Re: Concert Pitch (a second try)

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message <address@hidden>, 
address@hidden writes
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009, "Anthony W. Youngman"
> <address@hidden> said:
>
> > Okay, we've got more feedback (isn't this fun :-).
>
> welcome to electronic commiteedom :-)
>
> > 1.64 Concert pitch
> >
> > The convention (standardised by ISO 16) that A above middle C represents
> > the note at 440 Hertz. This is commonly notated by the statement
> > "A=440".
>
> slight rewording -
>
> The Convention (formally affirmed in 1975 as ISO 16) that musical
> instruments shall be designed and tuned so that A4 ('A' above middle 'C')
> sounds at 440HZ,  Concisely phrased as "A=440".

Sounds good.
> > There are many other conventions, such as "diapason normal" which was
> > established by French law as "A=435". Many of these conventions have
> > fallen into disuse, although there are orchestras which typically tune
> > to other pitches (usually pitching A slightly higher in order to sound
> > "brighter").
>
> not quite on the mark for me.
>
> Other reference pitches have been informally adopted and even legislated,
> most  are now disused, but several orchestras and ensembles specializing
> in early music adopt other reference pitches better suited to the replica
> instruments they use.  Some modern orchestras perform at slightly higher
> pitch (eg A=445) on the theory that "the violins sound brighter"; to the
> consternation of the wind players.
This sounds very "cart before the horse". It's like when people say, for 
example, Yorkshire English is "wrong" because it's not the Queen's 
English. Hang on - Yorkshire English was in roughly its present form 
before the Queen's English was even thought of!

I think it's your use of "informally adopted" that jars - it implies 
that they've ignored the Standard, when the standard didn't even exist 
at the time.

> Thinking conservativly, maybe we can leave off this last sentance.  Its
> true enough, but perhaps inflamatory?
>
> > Regardless of the exact frequency of A, instruments which play the
> > standard frequency upon reading the note A
>
> only the note A?  hmmmm.
>
> Sorry to keep beating this horse, but it aint dead yet.  I think the
> discussion is much easier to introduce with a little background, something
> like this.
>
> Many Orchestral instruments developed as families, varying by fundamental
> pitch.  Composers will often take advantage of the contrasting tone colors
> of these otherwise similar instruments, players have to be capable of
> reading for each of them at sight.  It is challenging to maintain sight
> reading skills on several instruments, eg  'C' Clarinet and 'A' clarinet,
> where a particular note, say, D4, has different fingerings on each.  The
> convention of writing some instruments parts in transposition is employed
> to deal with this.
>
> Certain instruments within each family are selected by convention to play
> at the pitch that is notated, they are said to be 'in C', or 'at concert
> pitch'.

What about those families (ie pretty much ALL the brass instruments) 
that don't have a member at concert pitch!

Interestingly, nearly all transposing instruments are fairly "new" in 
their modern form. I suspect the reason the trombone is such a funny 
instrument in that sense is that it is an old instrument (which is why 
it's written at concert pitch), but because every instrument it plays 
with in bands is a transposing instrument, it became a transposing 
instrument.

> Music for the other menbers of each family is written transcribed
> by an appropriate interval so that the fingerings, slide position,
> valveing or whatever technique is associated with the written notes will
> always be the same, and the piches produced will be as the composer
> desired.  The player reading from a transposed part pretends to be playing
> an instrument 'in C';  assuming the part was correctly transposed and the
> player has the corresponding instrument in hand it all works out.
>
>
> > Typically, these are instruments
> > with multiple sounding parts such as tuned percussion or strings.
>
> my first thought for 'tuned percussion' is tympani (which jars against the
> concept of multiple sounding parts) maybe a more specific example?

The word "tympani" is plural :-) The tympani do have multiple sounding 
parts, one per drum ie several sounding parts for the "complete 
instrument" :-) Oddly enough, tympani was one of the first things I 
thought of, too...
>  ... such as Marimba, Harp, Viola.
>
> > These are typically instruments with a single
> > sounding part such as brass and woodwind.
>
> Counter examples are Guitar and Lute, both of which have awkward ranges
> and use an octave G clef when noted in staff; often employing tablature (a
> sortof transposing notation) to facillitate reading when used in families.
> Do we need this at all?
It's so hard to be definitive. Anything we write will need to be just a 
guide and this distinction actually seems to cover most bases.
> > See also: "transposing intruments" and wikipedia entry
>
> for concert pitch 'A440'.
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-
>
> enough in this post

I'm going to stick mostly with my definition of transposing instruments, 
but your concert pitch definition is pretty good - I'll lift most of 
that for my third attempt :-)

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - address@hidden