Well, there some fairly strong attempts at standardization early on. Much earlier than one might think. But apparently, things are still pretty fluid.

Organs first found their way into churches in the tenth century and by the fifteenth, they were well established as an essential part of the liturgy (interesting website here). Since much early music played on instruments other than the organ was liturgical in nature and often played along with the organ, it was the organ (a fixed-pitch instrument) that set the standard of pitch for the other instruments. But not all organ builders used the same standard, so pitch varied somewhat with locality.

By the time Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven came along, there was a lot of agreement, but there was still a lot of variation. This website (blicky) gives a pretty good overall picture. Also, I stand corrected. It isn't violinists and such that want to raise the pitch to 444=A, it seems to be pianists in some Eastern European countries (last paragraph of the web page).

My personal hobby-horse is that I don't want to keep cranking my guitar up and down. Not good for it. And if we all came to a songfest tuned to the same standard, then all we'd have to do was fine-tune and it would save a lot of time—not to mention disagreements as to who should tune to whom. Just about everyone I jam with tunes to a 440=A, and to most people, it just makes sense. Since that's the current international standard, I figure, why fight it? Use it. It's easier that way.

But if it's just a couple of musicians who want to play together by themselves, I guess it's sorta like sex. Whatever you do between yourselves is nobody else's business. Just try not to frighten the horses.

Don Firth