tpermutt@eng.umd.edu (Thomas Permutt) (03/20/91)
In article <3722@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) writes: >In article <1991Mar19.082948.10987@athena.mit.edu> jsc@riddler.MIT.EDU (Jin S Choi) writes: > >>the difference. A slightly more relevant case: many classical tapes are >>recorded to play back at a slightly higher pitch than recorded. This is > > I believe that this does serious violence to the composer's music. What do you advocate doing about early music? There is evidence that A in, say, Handel's time was lower than today (I can't remember how much, but more than a semitone). Aside from the psychoacoustic subtleties you mention, there are real differences: the sound of a tenor singing his highest note is quite a bit different from that of a note a semitone or two lower, and sensitive composers used these differences to good effect. Tenors today may be physically different to some extent, but probably not precisely in such a way that A-440 now has the quality of A-420 or whatever then.
carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll) (03/21/91)
In article <1991Mar20.154120.24561@eng.umd.edu> tpermutt@eng.umd.edu (Thomas Permutt) writes: > >What do you advocate doing about early music? There is evidence that A >in, say, Handel's time was lower than today (I can't remember how much, >but more than a semitone). Aside from the psychoacoustic subtleties >you mention, there are real differences: the sound of a tenor singing >his highest note is quite a bit different from that of a note a semitone >or two lower, and sensitive composers used these differences to good effect. >Tenors today may be physically different to some extent, but probably not >precisely in such a way that A-440 now has the quality of A-420 or whatever >then. I'm an engineer, not a musicologist, but I think that the difference is something on the order of a minor third (my memory may be failing me here). I advocate singing the piece at the pitch at which the composer heard it; if that involves transposing the score, so be it. As a baritone often pressed into service in tenor sections, I'll withhold commentary on the possible physical differences in modern tenors :^) -- Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com
alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) (03/21/91)
In article <1991Mar20.154120.24561@eng.umd.edu> tpermutt@eng.umd.edu (Thomas Permutt) writes: >In article <3722@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll) writes: >>In article <1991Mar19.082948.10987@athena.mit.edu> jsc@riddler.MIT.EDU (Jin S Choi) writes: >> >>>the difference. A slightly more relevant case: many classical tapes are >>>recorded to play back at a slightly higher pitch than recorded. This is Deliberately? I've never heard of this. Do you know of any examples? >> >> I believe that this does serious violence to the composer's music. > >What do you advocate doing about early music? There is evidence that A >in, say, Handel's time was lower than today (I can't remember how much, >but more than a semitone). The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor really until the twentieth century. Studies of pitch references from 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries have revealed that A could be as much as a minor third sharp OR flat of 440. If you did take an average, it would probably come out to about 440. However, the point is well taken that how can you know if a transposition does "violence" to a composer's work if it may originally have been per- formed at a pitch level completely different from today's standard? >Aside from the psychoacoustic subtleties >you mention, there are real differences: the sound of a tenor singing >his highest note is quite a bit different from that of a note a semitone >or two lower, and sensitive composers used these differences to good effect. This is why I would not advocate transposing recordings. As anyone who has sampled a voice will tell you, timbre, as well as pitch, changes signifi- cantly as you transpose because of the corresponding transposition of the formants of the voice. While this effect is less noticeable on instruments, it can still change the quality of the sound quite a bit. This is the same phenonmenon, in a much more subtle form of course, that gave us the Chipmunks. Bill Alves
allyn@milton.u.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) (03/21/91)
tpermutt@eng.umd.edu (Thomas Permutt) asks: > What do you advocate doing about early music? There is evidence that A > in, say, Handel's time was lower than today (I can't remember how much, > but more than a semitone). Aside from the psychoacoustic subtleties > you mention, there are real differences: the sound of a tenor singing > his highest note is quite a bit different from that of a note a semitone > or two lower, and sensitive composers used these differences to good effect. > Tenors today may be physically different to some extent, but probably not > precisely in such a way that A-440 now has the quality of A-420 or whatever > then. The pitch difference doesn't only affect the tessitura of voices, but the tone qualities of instruments. David Ohannesian, a maker of wonderful recorders, once gave me a demonstration of three of his baroque altos, all made as near as possible just the same, but at three different pitches - 440, 415, and 390. They were completely different in character, well outside of the normal variation you'd expect between different instruments. The 440 was rather harsh and windy, the 415 was very nice, and the 390 was marvelous. 