Concert Pitch (a second try)

[Anthony W. Youngman]

Okay, we've got more feedback (isn't this fun :-). I'll try and do it 
again, following on from the comment that the existing (and my 
replacement) entries actually try to cram too much into the entries.

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".

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").

Regardless of the exact frequency of A, instruments which play the 
standard frequency upon reading the note A are typically referred to as 
playing "in concert pitch" or "in C". Typically, these are instruments 
with multiple sounding parts such as tuned percussion or strings.

Instruments which play a completely different note are referred to as 
"transposing instruments". These are typically instruments with a single 
sounding part such as brass and woodwind. For some instruments, both the 
"standard pitch" and "transposing" conventions end up with the same 
result as regards the actual printed music, eg the flute, or a C 
trumpet.

See also: "transposing intruments" and wikipedia entry for concert 
pitch.

1.311 transposing instruments

Instruments where the written note is not the note that the instrument 
is intended to play, according to standard pitch. The reason for this is 
to make it easy for players to switch between similar instruments that 
have different fundamental pitches.

Depending on the design of the instrument, some instruments have a 
lowest (pedal) note whose wavelength is twice the length of the 
instrument and can play all harmonics thereof (1/2, 2/2, 3/2...), while 
others have a pedal note whose wavelength is four times the length of 
the instrument but can only play the odd harmonics thereof (1/4, 3/4, 
5/4 ...).

For brass instruments, the fundamental pitch of the instrument is that 
where the wavelength of the note is the same as the length of the 
instrument. This note is written as middle C in the treble clef, and 
such music is normally referred to as being "in X", indicated by the 
part being notated as for "X instrument". For example, an A trumpet 
would be (approximately) 78cm long (343m/s divided by 440/s = 78cm) and 
the music would be referred to as being "in A", with the instrument 
denoted as "A trumpet".

All brass instruments fall into the category of those whose pedal note 
has a wavelength twice that of the instrument.

FIXME - can a woodwind player expand this
Woodwind instruments can fall into either category of pedal note - the 
clarinet is an example of an instrument with a pedal note with a 
wavelength four times the length of the instrument.
FIXME - how is middle C defined for a woodwind instrument?

When writing music for a transposing instrument, it is normal to refer 
to the instrument by its fundamental, eg "Bb Trumpet, A clarinet". It is 
assumed the music is in Bb or A. If the instrument (eg flute) is 
normally notated in treble clef, then either the instrument's 
fundamental or the transposition should be mentioned if it is not in 
standard pitch ("alto flute in G", "G flute"). If the music is in C, the 
instrument's fundamental should NOT be mentioned, and it should be 
notated as "in C" only if required to avoid confusion.

The intentional side-effect of this convention is that, for all 
instruments in the same family, they share the same fingering for any 
given written note.


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Can anybody come up with any improvements on this?

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