Klarinet Archive - Posting 000156.txt from 2005/10

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Low/High Pitch (was Pruefer Clarinet)
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 22:57:37 -0400

At 10:47 PM 10/16/2005 -0700, Dick Williams wrote:
>Please please! LP clarinets Do exist but I am old enough to have been there
>and was a member when A440 was agreed upon by the AFofM in the late 40's..
>It is not low pitch. To the best of my knowledge it is still the standard
>though many orchestras tune higher (especially on the continent). Most of
>the bands and recording sessions where I have been used 440. Most orchestras
>I have been with tune to 440 and move the pitch up during the
>concert/rehearsal. Every piano I have seen for years is at 440. Low pitch
>refers not to 440 but to the English prewar (WWII) pitch which I believe was
>435! Many players avoided the B&H instruments of that period. At that time,
>I believe the pitch on the continent was over 450. The 440 was a compromise.
>I cannot understand how all this confusion can exists since we have so many
>people claiming to have "perfect pitch." I have always wondered which pitch
>the perfect referred to.

Sorry, but I stand by my original statement. High Pitch is the "over 450"
you refer to. Low Pitch (by international, not just AFofM, agreement) IS
A=440, at least in the U.S. On US-made instruments, Low Pitch or LP
markings universally refer to A = 440, and they are perfectly useable as
long as your violins are not attempting to crank their instruments into dog
whistle territory. My vintage Low Pitch saxophones play at 440 just
fine. However, you may have a point regarding ENGLAND. To quote Anthony
Baines' book "Woodwind Instruments and Their History":

"FLAT PITCH or LOW PITCH. These expressions cover the following three pitches:

"i. The present International Standard Pitch of a' = 440. This is the A
that the B.B.C. has been relaying nightly just before the Third Programme
begins. It was agreed at a conference in London in 1939, and woodwind
instruments are today supposed to be built to it. In point of fact,
however, orchestras in general keep tending to creep sharper in actual
performance, with the result that some makers (e.g. some of the French
oboe-makers) are now said to be building to around a' = 444, which is not
going to help matters.

"ii. New Philharmonic Pitch, a' = 439, is the pre-1939 standard British
pitch. For practical purposes it is identical with the preceding. The
only important thing to know here, is that the abbreviated expression
'Philharmonic Pitch' is dangerously ambiguous, since it can denote sharp
pitch, the main bug-bear, described later on.

"iii. Continental Pitch or French Pitch, a' = 435, officially prevailed on
the continent before 1939, and large numbers of instruments built to it
have found their way into England. It is nearly a quarter of a semitone
below the present standard, which is enough to make an instrument built
strictly to it sound desperately flat. Many Continental makers during the
1930's were, however, building a little sharp to it; pitch was even then
tending to rise, and the Berlin conservatoire, the Hochschule, had already
come to recognize a' = 437.5 as standard. Consequently, pre-war
Continental-built instruments MAY go perfectly well to modern pitch, and
many British players use them so unaltered. But should an instrument prove
incorrigibly flat (assuming that one's embouchure, mouthpiece, reed, etc.,
are all correct), the odds are that it was built strictly to a' = 435, in
which case a woodwind repairer must be asked to attend to it...

"...SHARP PITCH or HIGH PITCH

"This, approximately a' = 452, is officially described as Old Philharmonic
Pitch, but is sometimes loosely referred to as 'Philharmonic Pitch" (cf. ii
above). It is about half a semitone above modern pitch, and the
psychological effect of this is to make a sharp-pitch instrument feel
sharper still. It was the standard pitch of Victorian England. Today it
remains standard in brass bands and is occasionally met in local orchestras
and territorial bands. But up into the 1920s is was still in wide use. A
woodwind player had to possess two instruments, one sharp-pitch, the other
flat-pitch, and when engaged for a concert he was notified which to
bring. Consequently, among the instruments in second-hand shops today, a
very large number are sharp-pitch and these are to be avoided like the plague."

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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