415 is the modern standard for playing at baroque pitch, but there seems to be a movement afoot to lower that to at least 410, and some people want to push it down more towards 390. 415 was chosen mostly for the convenience of being almost exactly a semitone down from 440 (making it possible to build harpsichords switchable between 415 and 440), but measurements on old woodwinds show that 405 - 410 is more common, and lower isn't rare. And renaissance pitch was nearly a whole tone higher than today. Most instrument copies are made at 440 (even professional instruments), again for convenience, but they sound a lot more mellow than perhaps they should. Also, artificially raising the pitch by speeding up the recording will have a different effect than building, tuning, or playing an instrument at a higher pitch. The speed up changes all frequencies equally, but when you do it on an instrument, the harmonics change relationship - some will get stronger, some will detune, etc. so you change the tone quality along with the pitch. As far as I'm concerned, recording engineers have no business making things 'sound good'. They have a responsibility to make things sound as much like the live performance as possible, and not muck it up with their own personal taste, or lack thereof. Many (fortunately not all) engineers spend so much time listening through headphones to the warped stuff coming in through their electronics that they no longer know or care what naked instruments sound like, and prefer abominations like close miking, boosted bass, and a 'brighter' tone. Which is one reason that I spend nearly as much money on live concerts these days as on recordings... On the subject of perfect pitch: I don't have either flavor (absolute or relative). I knew a long time ago that I didn't want perfect absolute pitch, because of early music and the transposition problems that have been mentioned. But now I'm discovering, as my relative (interval) pitch discrimination becomes better, that even that can be a liability. All of my ear training computer programs are based on equal temperment. Then when I go to play woodwinds with strings in meantone or just intonation, it's hard to tell when I'm really in tune, because the correct tuning sounds strange to equal tempered ears. It's not enough to minimize the beats, because sometimes that's exactly the wrong thing to do. I think the only solution is to keep playing with other people (hopefully better than me) as much as possible, and learn to stay as flexible as possible. Sigh, when I got into all this music stuff, no one warned me that I'd have to _think_ so much :-) Allyn Weaks allyn@milton.u.washington.edu
allyn@milton.u.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) (03/21/91)
alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes: >The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is >an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor >really until the twentieth century. Studies of pitch references from 17th, >18th, and 19th centuries have revealed that A could be as much as a minor >third sharp OR flat of 440. If you did take an average, it would probably >come out to about 440. I'll disagree with this - the myth is really that the olden days were far less standardized than our modern measured perfection. Even back to the renaissance, pitch was nearly as standardized as it is today. Everyone says, 'oh yes, 440 is standard modern pitch', but in reality, orchestras will play anywhere from 435 to 445. Some orchestras like a darker sound, some a brighter. Or maybe the oboist is having trouble with hir reed, so everyone else has to compensate :-) One of the confusing factors is that during the baroque, there were several 'standards' - organ pitch, which was very high (about a whole tone higher than today), concert pitch, which was a little lower than we have now, and chamber pitch which was about a semitone lower. If you average all that out, you might get anything, but it isn't a valid average. The renaissance also had a very high organ pitch, and a slightly lower concert pitch at roughly 470 based on existing woodwinds. Then just to confuse things further, the ultra high organ pitch was so high (as high as 550 for one organ) that no one could sing it, so organists were often trained to play down a major second... (see Grove - pitch). According to Anthony Baines in _Woodwind Instruments and their History_ (which I just returned to the library, so I can't quote directly), even in the renaissance, pitch was much more standard than you might think, because musicians did a _lot_ of travelling. Also, the Germans tended to make the best brass instruments, the French were into woodwinds, and the Italians had a nice line of strings. I know, gross generalization, but it does indicate that instruments moved around even more than musicians did. As a further bit of evidence from the baroque, Quantz in his _On Playing the Flute_ describes how many middle joints you need to be able to play just about anywhere, and he advocates the use of 9 joints, covering a semitone. And Quantz was no stay-at-home - he spent a couple of years travelling in Italy and France before he settled down. Since most existing flutes and recorders range from about 390 up to 410, that works out to pretty good evidence that baroque chamber music at least was played a good bit lower than today. Allyn Weaks allyn@milton.u.washington.edu
dc@presto.ruhr.de (David Channing) (03/22/91)
