there is no problem to move from a piano at A=440 to a harpsichord at A=415.In some systems of musical teaching, especially for children, a relative language for pitches — called “solfeggio” — is taught. This is “do,re,mi, fa, sol,la,ti,do” etc (with additional syllables for the sharped and flatted notes).There are two very different uses of this. Many European countries identify the syllables with notes on the piano “do” would be “C” etc.For much music, this is much less useful than to identify “do” with the “tonic” note of the key one is in. In the relative use of solfeggio, “do” would be G in the key of G, D in the key of D etc. This allows one to “see/hear” where the notes are relative to the key one is in.This covers a lot of music. But there is also music that is not in terms of keys, and for this more general schemes are needed.

Eric Pepke is right. Tuning forks and instruments from the Baroque era show that there was no agreed upon standard for what A should be back then. "Historically informed" performances today generally tune to A = 415 Hz (close to a modern G# in A = 440 tuning!) to approximate what a Baroque orchestra might have sounded like.There is also a rather amusing phenomenon known as 'pitch inflation': orchestras have been gradually adopting higher and higher frequencies for A, so that their sound is brighter than everyone else's. As a result, the standard frequency for A has been creeping up gradually over the centuries.In any case, A = 440 Hz, corresponding to C = 261.626 Hz, isn't even a real standard today. The Berliner Philharmoniker uses A = 443, while Chinese orchestras (orchestras formed by Chinese instruments) have adopted A = 442 as the standard. This is why some tuners allow you to set A as any frequency between 436 and 445.If you're someone who doesn't have perfect pitch, you would hardly notice the difference, even if the orchestra is tuned to A = 415. It doesn't get any more arbitrary than that.