Pitch and brightness

[Joe & Penny Goss]

Hi David,
A thought, if we need the brightness due to the hall why not just transpose
everything up a half step. <G>
Joe Goss
imatunr@primenet.com
http://www.primenet.com/~imatunr/

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Renaud" <studiorenaud@qc.aibn.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2001 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: Pitch and brightness


> Perhaps I may offer some experience with this creepy pitch problem.
> I am a woodwind player, Clarinets as major, saxes and flutes as minor.
> I have played pops concerts with a national orchestra,
> and much freelance pit work, the odd pick up orchestra.
>
> I can not explain the science, but I can offer my personal experience
> that higher pitch is brighter. I have recordings of the Berlin orchestra
> at A448, and some others at A435. This is a big spread.
>
> The Bb clarinet is noticably brighter then the A clarinet in tone.
> The spread of A435 to A448 is a good part of that semitone.
> In fact, a German clarinettist must buy an instrument with holes
> bored out differently. Making such a change by exchanging for just a
> short barrel would throw all the scales intonation way off.
>
> Also when I use a 65 mm barrel(1mm short) and voice the clarinet
> tone up to A442(Montreal symphony is always 442; on their
> auditions they advertise its requirement for the audition) I end
> up brighter.
>
> My hypothesis as to why orchestras push the pitch is simple.
>
> We have built larger and larger halls,
> with less and less wood, and more cushy seats and rug
> that suck up sound. It requires a very bright sound to project
> into a room of 3000 without amplification.  In fact some of the
> older bass player I know often complain about how bright
> the are asked to play compared with 30 years ago.
>
> Timbre has evolved. Pitch is only one of the techniques
> to achieve a strong core to the sound that is bright enough to carry.
> Once the sound gets out a couple hundred feet it sounds much more mellow.
>
> We don't get our best recording orchestras performing in
> nice church halls and concert halls that hold only 300-500 people
> with dozens of different reflective surfaces, shapes and contours.
> Halls are so large, if there is too much reflection, the delay is too
> great. They are massive, and often fall into two categories.
> One...they are dead, or two.... they sound like a gymnasium because
> the delay is so great.
>
> So again I say. Rising pitch is only one technique orchestras are using
> to deal with the problem. Equipment(mouthpieces, instruments)
> & performance technique also have evolved to the same end.
>
> This is not a new problem. I think a wind or string players
> persuit of the perfect tone is sonewhat obsesive at this level of
> performance. The in thing/equipment/mouthpiece/bow/technique,
> goes in cycles. Perhaps one day it will swing the other way,
> Perhaps one day all the clarinetist will be promoting double
> embochures again in order to get a "darker" tone. It is so
> competative for these job positions that everyone tends to follow
> whoever is at the top of the food chain in order to meet expectations
> and get a job. So a minority of musicians tend to set the trend.
>
>                                            Cheers
>                                            David Renaud
>                                            Canada
>                                            RPT
>
>
>
> "Robert A. Anderson" wrote:
>
> > The story I have read more than once is that the rise in orchestral
> > pitch in the 19th century was due to brass instruments. In the quest for
> > a "brighter" sound, instruments were made to give increasingly higher
> > pitches. This phenomenon was largely responsible for the standardization
> > of pitch. I may have read this in Helmholtz. I seem to remember that he
> > (or probably Ellis, in one of the appendices) notes the pitch of various
> > orchestras and manufactures, and that it rose to about 468, maybe in the
> > 1860s or '70s. Perhaps someone better informed can tell whether or not
> > that's accurate. I have never understood why a higher pitched brass
> > instrument would sound "brighter", though. The explanation about the
> > violins deadening under stress sounds plausible, at least. Anyway,
> > Mozart's A was in the 430s, which is a long way from the 460s. So that's
> > a much larger spread than 440 to 444. But the change happened
> > gradually.  Maybe the "brightness" was a psychological
> > (psycho-acoustic?) phenomenon. What do you brass players have to say?
> >
> > Bob Anderson
> > Tucson, AZ
>
>