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Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859-1955

Online ISBN:
9780226823270
Print ISBN:
9780226823263
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859-1955

Fanny Gribenski
Fanny Gribenski
New York University
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Published online:
21 September 2023
Published in print:
26 January 2023
Online ISBN:
9780226823270
Print ISBN:
9780226823263
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Now commonly accepted as the point of reference for musicians in the Western world, A 440 hertz only became the standard pitch during an international conference held in 1939. The adoption of this sonic point of reference was the result of decades of negotiations between countries involving an unexpectedly wide range of actors from various fields, whether performers, composers, diplomats, physicists, or sound engineers. Reflecting the significance of these exchanges, archives and collections across the world hold rich material documenting the conversations and practices that ultimately led to the adoption of concert pitch A 440, but these sources have remained largely unexplored and no study has yet explained the creation of this unit. While historians of science have shown the labour and compromised nature of standards by analysing the historical contingencies of their production, efforts to standardize musical sounds have escaped scholarly attention. Through a unique combination of musicological perspectives, transnational history, and science studies, this book tells the unknown story of how A 440 became the global norm. In doing so, it demonstrates the aesthetic, scientific, industrial and political contingencies underlying the construction of one of the most “natural” objects of contemporary musical performance, itself the result of a cacophony of competing views and interests.

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