Klarinet Archive - Posting 000563.txt from 1998/11

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.com>
Subj: @-----._:_Re:_=5Bkl=5D_Concert_A_pitch=2C_again?=
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 17:18:14 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: David Renaud <studiorenaud@-----.com>
Date: Monday, November 16, 1998 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Réf. : Re: [kl] Concert A pitch, again

>I am a Registered Piano Technician as well as clarinetist, living on the
>Quebec,
>Ontario border. I am often asked specificly to tune to A442 at a concert
hall
>in Quebec,
>whenever an artist is coming from Montreal, but to A440 for artists from
the
>Ontario
>side.
> Rebuilt a 1927 grand with "Universal Standard Pitch A435" embossed on the
>plate.
> When I play ochestra parts along with CD,s of European orchestras I
sometimes
>have to lower the pitch on my adat as much as 20 cents(Berlin recordings
are
>bad for that)
>This would put the pitch up above A445.
>???
>Has pitch gone up over time because of building larger and larger, dryer
and
>dryer, concert
>halls with less wood, more padding, to suck up those high fequencies,
resulting
>in the need
>to project more highs into the hall??.

This is nothing new. When the international standard was established at
A=440, there was another standard of A=456! Clarinets in the overlapping
time period were often labeled LP (low pitch around the 440 or so) or HP
(high pitch around 456 or so). I do not know what countries did this though
as there was also a standard of A@-----.

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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