What is Standard Pitch or Concert Pitch and why do we need it?Standard Pitch is a universal frequency or note that allinstruments are set to. Today’s standard pitch is A440 orC523.3 and this concert pitch enables musicians to play instrumentstogether in harmony. A form of standard pitch has been around ever since two individuals wished to play two instruments together or sing to an instrument. A tuning fork is normally used to set the pitch. However, in the past, pitch pipes have been used, and today electronic tuning forks are also used, but the most common is the tuning fork. The tuning fork was invented by John Shore in 1711 and it had a pitch of A423.5. He was the sergeant trumpeter to the Court and also lutenist in the Chapel Royal.

In May 1938 an international conference was set up to look at a universal pitch. The conference studded the matter at great length, quite a few where in favour of a pitch of A439 tep: 68 F. The mathematician Sir James Swinburne put the case for A440 on the grounds it rounded numbers up and made calculation in the scale simple. The conference finished with no full agreement on pitch only that each country should set up subcommittee to look at the problem. The UK and US agreed on A440 tep: 20 C The UK, ISP committee was held at the BBC and not all were in favour of A440 In 1939 some wanted the Philharmonic pitch of 1890. The BSI committee passed a resolution for a pitch of A440 at 68F. In December 1939 the BSI published a book called "British Standard Concert Pitch"

Of course, once you have your "A" or "C" set to a pitch, the rest of the instrument will have to be tuned. A scale is set in the middle and this scale also determines the pitch of all the twelve notes in the octave. The most common system used to day is known as equal temperament. This sets the pitches of the twelve notes so that the player can play the instrument in all keys by dividing the roughness equally among the twelve notes. The roughness is called the "wolf." This term may have come about because if the "wolf" is not set right the instrument will be howling out of tune.

Like standard pitch A440, equal temperament is not the onlytuning scale that has been used. Ptolemy started using justintonation in 136 AD. Meantone tuning was perfected by Salinas in 1577 AD. Equal temperament was proposed by Aristoxenus, a pupil ofAristotle, and had been in use in China for some centuries before.It would seem that equal temperament was used in North Germany asearly as 1690. In 1842 the organ of St. Nicholas, inNewcastle-upon-Tyne, was tuned to equal temperament, and this isbelieved to be the first organ to be tuned in this way in Englandfor a concert. Willis the organ builder did not use equaltemperament until 1854. However, in 1846 Walter Broadwood directed Mr. Hipkins the head piano tuner at the company to instruct theirtuners in the use of equal temperament. Mr. Hipkins used two tuningforks, one for meantone at A433.5 and one for equal temperament atA436. Meantone was the most common scale used at that time. See Ed Foote for more information on the use of meantone on today's pianos.

Musicians are not the only people to work with pitch. In 583 BC, a Greek philosopher called Pythagorus was making use of themonochord. This device is simply a soundbox with a single stringstretched over a movable bridge, the position of which can bedetermined by a scale marked on the soundbox. This was more of a scientific instrument than a musical one. Before this time, the Egyptians and Greeks made use of the monochord. For 5000 years, it was used to make intricate mathematical calculations. The ratio of intervals and many other facts that make up the fundamentals of acoustic science were discovered using the monochord. Pythagorusused a pitch of 256Hz on his monochord. The study of mathematics was known as philosophy in the time of Plato.

Modern science began to measure pitch accuracy in cps or cyclesper second around 1834 when a group of distinguished German physicists using a mechanical stroboscopic device found that the pitch of the tuning fork that they were testing was at A440 cps. It was only later that the frequency was expressed in Hz.

In the fifteenth century Arnold Schlick of Heidelberg, gave us the pitch of the time as being A.502. An Organ in Hepusdat dated 1351 with a pitch of A505 Scholars who have studied historical instruments claim that thepitch of the note "A" in the seventeenth century may have variedfrom 373.7 Hz to 402.9 Hz. The following is an incomplete list of pitch standards from various sources.

The pitch of A440 has remained the standard since 1939. Pitches have risen a little, particularly in Eastern European countries, which often wish pianos to be tuned to A 444 or even a bit above. Some concert halls in the UK and European countries have two pianos on site, one tuned to A440 and one tuned to A 444. This is to keep the pianos stable, as constantly raising and lowering the pitch is not good for the piano; it makes it hard for the piano tuner to make the tuning stable.

Here is a full list of the theoretical frequencies for all the notes on a piano tuned to A440: theoretical frequencies.

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Barrie Heaton Dip. AWVH, MABPT, FIMT, CGLI
© copyright 1998-2002

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Acknowledgements and Selective Bibliography