Curious pitch

[SteveS]

I have an Aeola baritone-treble on my bench at the moment.

On assessing the current tuning I found that it is tuned consistently approximately 20 cents flat of concert pitch.

Does anyone know whether this is a some type of recognised standard pitch?

I thought at first it was due to surface rust on some of the reeds, but on testing reeds without rust, I found that the tuning was consistent throughout the 'tina.

Edited December 7, 2011 by SteveS

[Theo]

Yes there was a pitch standard in use in Germany with A=435 which would be close to 20 cents below modern pitch. A=435 is found an virtually all German accordions and melodeons prior to the late 1930s.

[SteveS]

Yes there was a pitch standard in use in Germany with A=435 which would be close to 20 cents below modern pitch. A=435 is found an virtually all German accordions and melodeons prior to the late 1930s.

 

Thanks Theo

Very interesting - would therefore possibly mean that this 'tina has spent some of its life playing with German accordions. There is evidence to support it having been retuned at some time - presumably from the original old Philharmonic to the accordion pitch. An instrument like an Aeola B/T is a professional instrument, so I wonder if a music hall/variety act featured it and an accordion. Guess we'll never know - but intriguing.

Edited December 7, 2011 by SteveS

[Geoff Wooff]

Ah Ha ! Now this makes sense of a problem we have in our band.The Accordionist plays a 1928 Box that is, on average, 20cents flat.I often wondered why. He loves the sound of it and will not play a modern instrument. Ordinarily this would not be a problem as most of the other instruments are adjustable except my Concertina.

 

The Accordion in question is a Maugein (French) with Diatonic right hand and Stradella Bass. Three reeds per note on the melody end with a 'wet' tuning. It would be quite a job to re-pitch it, and to the satisfaction of our friend.

 

Now if I had a Concertina pitched as yours Steve.. the band sound would be that much better. It would be much easier for me to tune a Concertina to our friends Accordion than the other way around.

[Anglo-Irishman]

Yes there was a pitch standard in use in Germany with A=435 which would be close to 20 cents below modern pitch. A=435 is found an virtually all German accordions and melodeons prior to the late 1930s.

 

Interesting! My German Bandoneon, dating from around 1900, is also pretty well in tune with itself, but a bit flat overall. For this reason, I always play it solo.

Last time the piano-tuner was in the house, I got him to check it, and it's also in A=435.

 

One time, for a special event, our group did include the Bandoneon in one piece. We kept the arrangement "lean", with just a fiddle and a guitar in addition to the Bandoneon. The fiddler retuned on the fly for that one piece, and the guitarist had a second guitar with him, appropriately detuned. No tin whistles, no other free reeds.

 

Cheers,

John

[wes williams]

No, its not "German accordion" pitch but 'Normal' English pitch back in the 1920s. For details of the old pitches offered by Lachenal and Wheatstone see here.

[SteveS]

No, its not "German accordion" pitch but 'Normal' English pitch back in the 1920s. For details of the old pitches offered by Lachenal and Wheatstone see here.

Wes

Thanks for posting - very interesting.

[Geoff Wooff]

What I find interesting here is that of all the Concertinas that I have re-pitched to A=440hz I cannot recall one that was in a lower pitch. I must have retuned close to a hundred from an old pitch standard which was between 35 and 55 cents sharp of today's standard.

 

It must have been a real problem for the Woodwind players, especially the Orchestral ones, because it is not usually possible to adjust pitch, up or down, to accomodate a different standard. This is the reason that Orchestras tune to the Oboe, although the Clarinet players say it should be them who give the pitch. There are examples of older woodwinds that came with some 'joints' of slightly different lengths so that the player could adjust to requirements of the day. Most likely good business for the instrument makers.

[Anglo-Irishman]

It must have been a real problem for the Woodwind players, especially the Orchestral ones, because it is not usually possible to adjust pitch, up or down, to accomodate a different standard. This is the reason that Orchestras tune to the Oboe, although the Clarinet players say it should be them who give the pitch.

 

My late son-in-law, an orchestra horn player, informed me that many symphony orchestras tune to above A=440 today. His opinion was that the string players liked it, because the increased tension made their instruments more brilliant and incisive. As a horn player, with all those tuning slides, he had no problem, but he didn't say what the woodwinds do.

 

Anyway, he was playing with an orchestra that was performing a modern work. The gimmick in this composition was that an accordion played a drone on D from start to finish. So they obtained an accordion (presumably placing it on the lap of a pecussionist ) and started rehearsing. But oh, dear! the accordion was in A=440! So the whole orchestra had to retune. Perhaps the oboists liked that, but the string players were very put out, although tuning a violin is really no bother at all!

