Klarinet Archive - Posting 000166.txt from 1998/09

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Short barrels
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 19:16:10 -0400

At 05:21 PM 9/5/98 -0500, Roger Garrett wrote:
>Also, I'm not sure what was meant by the "....trend toward rising pitch
>standard in European orchestras...." Many of the European orchestras,
>Berlin and Vienna included, have always maintained a 445-447 pitch
>standard. I have recordings back to the 60's and earlier that are very
>high in pitch. It hasn't been rising since then.........my understanding
>is that they have played that way for a long time. Regardless, that has
>nothing to do with sharp pitch in Vandoren mouthpieces.......or any other
>mouthpieces for that matter. I have found David Hite's, Herb Blayman's,
>Marcellus, Combs, and Vandoren to all play sharp......for the same reasons
>- the baffle. Considering that the first four I list are not products of
>European professional players, I seriously doubt that there is a
>relationship between the pitch of those mouthpieces and any "trend."
>
I'm the one who made the comment about pitch. Why, when we have had a
long-established standard pitch of A=440, have some orchestras arbitrarily
decided that they need to introduce intonation problems in their woodwinds
and brass, or obsolete their instruments, for the sake of making their
group sound "brighter" (whatever THAT means)? The pitch standard used by
manufacturers seems to be trending toward A=442, and you are going to have
a VERY hard time convincing me that this is in ANY way a good thing. You
are welcome to try, though. :-)

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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