Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-03-19 17:05
Bob -
Altitude per se does not affect pitch. Musical instruments really really really don't know what altitude they are at!
But when we talk of altitude, what we probably mean is ambient pressure, which drops with altitude (of course).
Ambient pressure does not affect the speed of sound, or at least not to any significant degree. This is a scientific fact, let's not debate it.
Reduced ambient pressure makes wind instruments harder to play, because there is less air to work with. I guess that might cause the player to vary the pitch by biting harder or less hard.
But it is clear that altitude does not affect the pitch of instruments in general. This is easy to prove. Buy a tuning fork and an electronic tuner. Check they agree at sea-level. Take them up a mountain. They will still agree. Therefore we must conclude:
1) Either, their frequencies are unaltered, and therefore altitude does not affect pitch.
2) Or, there is some means, hitherto unknown to science, whereby a change in altitude is having exactly the same distorting effect on these two entirely disparate technologies.
If this were not true, an orchestra would have the most terrible problems with its tuned percussion, and any electronic keyboards it might use, whenever it played a gig at altitude.
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