 

By contrast, my daughter's choir recently performed Bach's B-minor Mass, together with an orchestra that was equipped in Baroque style throughout - even down to the natural horn and trumpets. The strings were all gut strung, and my daughter assures me that everything was a full semitone below modern concert pitch (whatever that is - 440 or higher?). And I must say, I enjoyed it very much! Especially the strings, which were much more pleasant and less "edgy" than the modern wire-strung instruments. The cello in the basso continuo was just so smooth and yet so strong. If that really was the sound that old Johann Sebastian was counting on obtaining when his score was played by contemporary musicians, he was obviously a man of taste!

 

Geoff, you say you've re-pitched many concertinas. Did you get the impression that they sounded better in the original pitch (for which the reeds were dimensioned) or in the new pitch, or was there no detectable difference?

 

Cheers,

John

[Geoff Wooff]

John,

the generally accepted opinion is that baroque pitch was A=415, though some would have it that it was 409. This 415hz is close to a semitone flat although some woodwinds I have found to be lower than that. I think that many old instruments of the Violin family would sound better at that lower pitch.

In the Irish music scene there has been a fashion to play sessions in Eb (everything up a semitone) and yes the fiddlers do appear to like it and the flute players can find Eb type instruments that are easier to play in-tune than trying to keep the old 19th century Orchestral flutes down to modern "Concert Pitch" ( 440hz.). However the real reason for this elevated pitch was to keep the Accordions ,and other noisy things, out of the session.

 

The difficulty with trying to determine if the concertinas in their original pitch sounded better than when tuned to 440 is that they mostly were not well in tune after 40 or more years of being idle. A played concertina will sound better than one that has been left up on the shelf.I recall Alistair Anderson saying that his Concertina was not happy after he had been on holiday for two weeks and that it took several days to 'wake up' again. I have noticed the same with one of mine recently.

 

So, I guess that if one found a concertina in good original tuning and played it like that for a few weeks /months maybe one could determine an answer to your question... if one also had an identical instrument tuned to 440 to compare. As we know each instrument is slightly different, due as much to being made from different pieces of wood, even of the exact same species.

 

I do not think that moving all the notes by half a semitone will make a great difference to the overall tone of a concertina.

All the best,

Geoff.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Geoff Wooff

[SteveS]

Geoff, you say you've re-pitched many concertinas. Did you get the impression that they sounded better in the original pitch (for which the reeds were dimensioned) or in the new pitch, or was there no detectable difference?

This is turning out to be an interesting discussion.

I'm thinking that once I've repaired the woodwork and other done other repairs I may play the 'tina for some time before I decide to tune it to A440.

[Geoff Wooff]

Regarding these pitch standards of earlier times;

I have just been reading what Anthony Baines writes on this subjust in his book "Woodwind Instruments and their History" (ISBN 0 571 08603 9 ).

 

According to Baines the High pitch of A= 452hz was the standard pitch of Victorian England and was still in wide use up into the 1920's.This pitch was still popular in Brass bands when baines wrote this in 1957.

After this comes "New philharmonic Pitch" with A= 439hz. This was the standard in Britain untill the 1939 International conference on musical pitch agreed the new standard of 440hz.

 

Continental Pitch or French Pitch; before 1939 was A=435hz. At no time does Baines suggest that this pitch was used in Britain.

 

This would suggest that your instrument was made for a "Continetal" customer or was tuned to play with other instruments that were at 435 , a stage act including an Accordion perhaps.

 

I vividly recall buying an old Saxophone which was an unusual model, a 'C' Melody. This was a non transposing Sax so it had the same note / same finger as the Flute. But it was in High Pitch (452) which was very frustrating because it was ideal for the types of uses I wanted to put it to, some would say "annoying the **** out of everyone else". This usefull instrument was never made again after the Pitch sandard was changed in 1939. Unlike a Concertina it is quite costly to re-design and "tool up" to produce a Saxophone that probably did not sell in large numbers.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Geoff Wooff

[adrian brown]

Regarding these pitch standards of earlier times;

 

Geoff,

 

A good study of pitch issues is the late Bruce Haynes’ A history of Performing Pitch – the story of “A” (Scarecrow Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8108-4185-1). He tells a fascinating story of the titanic struggles with pitch over the centuries. For what concerns the pitch standards mentioned in the Lachenal advertisement, I gleaned the following:

 

Old Philharmonic Pitch. By the 1840’s, the pitch in Britain had risen to around a=453. It peaked at a=455Hz in 1874 when the London Philharmonic was under the direction of Charles Hallé. This high pitch continued to be used in the British Army until 1929 and as you pointed out, persisted in brass bands until the 1950’s, presumably because of the cost of replacing all the instruments.

