Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891 › scan 266
Scan 266
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 …, 1891
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 246. See the scan on archive.org.
1if the pitch were taken in each case before the instrument is appreciably warmed by the breath. In practice, however, this condition of things is soon modified; the effect of the breath is, in this country at least, always to sharpen the instrument by raising its temperature, but as this warming is proportionately greater at low temperatures than at high, the general result is that the variation is not so great as the temperatures of the air outside the instrument would indicate. Whatever the outside temperature, the air inside an instrument at the mouth-piece end will soon be raised to about 90°, so that if we assume a range of temperature outside the instrument of from 50° to 70°, and assume also that the air about the bell-mouth has a similar range, it is evident that the mean range of temperature in the instrument will not be so great as 20°, nor will the variation of pitch be so great as 20° would indicate. For in the one case, the mean temperature in the instrument is something between 90° at the mouth-piece and 50° at the bell-mouth, or say \( \frac{90° + 50°}{2} = 70° \) and in the other case something between 90° and 70°, or say \( \frac{90° + 70°}{2} = 80° \), so that the range of temperature in the instrument may be only that between 70° and 80°, or 10°, while the range in the surrounding air is from 50° to 70°, or 20°.
3The exact amount of variation varies in different instruments, for even the air in the bell-mouth is in small instruments soon somewhat warmed. As a rule, the smaller the instrument, it is proportionately the more highly warmed by the breath in cold weather; so that the range of variation of pitch in instruments when fairly warmed with playing, is less for flutes and clarionets than for large brass basses, the temperature of which at the bell-end rises very little above that of the surrounding air, however long they are played upon. In cold weather, therefore, the basses will be more below pitch than the clarionets, and in hot weather they will be more above.
5From all this, it will be seen that the pitch of a band should be taken when the instruments are fairly warmed with playing, and when the general temperature of the air is about 60°. Neglect of these precautions has doubtless been one of the chief causes of the extravagantly high pitch of some military and brass bands. When it is
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