I chuckled at this because my initial reaction was exactly the opposite of John’s. I literally thought “A is all that matters.” And then scrolled to see his response. :o)
Always enjoy seeing a variety of great ways to approach the task at hand.
For me, I find out what pitch A4 is at, and briefly listen to the rest of the piano to see if it’s relatively in the same place. As an aural tuner, I only measure in Hz. (When I worked at the Colburn School of Music we tuned everything to 441.5, their standard at the time.)
So for me to quantify a pitch raise, I refer to the only thing that “matters” - A4.
If you want me to unpack it deeper, where A4 is 433-436Hz, I pull the pitch up to 443Hz, pulling in unisons asap, stretching the octaves as I go. Everything roughed in as quickly as possible for stability’s sake, ideally <30 minutes.
Second time around, piano will have settled at A440Hz, and should be relatively close to in tune. I do expect though certain sections may need a brief 3rd pass, like at plate struts.
So if I pull a piano up from A415Hz to A445Hz and tune it to A441Hz is that 104¢ ? 120¢ ?
I honestly don’t know.
Which may explain my approach - even if it Hertz. ;o)
Elizabeth
Original Message------
I would not say my way is official. When I do a pitch correction, I note it as follows: "Pitch raise 15-40 cents." Generally, the low tenor will be the most out, followed by the upper treble, and then the bass. In the example above, the bass would be out 15 cents, the upper treble around 40 cents, and the middle somewhere in between.
To me, it doesn't really matter where A4 is except to know what offset I will need to use during the pitch raise. As long as I have the range of pitch correction, that's enough for me.
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John Formsma, RPT
New Albany MS
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