The History of Musical Pitch

Abstract“PITCH” is itself merely a sensation due to, and hence o*o measured by, the number of double or complete vibrations, backwards and forwards, made in one second of time by a particle of air while the sound is heard. It is convenient to call the pitch of a musical sound the number of vibrations to which it is due. “Musical pitch” is the pitch of the “tuning note,” or that by which all other notes on an instrument with fixed tones is regulated according to some system of tuning or “temperament.” Of these, two are of prominent importance in the history of pitch, the “Mean-tone” and the “Equal,” the first being also frequently called “unequal.” In mean-tone temperament, completed by Salinas in 1577, all harpsichords and pianos were originally tuned in England till 1844, and all organs till 1854. It may still be heard on Green's organs at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Kew Parish Church, and St. Katharine's, Regent's Park, and on a few country organs. It consists in flattening the Fifths of the scale sufficiently to make the major Thirds perfect, so as to sound without beats. As long as the player did not employ more than two flats or three sharps this answered very well indeed. But on introducing a third flat or fourth sharp he had to play them by substitution, and hideous noises, called “the wolf,” were produced, and hence players have agreed to accept the much less perfect equal temperament, iu which the Fifths are scarcely perceptibly flattened, and the major Thirds are made very much too sharp (producing the unpleasant “grittiness” of the harmonium), because at any rate all the keys are alike and the wolves are reduced to cubs.