Difference between low pitch and high pitch?

[trombinstharry]

Good morning all. A little bit ago I heard someone talking about low pitch and high pitch, something like A=435 Hz or A=445 Hz. I don't remember much from that but is this a thing? What does it mean, and why does it happen?

[BGuttman]

There is indeed such a thing.

Low Pitch is around A=435, just a tad flatter than modern A=440.
High Pitch is around A=465 and is quite sharp compared to modern A=440 pitch. A High Pitch instrument will feel like it is a Trombone in B natural.

Pitch standards are relatively recent. in Europe during the period before the 19th Century there were all manner of pitch standards ranging from A=415 to A-475. Since church organs could be tuned to any of these, trying to play in tune with one could be a real challenge.

Around 1840 a pitch standard of A=440 was adopted, although conformation to the standard was not mandatory. At that time British Brass Bands and American Saxhorn Bands (among others) were still using A=465 (High Pitch). High Pitch died off in the US around 1930, while it took until 1970 for all British Brass Bands to abandon it.

I have a pair of "The King" trombones from the 19-teens; one in High Pitch and one in Low Pitch. I can't push the Low Pitch tuning slide in far enough to play in tune while I can't pull the High Pitch tuning slide far enough to play in tune. I was able to make a combination that was useable by putting the High Pitch slide on the Low Pitch bell.

There is a lot more about High Pitch and Low Pitch in other threads here and in the TTf archives.

[LeTromboniste]

It's more complicated than that, and depends very much on the context and what you're talking about. And it's easy to get confused. There are two main situations that apply to trombone playing.

1) If we're talking about 19th and early 20th century brass instrument construction (a high pitch or low pitch Conn 2H of the 1910s or 20s, for example), then it refers to the British standards of Old Philharmonic Pitch (aka "high pitch") where a=452 (*not 465* as Bruce suggests in his response), and the New Philharmonic Pitch (aka low pitch) of a=439. The latter eventually became the international norm, after being changed to 440 to ease the math of calculating frequencies of intervals. They are separated by roughly a quarter tone (a bit more in fact).

The two standards coexisted for a few decades both in Britain and the US most notably in the band world, so instrument makers had to provide two versions of their instruments. A high pitch trombone was often supplied with a second longer tuning slide to allow it to pay in low pitch. A low pitch instrument stood as is and since you can't easily shorten an instrument, could not play in high pitch. As Bruce noted, slides and bells are not usually compatible because a high pitch trombone is typically shorter everywhere, proportionally.

Note that those two instruments were both in Bb, but at a different pitch level, so with a different length of tubing.



2)"High pitch" is also used to refer to something entirely different in the realm of early music (although we more seldom use the term "low pitch" in that context). Historically the pitch level has been all over the place really, but it tended to be higher in the 16th, 17th centuries and into the 18th century. Trombones were roughly the same size as today, but they were thought of as an instrument in A (and D for alto and bass - E, F and G also common for basses, G also for tenor through the use of crooks). That is to say, they were playing about the same length of tubing as a modern trombone, but at a pitch level a half step above or more even, with the frequency of A in the 460s or 470s. It was historically called Chorton, that is, the pitch of the organ, choir and associated instruments including the trombone. It varied from city to city, church to church, and through the centuries. In the early music revival movement, the standard of a=466Hz is adopted for that pitch level. It is exactly one half step above 440, and exactly one whole step above 415 ("baroque pitch", which is the modern standard for the general pitch level that was historically called Kammerton, the pitch of the chamber instruments : woodwinds and strings).

Note that as opposed to the 19th-20th century pitch situation, the same trombone with the same length of tubing is used to play both in 440 and high pitch (466). We just think of it as a trombone in Bb at 440 and a trombone in A when playing at 466.




To complicate things, there are other pitch levels used with historical instruments, such as 392 or French baroque pitch,sometimes also called Roman pitch; 430 is standard as the pitch for classical and romantic music, although sometimes it's 432 or 435; 523 and even 699 are standard for playing 15th century music. People who play mostly in one of these pitches may sometimes refer to other pitches they also play in as "high" or "low" (e.g. A violinist who plays mostly at 415 and occasionally at 440 might call 440 high pitch...)

[LeTromboniste]

I have a pair of "The King" trombones from the 19-teens; one in High Pitch and one in Low Pitch. I can't push the Low Pitch tuning slide in far enough to play in tune while I can't pull the High Pitch tuning slide far enough to play in tune.

Since low pitch is 439, it should in theory be able to play in modern 440 without swapping bells and slides, just like a modern trombone in 440 can play in 441 or 442 without any trouble. Might be that your mouthpiece makes the instrument flat (I had the same problem with my 1910s small Conn, had to try a few of my mouthpiece to find one where the proportions of the cup volume and throat made the horn pay in tune)

[Doug Elliott]

Is there any historical record of how players with perfect pitch dealt with those times when there were multiple standards? The two that are a half step apart wouldn't be much of an issue but some of the others probably were.

