What reference freq is Snowy White playing Bird of Paradise

sev112

the re order version is higher pitch than the 5th fret position he is playing at 440.

went up to 444 at which point string broke.

its not the end of the world - I’ll just put a new string on, and play at 4th fret and tune to match
but I was just surprised how much difference just a few Hz made

any thoughts?

guitars4you

I can't help you with your question but I will say that tone is one of my favourites - It is probably his Parisienne Walkway's or Pete Green Need Your Love song - Great playing and tone on that track

mart

sev112 said:

the re order version is higher pitch than the 5th fret position he is playing at 440.

went up to 444 at which point string broke.

its not the end of the world - I’ll just put a new string on, and play at 4th fret and tune to match
but I was just surprised how much difference just a few Hz made

any thoughts?

4Hz difference would be enough to sound out of tune at that pitch, but it’s not enough to make a string break - it’s considerably less than a semitone, so if that extra tension broke the string, then the string would have broken any time you bent a note. It was just (bad) luck that your string broke at that moment.

Musicwolf

At A=440Hz then 4Hz is equivalent to just under 16 cents.  As @mart says, enough to sound out of tune but not the direct cause of your string breakage.

EricTheWeary

This seems to be famously between two keys. Snowy would , I think, have tuned to Eb for his gig with Thin Lizzy so possibly he was still tuning that way on Bird? So 4hz up from that ( and played a fret up) is still less tension than regular tuning. 

sev112

I never break strings normally, now I’ve had 2 in 2 days must be another due, I reckon they come in 3s.  
Second one was a G string when showing my daughter how to change strings . So difficult to get another single acoustic G string though