I appreciate that but it still undermines the whole concept of having a
standard anything.
I suppose, eventually, we'll reach a stage when it just moves up an entire
tone and ad infinitum.
To revert to my previous analogy, I've been moaning a pint of beer is too
small (as have many others) for years.
They still haven't made it bigger though - although they thought about it
with those metric glasses.
Colin Hill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Gretton" <i...@gretton-willems.com>
To: "'Colin'" <cwh...@santa-fe.freeserve.co.uk>; <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 3:36 PM
Subject: RE: [NSP] Re: Esoteric tuning relationships
What I can never understand is WHY the pitch changes.
Orchestral pitch has become higher because orchestras over the past couple
of hundred years have tended towards increasing "brightness" or
"brilliance"
of sound. (Think Boston Symphony versus Chicago Symphony or French
orchestras versus German orchestras.) There is a basic psychological
tendency to associate brightness with higher pitch. Also, players
intuitively feel that sharpness is more acceptable than flatness (which
sounds "sourer" and "wronger") and tend to play "at the top of the note"
to
avoid the dreaded flatness. Higher pitched wind instruments are also more
audible within the orchestral matrix. The same tendency applies to choirs,
which generally tend to rise in pitch if not held back by the orchestra
(and
the conductor, of course).
In a previous life, I performed on various renaissance wind instruments.
The
tendency of the wind ensemble was ALWAYS to go sharp, NEVER flat. As a
cornetto player, I often ended up playing "on my teeth" (i.e. desperately
forced to follow the rising pitch of my colleagues). The only solution --
as
always -- was to force people to "listen to the f***in' bass line!" Since
all the upper parts are essentially overtones of the bass, staying in tune
with the bass is the only way to be in tune. It helps massively if there
is
a fixed-pitch keyboard instrument underlying the ensemble, preferably an
organ.
Cheers,
Paul Gretton
-----Original Message-----
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
Behalf
Of Colin
Sent: 07 February 2011 14:03
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Subject: [NSP] Re: Esoteric tuning relationships
It always fascinates me how the tuning of things changes (I have a
concertina in "high pitch").
For those (like me) not well versed in the mechanics and theory of things,
this makes good reading:
http://www.piano-tuners.org/history/pitch.html
(and also which locations not to attempt to play the pipes with the
instruments noted).
What I can never understand is WHY the pitch changes.
Imagine if they did that with yards etc (change to metric notwithstanding)
or liquid measure (I asked for a pint, what's this? - Oh the pint has been
getting smaller over the years..............).
A standard should be just that - a standard. If it changes, it ain't
standard!
Good interesting thread though.
Colin Hill
----- Original Message -----
From: <christopher.bi...@ec.europa.eu>
To: <drubrooketay...@btinternet.com>; <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 11:45 AM
Subject: [NSP] Re: Esoteric tuning relationships
And I've been telling people it is because all notes have got
gradually
sharper over the last 150 years, and that the Reid 'ur-pipes'
were made
when G was somewhere between where F and G are now. Have I been wrong
all this time?
This is probably an associated factor. My speculation about the 440
tuning
fork more concerned modern pipes (which are inevitably in the majority)
manufactured after the introduction of 440 as an international standard
(though many windplayers and hence orchestras incline to 442 (or even
443)
nowadays).
C
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