A friend shared this article recently, about a summary of a musical discussion held (about 10 years ago) about a political debate on musical tuning of orchestras. Previously, I have heard some people approach the discussion from the perspective of the effects of sound on a listener’s ears – whereas in this article, they talk about the physical effects on a human voice, strain on vocal chords. I found the discussion interesting, albeit biased, as only one side of the debate was offered (and therefore, in this article, there is no actual debate).
Here’s a brief quote, to get a sample of where the discussion goes in the article:
"But why is this a political fight? And why can you say that there is such a thing as a right or a wrong pitch? How can you say that an orchestra is tuned wrong? Who has the authority to say that?
Well, nature. Nature has the authority to say that. The human voice has the authority to say what pitch it wants to sing at—how it works best. All music today, be it vocal music, instrumental music, piano music, whatever, all music inherently is based on the human voice and the characteristics of expression of music based in human poetry and the human voice, and specifically, the trained human voice, as trained by discovered principles of how the human voice actually works, …"
I can’t sing, but am interested if a singer has any thoughts about this article. Would it be true that the A440 tuning is harder on a singer’s voice than A432 tuning, or can one simply correct that by singing in a lower key that would suit a singer’s particular voice (although this becomes unwieldly when dealing with scores that encompass multiple singers and choruses with large orchestras, as with operas)?
Perhaps the irrirtation that keeps this debate on the fire might have something to do with the expense of re-arranging some orchestral arrangements to suit particular singers’ voices…?