The Forest of Wool and Steel

by Natsu Miyashita

The basic A above middle C is set at 440 hertz for a school piano. Apparently the first cry of any infant in the world is projected at 440 hertz. Hertz means the number of times per second that the air vibrates. The higher the number, the higher the sound. Until the end of World War Two, A above middle C in Japan was set at 430 hertz. If you go back further in time to the Europe of Mozart’s day, it was 422 hertz. It’s gradually getting higher over the years. Nowadays it’s often set at 442 hertz. Concert pitch for A above middle C for an oboe in an orchestra is set at 444 hertz, and since pianos tend to be adjusted to suit that, their pitch will probably climb even higher – nearly one whole semitone higher than when Mozart was composing. In other words, the sound we perceive now is simply no longer the same A above middle C.

This is it. This is the point of the book. It is slow an lingering as an antidote to the ever increasing "hertz" of our lives.