 

Diapason nouveau was a proposal in 1853 by a French commission, for a standard pitch at a=435Hz. This was immediately adopted in Vienna and re-affirmed in 1885, by an international conference. (But guess who refused to sign up )

 

Society of Arts Pitch was a British reaction to diapason nouveau and tried to lower pitch to a=440Hz. It was a botched attempt however, as they had not taken the influence of temperature on pitch into account and their tuning fork standard ended up nearer a=450Hz

 

New Philharmonic Pitch at a=439Hz, was introduced as a compromise for the start of Henry Wood’s Promenade Concerts in 1896.

 

The ISO standard pitch of a=440Hz was introduced in 1939 following an international conference in London, and has been rising ever since…

 

The book is full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, for example: The celebrated soprano Adelina Patti refused to sing at Covent Garden in 1879 claiming the pitch was too high for her voice. The orchestra responded by dropping to the “continental” a-435Hz (Presumably the winds transposed down a semitone and then tightened their embouchures!). New Philharmonic Pitch only came about because the chief sponsor of the Proms, C. G. Cathcart, was a doctor and throat specialist concerned about the voices of opera singers. The Broadwood Piano Company in 1869 was obliged to keep pianos in three different pitches, a=455Hz for orchestral concerts, a=446Hz for “private instrumental performance” and a=435Hz to accompany “private singers”.

 

To go back to the subject of this post, it could be that by the turn of the century, concertinas were considered more as “band instruments” and so more were tuned in high pitch for longer. Those tuned in a=435Hz, may have been made to accompany “private singers”, but as you pointed out from your experience, were either few in number, or the relatively small difference in pitch to a=440Hz was less problematic, and they passed as “slightly flat modern pitch” instruments. It strikes me that singing with an anglo was probably never much of an issue as they were available in tuned in different "home" keys, and could presumably be ordered to suit the voice type.

Hope this helps,

 

Adrian

Edited December 15, 2011 by aybee

[david fabre]

In the Irish music scene there has been a fashion to play sessions in Eb (...)

The real reason for this elevated pitch was to keep the Accordions ,and other noisy things, out of the session.

 

Interesting... However the manoeuvre seems to have failed :

Just listen to the "Knocknagree" CD featuring Noël Hill & Tonny McMahon playing concertina & accordeon in Eb !

 

Coming back to the topic, the original tuning for my linota was A=444 or 445Hz. Any clues about this one ?

Edited December 17, 2011 by david fabre

[JimLucas]

I vividly recall buying an old Saxophone which was an unusual model, a 'C' Melody. ... But it was in High Pitch (452)...

Interesting. My own C-melody sax is inscribed "low pitch", which at least one web page (URL not to hand) says means that it was tuned to A440, rather than the higher pitch that was still common at the time. (Martin serial number 23662 dates it to 1921.) I have a later (1951?) C-soprano, also inscribed "low pitch", and that does seem to be in modern pitch, but my C-melody is about half a step low compared to A440 (B-melody? ). It's a bit battered, and my embouchure is of dubious quality, but I don't see how those factors alone could be enough to make it sound half a step low. Yet I can't imagine that this is one of a kind. Wouldn't they need a separate mold for the body to make that much of a difference?

 

So in addition to conflicting and changing standards, I wonder how many "local" exceptions there might be and what reasons there might be for them.

Edited December 18, 2011 by JimLucas

[adrian brown]

David,

 

I would assume your concertina was made to the Society of Arts pitch, noted in the 1920’s Lachenal advertisement on Wes’ page. Even if Wheatstone had ceased offering instruments at this pitch by the time of their 1930’s advertisement, they may have been called to do so on occasion, since historically, pitch standards tend to have long overlap periods. (due to the cost and inconvenience of replacing instruments)

I’ve started another thread on the Society of Arts Pitch over on the history forum to avoid taking this topic in another direction.

 

Adrian

[Paula]

On 12/13/2011 at 1:57 PM, wes williams said:

No, its not "German accordion" pitch but 'Normal' English pitch back in the 1920s. For details of the old pitches offered by Lachenal and Wheatstone see here.

I know this post is quite old. The link no longer works. I’d love to access the information though. Is it still available?

[d.elliott]

Wheatstone's offered four pitches as standard on their price lists, One was 'Continental Pitch' where 'C' is 517.3 Hz. This equates to A= 435Hz.. at A4 1 Hz = circa 4 cents, so this would be 20 cents flat to A=440Hz.  I would suggest that the OP has/ had a concertina in it's original 'Continental' pitch. This pitch was established through French Regulations in 1859 and was known as :“Diapason Normal”