In article <18799@milton.u.washington.edu> allyn@milton.u.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) writes: > > alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes: > >The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is > >an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor > ... > renaissance, pitch was nearly as standardized as it is today. Everyone says, > 'oh yes, 440 is standard modern pitch', but in reality, orchestras will play > anywhere from 435 to 445. Some orchestras like a darker sound, some a Here in Europe even 440 is considered to be very low. Almost all classical orchestras in Germany nominally play at 443 or 444. European-made woodwind instruments (I don't know about non-woodwinds) are generally designed for 442 or 443, so the intonation is still tolerable when they are tuned to 440 or 445. > brighter. Or maybe the oboist is having trouble with hir reed, so everyone > else has to compensate :-) Most of the oboe players I know check their pitch with a tuning meter before passing it on to the rest of the orchestra. -- dc@presto.ruhr.sub.org dc@presto.ruhr.de
kent@anduin.ocf.llnl.gov (Kent Crispin) (03/23/91)
In article <31234@usc> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes: > >The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is >an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor >really until the twentieth century. Studies of pitch references from 17th, >18th, and 19th centuries have revealed that A could be as much as a minor >third sharp OR flat of 440. If you did take an average, it would probably >come out to about 440. I don't know about the studies that you mention, but literature that I got from a harpsichord manufacturer (Hubbard) states that tuning an old harpsichord to A440, using the wire they used then, is impossible, because the wire DOES break. They (and other manufacturers) recommend that the instument be tuned to A415. Many present day instruments are built with a "transposing keyboard" -- the keyboard shifts right a half step. This is so you can play at concert pitch if you desire to. Since early instrument makers could have easily have shifted their keyboards if they wanted to, I think there is some truth to the myth. Early keyboard instruments were clearly manufactured within limits that make our current standard pitch impossible.
weigel@DPW.COM (William Weigel) (03/24/91)
A previous comment indicated that classical music recordings are sometimes adjusted by the recording engineers to be slightly high in pitch. I don't know whether this practice is common, but I do know that many turntables used to be manufactured to play slightly faster than 33-1/3 rpm for the same reason. As a college freshman I became so irritated about this phenomenon that I finally opened up my KLH "suitcase stereo," removed the appropriate piece and ground it down in the machine shop so that the damn thing would play the Haydn trumpet concerto in Eb instead of E!
alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) (03/27/91)
In article <18799@milton.u.washington.edu> allyn@milton.u.washington.edu (Allyn Weaks) writes: >alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes: >>The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is >>an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor >>really until the twentieth century. Studies of pitch references from 17th, >>18th, and 19th centuries have revealed that A could be as much as a minor >>third sharp OR flat of 440. If you did take an average, it would probably >>come out to about 440. > >I'll disagree with this - the myth is really that the olden days were far less >standardized than our modern measured perfection. Even back to the >renaissance, pitch was nearly as standardized as it is today. Everyone says, >'oh yes, 440 is standard modern pitch', but in reality, orchestras will play >anywhere from 435 to 445. Some orchestras like a darker sound, some a >brighter. Or maybe the oboist is having trouble with hir reed, so everyone >else has to compensate :-) > >One of the confusing factors is that during the baroque, there were several >'standards' - organ pitch, which was very high (about a whole tone higher than >today), concert pitch, which was a little lower than we have now, and chamber >pitch which was about a semitone lower. It is well known that there were several "relative standards," of which the most famous were "Chor-ton" (or organ pitch, as you call it), and "Kammer- ton" -- the pitch of the woodwind instruments. Usually kammer-ton was a whole step lower in the late baroque, but sometimes as much as a minor third lower (which Bach called tief-kammer-ton). However, none of these was really a "standard" in terms of frequency. Of course they didn't seem to vary as much as a tritone, which one would expect if the pitch selection was totally random, but neither do I think it could be called "nearly as standardized as it is today." Arthur Mendel's exhaustive study (Acta Musicologica 50/1 1978 pp. 1-93) finds the A on 16th to 18th century organs to vary from 393 to 495. While it is difficult to know what fingering represented what written pitch in woodwinds, he found a similar variety there. You mention the Grove's article, which, like Praetorius, attempts to "classify" this extremely wide range into seven transposition levels based on Praetorius' standard (given as c. 430). But Praetorius was trying to show how local standards in other times and places compared. I don't believe that absolute pitch was in any way based on a kind of semitonal transposition system. For example, while Bach in Leipzig worked with the Chor-ton/kammer-ton sys- tem mentioned earlier, his woodwinds at Weimar seem to have been about a semitone lower than those in