This was included as "Convention of 16 and 19 November 1885 regarding the establishment of a concert pitch" in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 which formally ended World War I. An 1885 conference in Vienna established this standard in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden and Württemberg.
It became a popular pitch standard outside France as well, and has been known at various times as French pitch, continental pitch or international pitch (this international pitch is not the 1939 "international standard pitch" described below). This was the first attempt to standardize pitch on such a scale, and was known as the diapason normal. Rising pitch put a strain on singers' voices and, largely due to their protests, the French government passed a law on Februsetting the A above middle C at 435 Hz. Saxophones tuned to A=440 Hz would be marked 'L', 'LP' or 'Low Pitch'
#A 440 tone generator series
19th- and 20th-century standards A circa 1932 Boosey & Hawkes 'Model 32' alto saxophone stamped 'LP' for Low Pitch (A=440 Hz) A 1915 Buescher Truetone alto saxophone marked 'High Pitch' (A=456 Hertz) A 1927 Conn New Wonder Series 2 alto saxophone marked 'H' for 'High Pitch' (A=456 Hertz). At La Scala in Milan the A above middle C rose as high as 451 Hz ⓘ. The pipe organ tuning fork in Versailles Chapel from 1795 is 390 Hz, an 1810 Paris Opera tuning fork sounds at A = 423 Hz, an 1822 fork gives A = 432 Hz, and an 1855 fork gives A = 449 Hz. Ĭoncert pitch rose further in the 19th century, evidenced by tuning forks of that era in France.
This kept pitch inflation at bay for some two centuries. Where the two were combined, as for example in a cantata, the singers and instrumentalists might use music written in different keys. Solutions to this problem were sporadic and local, but generally involved the establishment of separate standards for voice and organ (German: Chorton, lit.'choir tone') and for chamber ensembles (German: Kammerton, lit.'chamber tone'). The standard voice ranges he cites show that the pitch level of his time, at least in the part of Germany where he lived, was at least a minor third higher than today's. At the beginning of the 17th century, Michael Praetorius reported in his encyclopedic Syntagma musicum that pitch levels had become so high that singers were experiencing severe throat strain and lutenists and viol players were complaining of snapped strings. This led to reform efforts on at least two occasions. When instrumental music has risen in prominence (relative to vocal music), there has been a consistent tendency for pitch standards to rise. During the 20th century this term was gradually replaced by hertz (Hz) in honor of Heinrich Hertz. Frequency is measured in cycles per second (CPS). Although Mersenne had made a rough determination of sound frequencies as early as the 17th century, such measurements did not become scientifically accurate until the 19th century, beginning with the work of German physicist Johann Scheibler in the 1830s. The frequencies referred to here are based on modern measurements and would not have been precisely known to musicians of the day. Towards the end of the 18th century there was an overall tendency for the A above middle C to be in the range of 400 ⓘ to 450 Hz. A tuning fork that belonged to Ludwig van Beethoven around 1800, now in the British Library, is pitched at A = 455.4 Hz ⓘ, well over a half-tone higher. For example, a 1740 tuning fork associated with Handel is pitched at A = 422.5 Hz, ⓘ while a specimen from 1780 is pitched at A = 409 Hz, ⓘ about a quarter-tone lower. The tuning fork was invented in 1711, enabling the calibration of pitch, although there was still variation. When the pipe ends became frayed by this constant process they were all trimmed down, raising the overall pitch of the organ. Generally, the end of an organ pipe would be hammered inwards to a cone, or flared outwards, to raise or lower the pitch. The pitch used for an English cathedral organ in the 17th century, for example, could be as much as five semitones lower than that used for a domestic keyboard instrument in the same city.īecause of the way organs were tuned, the pitch of a single organ could even vary over time. Pitches varied over time, from place to place, and even within the same city. Until the 19th century there was no coordinated effort to standardize musical pitch, and the levels across Europe varied widely. Various systems of musical tuning have also been used to determine the relative frequency of notes in a scale. Historically, various standards have been used to fix the pitch of notes at certain frequencies. History of pitch standards in Western music Historically, this A has been tuned to a variety of different pitches. The A above middle C is often set at 440 Hz.
0 kommentar(er)
