And, here's the pitch ...

So, you've settled into your seat, read your program book, and now, the concert is about to begin. The Concertmaster — whose job it is to tune the orchestra — walks onstage, acknowledges the applause of the audience, turns his back, and then points to the oboist. On cue, she lifts her oboe and plays a single note until all the members of the orchestra have had a chance to hear it. But not just any note, mind you — an A. And not just any A, but A-440.

But what in the world does A-440 mean? I'll try to explain what I've found out about it.

All the sounds we hear are produced by vibrations, or waves, in the air. The number of waves that hit our ears in a given second is called the frequency, AND the more waves there are, the higher the frequency is and therefore the higher the note that we hear is.

In the music world, the note that everybody tunes to is called A-440 because that particular sound has a frequency of 440 waves per second — producing the note A.

But how can anyone possibly determine with any accuracy what frequency their instrument is playing? Well, it used to be that great musicians were able to learn to tell the differences. These days, however, many musicians use a tuner. This little machine, about the size of a deck of cards, has a meter on it which measures the exact frequency.

Actually, A-440 hasn't always been the standard for tuning. The standard pitch has gone up over the years. In fact, in the Baroque era (about 300 years ago), musicians tuned to a lower version of A — about 430 cycles per second. Because of this, music written for sopranos in the Baroque era is much harder to sing now than it was back then. The high notes in Handel's Messiah, for instance, are much harder for the chorus to hit now than they were back in 1742.

And the frequency of tuning continues to rise. Today many orchestras are tuning to A-442. It's only a slight difference, but they feel that the higher frequency gives them a brighter sound.

Hmmm, I might finally have the perfect excuse for not being able to hit some of those high notes ...