Leipzig (hence tief-kammer-ton). Agricola says that the "harpsichords and other instruments" in Lombardy and Venice are about a semitone lower than the North German Chor-ton. Old French "ton de chapelle" was apparently about a major third lower than North German Chor- ton, and their "ton de chambre" probably a semitone higher than that. >If you average all that out, you might get anything, but it isn't a valid >average. I will agree that averaging the small available sampling of pitches from widely divergent places and times is not a way of finding a pitch "standard." My only reason for suggesting this mean was to show that the hypothesis that 415 was some sort of standard in early music, or at least that most pitches in kammer-ton centered around it, is not necessarily a valid conclusion. >The renaissance also had a >very high organ pitch, and a slightly lower concert pitch at roughly 470 based >on existing woodwinds. Then just to confuse things further, the ultra high >organ pitch was so high (as high as 550 for one organ) that no one could sing >it, so organists were often trained to play down a major second... (see Grove >- pitch). > There is so little extant physical evidence from the renaissance, I don't think such a firm statement can be made. Mendel examined existing woodwinds and found a wide variety. As I said above, the real problem is knowing which fingering indicated which written note. >According to Anthony Baines in _Woodwind Instruments and their History_ (which >I just returned to the library, so I can't quote directly), even in the >renaissance, pitch was much more standard than you might think, because >musicians did a _lot_ of travelling. Also, the Germans tended to make the >best brass instruments, the French were into woodwinds, and the Italians had a >nice line of strings. I know, gross generalization, but it does indicate that >instruments moved around even more than musicians did. >As a further bit of evidence from the baroque, Quantz in his _On Playing the >Flute_ describes how many middle joints you need to be able to play just about >anywhere, and he advocates the use of 9 joints, covering a semitone. And >Quantz was no stay-at-home - he spent a couple of years travelling in Italy >and France before he settled down. Since most existing flutes and recorders >range from about 390 up to 410, that works out to pretty good evidence that >baroque chamber music at least was played a good bit lower than today. Mendel gives examples of several flutes that Quantz owned. Of the first, only one of an unknown number of joints survive, the second to flattest one, and it plays about 440. Another has a third-to-sharpest joint survive, measured at 441. One might not need joints to change the pitch more than a semitone either way, because one could also transpose. Mendel concluded: "Notions that the tendency of pitch-standards has been continuously upward or that over long periods and throughout European musical culture one pitch prevailed (with minor variations)...are false." Bill Alves
alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) (03/27/91)
In article <803@llnl.LLNL.GOV> kent@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov writes: >In article <31234@usc> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes: >> >>The theory that standard pitch has shifted slowly upward over the years is >>an oft-repeated myth. There was no standard pitch in Handel's time, nor >>really until the twentieth century. Studies of pitch references from 17th, >>18th, and 19th centuries have revealed that A could be as much as a minor >>third sharp OR flat of 440. If you did take an average, it would probably >>come out to about 440. > >I don't know about the studies that you mention, but literature that I >got from a harpsichord manufacturer (Hubbard) states that tuning an old >harpsichord to A440, using the wire they used then, is impossible, >because the wire DOES break. They (and other manufacturers) recommend >that the instument be tuned to A415. Many present day instruments are >built with a "transposing keyboard" -- the keyboard shifts right a half >step. This is so you can play at concert pitch if you desire to. Since >early instrument makers could have easily have shifted their keyboards >if they wanted to, I think there is some truth to the myth. Early >keyboard instruments were clearly manufactured within limits that >make our current standard pitch impossible. The main reference, as I said in another post, is Arthur Mendel's "Pitch in Western Music since 1500" (Acta Musicologica 50/1 1978 pp. 1-93). In reference to harpsichords in particular, he makes several points: 1) Many existing historical instruments have been reconstructed. These reconstructions are often based on conflicting assumptions. 2) Knowledge about the material used for the strings is sketchy at best, and varied from place to place. The tension and pitch for different ma- terials varied widely. Iron required a great deal more tension than brass or copper, for example. If inharmonicity is not desirable, then both steel and iron must have a much greater tension than copper or brass. A study by J. Barnes of Italian harpsichords in the 17th century found variations from a perfect fourth below modern pitch up to modern pitch. My own experience tuning modern harpsichords with steel strings is that tuning can easily be varied a minor third or more either way without any danger of breaking the wire. I cannot say that this was true in the baroque, but my inclination is to believe that the manufacturers are conservative in their estimate. Bill Alves