Posted by Rick Denney on February 22, 2004 at 22:12:37:
In Reply to: 440 hz VS 443 hz. posted by Chase Conley on February 22, 2004 at 20:20:40:
Some European orchestras tune to a slightly sharper pitch than the international standard of middle A = 440 Hz. Thus, most modern brass instruments are set up so the tuning slide will push in far enough to reach that pitch, but not much farther.
In typical use, a tuba ought to show a tasteful inch of main tuning slide to play in tune with the A-440 standard. That way, the player can adjust up or down as needed to match the ensemble.
But some instruments are set up for that tasteful inch of tuning-slide pull to be in tune with an A-443 pitch standard. That means it will have to be pulled more to line up with ensembles playing to A-440. There should still be enough slide to deal with it--it will just show more slide than usual and won't have as much adjustment room in the flat direction.
Even worse, some instruments are set up to play in tune with all the slides all the way in. Such an instrument would be unusable if the pitch standard of the group is sharper than the standard used by the maker. I think it's unusable anyway, because of dealing with temperature changes and so on.
Rick "whose Holton shows about a half inch for A-440, which is good because the slide slip out from gravity if it's pulled more than an inch" Denney