Adjusting overall ensemble pitch?

[brianggilbert]

On that note, it boggles me as to why ensembles try to ALWAYS tune to A-440, regardless of the air temperature. It's important to note that for every one degree of temperature change, pitch changes 2 cents

True, but can you imagine the oboe taking the temperature, consulting a chart, and THEN making the required adjustment!?

(we're lucky they put the reed in the right end, as it is! )

** or you could just simply shoot the oboe player **

[corbasse]

On that note, it boggles me as to why ensembles try to ALWAYS tune to A-440, regardless of the air temperature. It's important to note that for every one degree of temperature change, pitch changes 2 cents.

RC

Yeah, but winds go up when it gets warmer, and strings go down and the other way round when it gets colder, due to the fact that the string expansion/shrinkage is more than the change in the speed of sound. Keeping 440 as a midway point makes sense then.

I (unfortunately) vividly remember playing a concert a few years ago with baroque instruments in a big 15th century church, where they forgot to put on the heating well before the concert, in winter, when it was freezing outside.
I can't remember if I shuddered more because of the temperature or because the different groups in the orchestra were about a quarter tone apart. (Gut strings are much more perceptible to temperature changes than modern steel ones.)

[windshieldbug]

Gut strings are much more perceptible to temperature changes than modern steel ones

... and therefore the pegs are MUCH harder to turn!