CAN WE HAVE AN "A"?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 453, 27 February 1948, Page 11

CAN WE HAVE AN "A"?

Generator Replaces Oboe

AN article in The Listener (June 20, 1947) by Ian Cox, informed New Zealanders: that the BBC had at last adopted the international standard of concert pitch which had first been agreed on in 1939. The result is that the new standard "A" of 440 cycles per second will now be used as a tuning note by orchestras broadcasting over the BBC Third Programme. In a special programme Ian Cox introduced to English listeners a panel of experts who attempted to explain why a standard pitch was necessary, and how in the past pitch had varied astonishingly in different countries. One speaker explained that in the 16th Century there were.three distinct *pitches in use. A vocal pitch (for secular songs and madrigals) was much the same as the new standard, but there was also a special pitch for Church music,

which was more than a tone higher, and another for virginals and other instruments that did not accompany voices, which was about a minor third below the vocal pitch. Even at the end of the 18th Century orchestras were tuned a semi-tone lower than they are to-day. Another speaker explained that one of the biggest problems in the orchestral world was to stop the eternal fight between strings and wind, as the wind players had a firm conviction thag the strings played sharp, to which the strings retorted that they only played sharp to try and keep up to the pitch of the woodwind players. To obviate this BBC orchestras will now tune their instruments to the international standard note produced from a tone generator operated by the engineers, instead of turning to the oboe with the familiar traditional request "Can we have an ‘A’?"