Old Pitch

[Ian Lawther]

During the thread on "Societies, academics and folk processes" Calum posted a number of old piping recordings the first of which was from 1898. There having been a recent thread on pitch in the Technique forum about current pitch I started wondering where the 1898 piper was set, so I performed the following experiment.

I converted Calum's mp3 to a wav file and then opened it in a Wave editor. I cut the low A at the end of the first part and pasted it into a new file several times so that I had one long low A. Having got this I plugged my tuning meter into the output from the soundcard and ran the file.

The pitch that was recorded was 20 cents sharp of A, which is approximately 446Hz (this is calculated using even cents between A and Bb though from looking at the notes and frequncies table I found on line (http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html) it should be a sliding rather than even scale.

I did a similar experiment on the Willie Ross recording of Atholl Highlanders Farewell to Loch Katrine from 1914 and got a pitch a A plus 70 cents or approximately 458 Hz.

Anyway I thought the results might interest someone, and the method is given so that those who know more about such things can work out what I've done wrong......

Ian

[Ewan Grouse]

very interesting. i have yet to listen to the mp3's, as my work blocks them. those early 78's can be tricky, since depending on the label the actual speed can range from 76-81 rpm. even cylinders, which edison tried to standardize at 160rmp around 1900 can vary by maker.

i have a few piping cylinders on my web page in real audio format if anyone wants to listen, one is a home made brown wax i recorded at 144rpm. (the semi-standardized old brown wax speed).

[John Dally]

Ian,

That's fascinating stuff. Thanks for going to all that trouble and sharing it with us.

Have you played GHP with a chanter pitched in A or thereabouts? A couple of years ago I tried an A chanter, but found it very difficult to tune using either the reeds supplied by the maker or with modern reeds (which brought the pitch up dramatically).

I'm very interested in trying out Roddy MacLellan's A chanter, especially for playing pibroch.

[Ian Lawther]

I'm sorry to say the only A chanter I have played was an old Pakistani chanter I was given. I had to do a piece in A (Orkney Wedding with Sunrise) and was struggling with various ways to tune down that low. Then I remembered a comment someone made about Pakistani chanters being old pitch, tried an oldish reed in it and it was bang on. I used it again later in a folk rock band.

However I do have an old Henderson chanter from around 1910-15 which I would like to reed up to play in A, but thats a job in progress......

Ian

[Roger Huth]

Hi
I have a chanter pitched in A proper by Hamish Moore. I also have an old (MacDougall) low pitched chanter that I used for 'Orkney Sunrise'. There is still a huge leap from that old B flat chanter to the one pitched in A.

[Texas Gael]

Originally posted by Ian Lawther:
However I do have an old Henderson chanter from around 1910-15 which I would like to reed up to play in A, but thats a job in progress......

Ian Ian,

Let us know how this works out. I remember reading once that pipe chanters in the late 1800s were pitched at about 460 Hz, rather than 440 Hz, but I don't recall that this was an authoritarian source. It seems that it would be a tremendous leap from 440 hz to the present 476-478 Hz. Also, I recall that at one time the late Seumas MacNeill was doing some research in this area. If anyone has any further information on this matter, I would love to hear it.

[John Dally]

Using the Autotuner 2.46 free download software here are the results my unscientific study found:

Henderson circa 1900 chanter with unknown reed (Watson?) the A was 451, but the scale was untrue up from E. With a Troy reed the A was 465, and the scale was true. This chanter allows all sorts of cross fingering, and even a pinched high B. It was slightly lower than the Troy with a Caldwell reed.

Similar results from Lawrie circa 1950, and Sinclair circa 1960. Both of these chanters were slightly higher in pitch than the Henderson with all the reeds. With the first reed the Lawrie A was 453, the Sinclair A was 457.

The same unknown reed in a 2000 MacLellan blackwood chanter gave an A at 469. The Troy reed gave an A at 475.

The same unknown reed in my 2003 Kron blackwood gave an A of 470. The Troy reed gave an A of 478.

All the tests were done mouthblowing the chanters, so there would be some difference plugged into a bag.

How much pitch results from the design of the reed and the design of the chanter is open to further discussion. The distance from the top of the low A hole to the top of the high G hole is greater on the Henderson than on the other chanters, which when compared to the Henderson are very similar to each other. Maybe the Henderson requires a longer reed than ones currently made?

[Fhantom Piper]

Yes, the Henderson requires/ed a longer reed. I have a Henderson chanter from 1963 I no longer play but there was a distinct difference in the reeds - so much so that the shops had a separate bin for Henderson reeds. With that chanter the Hendersons were described as "mellow".
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