Shamisen three" or "lowered third" refers to tuning the shamisen to honchoshi and lowering the 3rd string (the string with the highest pitch) down a whole step, so that now the instrument is tuned in fourths, e.g. D, G, C. Instead of having a set tuning, such as on a guitar (i.e. E, A, D, G, B, E) or a violin (i.e. G, D, A, E), the shamisen is tuned according to the register of the singer, or simply to the liking of the player. The shamisen player can tune the shamisen to whatever register desired, so long as the above
Concert pitch beginning with the work of German physicist Johann Scheibler in the 1830s. The term formerly used for the unit of pitch, cycle per second (CPS) was renamed the hertz (Hz) in the 20th century in honor of Heinrich Hertz. During historical periods when instrumental music rose in prominence (relative to the voice), there was a continuous tendency for pitch levels to rise. This "pitch inflation" seemed largely a product of instrumentalists competing with each other, each attempting to produce a brighter, more "brilliant", sound than that of their rivals. (In string instruments, this is not all acoustic illusion: when tuned