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A question of pitch and scale

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many decades ago of a higher pitch with new and improved scales, but the clarinets are still being built to an old outdated standard.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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