Klarinet Archive - Posting 000475.txt from 1998/09

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Pitch standards
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 07:12:10 -0400

This is fair enough for makers and players. Listeners and recording
engineers aren't really interested in the temperature at which a pitch is
defined, only in whether what they hear is at the right pitch. Hence,
there is no need for a standard pitch to be defined at a
particular temperature. It is up to the makers to provide instruments that
produce that pitch at a temperature they select
and publicise.
Roger Shilcock

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 10:28:17 -0500 (CDT)
> From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Re: Pitch standards
>
> On 14 Sep 1998 charette@-----.org wrote:
>
> > Not exactly. This standard stands by itself, in this case an unambiguous
> > motion over time, and temperature does not come into play.
>
> I'm having some trouble understanding what you are saying here, or perhaps
> why you are saying it. When a physical apparatus, such as a musical
> instrument, is involved, temperature always comes into play. When the
> Fox company makes a bassoon, they say that the pitch level is something
> like A=440 or A=442 *at a certain temperature,* such as 70 or 72 degrees
> Fahrenheit. And, if the instrument must be played at 60 degrees, or 90
> degrees, that its pitch level will change seems so obvious as to not need
> to be stated.
>
> I just received a letter from the Heckel company in Germany, in which they
> responded to my request for information about my instrument. They told me
> that it was made in 1923, and that it originally was designed to play in
> tune at A@-----. Also, those notorious pitched percussion
> instruments which have been discussed are also intended to play at their
> nominal frequency, whatever that may be, but only at a specified
> temperature. Now, the situation is made even more complicated due to the
> fact that the reason an instrument changes temperature is due to a change
> in the temperature of the ambient air. And, those changes also affect the
> frequency of musical sounds.
>
> So, how is it that you feel that temperature never comes into the play?
>
> Ed Lacy
> el2@-----.edu
>
>
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>
>

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