What is A440?
A440 refers to the frequency in cycles per second of the “A” above Middle C in a piano. Once that note has been set, the rest of the notes in the piano are also set at certain musical intervals from that note. The result is a piano that is at “concert pitch”. This is the pitch at which all orchestral instruments are tuned so that they sound good when played together. For a piano, it means that it can be played with other instruments that are also at concert pitch. On some pianos, it is not always possible to bring a piano up to concert pitch because of the risk of string breakage or general poor condition of the piano due to aging. In this case the piano is tuned at “relative pitch”, so that it is evenly flat. However, a piano tuned at this pitch cannot be played with other instruments that are tuned at concert pitch. They must be tuned to match the piano if it is necessary to play it with other instruments. It is always desirable to leave a piano at A440, or concert pitch, but when th