[LeTromboniste]

Is there any historical record of how players with perfect pitch dealt with those times when there were multiple standards? The two that are a half step apart wouldn't be much of an issue but some of the others probably were.

I have colleagues who have perfect pitch and have had to "unlearn" it, or rather learn to shut that part of their brain off. Since I don't have perfect pitch I can't understand exactly what mental process they need to do, but I imagine a violinist having to switch constantly between 415, 430 and 440 must be very painful mentally for someone with perfect pitch if they don't find ways to ignore it. And that's without counting that we play in different temperaments all the time.

That being said, I have often wondered the same thing as you, and there are no records that I know of. My best guess and that of some colleagues with perfect pitch whose opinion I asked is that it is unlikely that perfect pitch would have manifested itself back then in the way we know it now. Perfect pitch as we know it is in some ways dependent on having a fixed standard pitch level and a fixed standard temperament (i.e. equal temperament). People with perfect pitch know where A is because they grew up, then spend their life hearing A as that frequency (with of course some variation - playing at 439, 441, 442, 445 etc is not uncommon, nor are badly tuned pianos, or the pitch center of an orchestra going up during a performance).

If you grew up hearing and singing music in different temperaments played at different pitch levels....well it probably wouldn't occur to you or you brain to think "this is what A sounds like" in the first place. Possibly you might be able to say "this is the A as it is in San Marco, and this is the A as it is in Santa Maria della Visitazione". They also had much more a cappella singing (and so much more transposition). Also their ear training was very different, notably with their system of hexachords and solmization and musica ficta.

[Doug Elliott]

If you haven't seen Rick Beato's YouTube videos with his son Dylan, check them out.
His theory, which I totally agree with, is that perfect pitch is developed in infancy as sound recognition the same as speech and language. Kids who grow up hearing several different languages in their very early years have no trouble learning them all and differentiating between them. And he thinks that growing up hearing very complex music allows for better recognition of the same sort of thing later.

So I would pretty much agree with your comment "If you grew up hearing and singing music in different temperaments played at different pitch levels....well it probably wouldn't occur to you or you brain to think "this is what A sounds like" in the first place. Possibly you might be able to say "this is the A as it is in San Marco, and this is the A as it is in Santa Maria della Visitazione."
The same way some ethnic or religious groups will always sing their songs in the same key with no prompting from an instrument or reference pitch.

But at the same time I think the early childhood learning probably supersedes anything that occurs after that.

[Redthunder]

If you haven't seen Rick Beato's YouTube videos with his son Dylan, check them out.
His theory, which I totally agree with, is that perfect pitch is developed in infancy as sound recognition the same as speech and language. Kids who grow up hearing several different languages in their very early years have no trouble learning them all and differentiating between them. And he thinks that growing up hearing very complex music allows for better recognition of the same sort of thing later.

Generally speaking, the research that has been done in early childhood music learning supports this idea. Musical aptitude, in all contexts, is the highest when a child is first born, and can fluctuate up until age 9, at which point aptitude becomes fixed. So any musical experiences had between infancy and age 9 will have a huge impact on the lifelong musical abilities of an individual.

Speaking anecdotally from a different context, I have informally observed that most highly capable jazz improvisors often are highly successful at what they do for the same reasons - they began learning it very young and were immersed in it, and a lot of the time they don't nearly have an in depth understanding of WHAT they're doing because it's a skill set that's natural. And also why many strictly classically trained musicians freeze up if you ask them to improvise, because most of those individuals don't even get exposed to the idea of it until they're in their teens and twenties.

[TBone66]

Going back to an earlier response from LeTromboniste, my understanding is that the agreement on A=440Hz was in the late 1930s. I have just acquired a 1960s model B&H Emperor which is marked "HP" How long did the production of HP/LP instruments persist?

[BGuttman]

Going back to an earlier response from LeTromboniste, my understanding is that the agreement on A=440Hz was in the late 1930s. I have just acquired a 1960s model B&H Emperor which is marked "HP" How long did the production of HP/LP instruments persist?

British Brass Bands were using High Pitch into the 1970s. I think they were the last to go to A=440. Note that there was actually an agreement on A=440 in the mid 1800s.

[bbocaner]

I have perfect pitch and I often play in period instrument groups that use both A452 or A455 (19th century brass bands) as well as A465 (16th/17th cen), and baroque orchestras at A415 and I also do classical orchestras that play at A430.

The 465 I play on a 440 instrument and I transpose up a half step. In my mind, I'm still thinking 440. Some other players learn trombone as "trombone in A" for this sort of thing, so it's different slide positions.

The 415 I usually use a longer tuning slide and lose 7th position. This takes some getting used to, but I sort of switch back and forth between "fooling myself" that the tones I'm hearing really are the notes I think they are, and thinking of it as transposed down a half step.

The 430 and 452 or 455 are the tricky ones. I use instruments that are built to play at these pitch levels for valved/keyed instruments and longer/shorter tuning slides for trombones. They are not a full half step away from 440. It usually takes about a day of practicing to adapt to it.