Tonefiend Forum

Do any of yous tune your instruments away from the A 440 standard? I've heard a lot of sketchy arguments over the years for things like the Pythagorian 432 hz and other standards (I think Tommy Emmanuel used to tune to 444, though I don't think he does any more). I don't buy the generally flaky rationale for those tunings, but at the same time, I only tune to 440 when I'm playing with others or tracking and I can definitely feel and hear the differences when I tune away from 440. One of my favorite violins has always sounded best to me at around 442 and most of my balcony guitars live at around 435 or so and they all sound much richer and wider to me at that setting. Also, even when I'm tuning standard with a tuner, I don't like all the strings to be exact to the 440 scale. I think they sound better, particularly the bass strings and B, when there are a couple cents variation across the board. I always just tuned with the tuner and then made some adjustments by ear, but I saw this vid with James Taylor awhile back and when I compared my ear-tuning to his formula, it was pretty close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V2xnXArjPts If I was in a math mood, I'd sit down and calculate whether there is a mathematical relationship with that spread, but it's a saturday, so I'll do that another time. At any rate, do you guys stick to the standard or are you flexible to what each instrument responds to and/or where your ear feels most comfortable?

Of course this leads into a conversation about temperament and microtonality, but I think that's been touched on a little here before (and I barely know what I'm talking about).