 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-15 14:44
The modern flute used to be built to A=440, but for roughly the past 30 years or more flutes are normally built to A=442. This results in different placement of the tone holes, and the reason given is many orchestras or parts of the country play at a pitch of A=442 or higher. If you buy a flute today 442 is the standard pitch with an appropriate scale so it will play in tune with itself. Given that both a flute and clarinet play together in most classical ensembles, why is the clarinet still being built to A=440? True, you can buy different sized barrels to raise or lower the tuning, but a 66mm barrel is standard, and different sized barrels throw the instrument out of tune with itself. It seems the flute has evolved to a modern standard many decades ago of a higher pitch with new and improved scales, but the clarinets are still being built to an old outdated standard. It seems logical that both the flute and clarinet should be built to A=442 with an appropriate scale to more easily play in tune with each other. Does anyone have any idea why these two instruments are built to different pitches and have different scales (tone hole locations)? It seems as if the flute manufactures have long ago seen the light to make this change but the clarinet manufactures are living in a totally different era. Why? It is illogical.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-04-15 16:07
I pose a question along these lines, which may not have one right answer.
Larry: I hear you (no pun intended) on the advantages of building the instrument to A=442 specs, rather than having to adjust it to this pitch via mechanisms like barrels and tuning rings (barrel and mouthpiece versions) that, as mentioned, hardly do a consistent job across all notes of the instrument's length.
But given that no matter what, the design of a clarinet represents an accoustical compromise, and that we as players, at least for the forseeable future, will always have to make accomodations with respect to pitch and inter-note musical temperament not only within the instrument itself, but those we play with, is this small change from A=440 to A=442 worth it?
..By the way, if you or others respond "the very inadequancies with the instrument's tuning you cite are all the more reason to at least shoot for A=442," I'd certainly consider that a legitimate answer. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
Post Edited (2015-04-15 16:41)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-04-15 16:19
What pitch are oboes and bassoons being built for? Are flutes or clarinets the outliers?
It seems to me that I've read here in the past the difference between a Buffet clarinet built at 442 for European markets and one built at 440 for U.S. consumption is the barrel. If Guillaume is correct, the Buffet clarinets made in Paris are presumably being built to 442 and then pushed down to 440 with a longer (or larger bored) barrel.
In any case, everyone in the orchestra needs to be at the same pitch one way or another, and the common pitch of an orchestra changes from the first tuning note through the last note before a re-tune.
Most orchestras in the U.S., from what I read in various isolated articles and book chapters, say they tune to A=440 and then actually tune to something higher. Mallet percussion instruments, I'm told, are tuned to a standard of A=442, which makes tuning to the higher pitch necessary if a piece has prominent mallet parts.
In the end, it may not matter what pitch the instruments are built for because in any real world situation they need to be able to accommodate a range of tunings.
Karl
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Author: Guillaume
Date: 2015-04-15 17:15
I'm not sure about Buffet, but Selmer clarinets built to 440 or 442 are completely different instruments, with different location for holes... Not just a longer or shorter barrel.
Guillaume
http://www.guillaume-jouis.com
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-15 22:19
I feel like I am diving into shark infested waters, but here goes. Around 1971 my flute teacher in college posted an article on the wall about how flutes were changing to a pitch of 442 because many orchestras on the east coast and other places were playing at that pitch and higher. That seems to be about when the change happened in the floot world. I know from talking with Gregory Smith that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays at 442. Back in 1976 when I joined the Buddy Rich Orchestra in NYC I was shocked to find the pitch was much higher than in MIlwaukee where I lived, and I had to make that adjustment fast. You can order a new flute in other pitches, but virtually all of them in this country are made to 442 which required a completely different scale (location of the tone holes) and vastly improved the intonation of the flute itself. Going back in time to when the Haynes flute company first produced flutes, the pitch was around 436 or 438 and then moved eventually to 440. The old flutes played very old of tune with themselves compared to new ones with newer scales developed by 2 different individuals. Since clarinets as one person mentioned are built at 442 for the market in Europe, and it does require more than a different length of the barrel, we have instruments being built in 2 different pitches for the American market. To make it even more confusing, a professional level flute can easily go for $20,000 or very, very much more, so a clarinet is a bargain compared to a pro flute. It is confusing.
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-04-15 23:41
Flutes are built with a nominal pitch of 442 because this makes them easy to market in Europe and America. My 442 Brannen flute plays very well at 440, the pitch standard in the USA, regardless of a few orchestras that try to play higher.
I've played the oboe for decades in the Los Angeles area in many groups and have always given an A440 for tuning, with no contention. The Loree and Laubin oboes are made to ring at 440 and it is very hard to make stable 442 reeds.
The R13 clarinets can play at 440 but to play at 442, one only needs to get a shorter barrel. The bottom end may not be quite high enough at 442 and that could be a selling point for those F correction keys.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-16 00:46
Wes,
My newer Powell is built at 442, and also plays very well at 440, far better than an old Haynes built at 440. I think you are right that most flutes are made at 442 so they will sell in America and Europe, but it also is true because pitch has risen in orchestras starting back in the 70's. The influx of Asian flutes such as Muramatsu in the 70's seemed to change things, because Powell and Haynes only produced a small number of flutes back then. The reason I raised the topic was the higher pitch now seems only to apply to flutes. It just strikes me as confusing situation. You can always take a 440 flute and push in the headjoint, or cut some off to raise the pitch, just as you can use a shorter barrel on a clarinet, but once you do that it makes the instrument out of tune with itself. Perhaps the answer is there is no answer.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-04-16 17:13
"The more things change, the more they stay the same." The musical press in the 1880s was full of questions, answers, counter-answers and fights about pitch standards. For instance, in the 1880s, pitch in France was half a tone flatter than pitch in England. Concert C in London sounded like B-flat in Paris.
High pitch in England drove operatic tenors and sopranos wild, of course. English tenor Sims Reeves made a crusade of the subject. He refused or reneged on gigs when the conductor insisted on high pitch. Reeves devoted big chunks of his two autobiographies to his pitched battles. Wind players who travelled understandably objected to being forced to purchase and maintain separate sets of instruments for opposite sides of the Channel.
Today it seems we're on the verge of chaos once more, with the increasing fragmentation of international standards meant to resolve the worst of the discrepancies.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-16 17:44
Personally I don't see it as a big international problem today. Yes, Germany still hovers around 445 and THAT is too much of a hurdle to jump on one woodwind instrument. But it does seem that most orhestral scenarios outside Germany and Austria are somewhere in the 440-442 range and that is still a tweekable range.
.....................Paul Aviles
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2015-04-17 01:52
As long as the throat tones are sharp at 442 Hz, the clarinet can be played at both 442 (throat tones lipped down) and 440 (with longer or pulled barrel).
If not, you can only play 442, or be in pain.
AFAIK, only Selmer produce different upper joints for different frequencies. They stamp the UJ:s with 440 or 442.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-17 02:31
I always go with whatever pitch the bagpipe section is playing at.
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