'Radio Pitch'

Subject: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Leeder
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 01:32 PM

My dad sometimes used to tune his guitar a semitone high; he called it "radio pitch", and said they used to use it for radio broadcasts. Has anyone else heard of this custom? Does anyone know why they did it?

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 03:06 PM

I've not heard of it as a "standard" practice, but an AM radio channel has a pretty narrow frequency band, and you can only broadcast (or receive) rather "low-fi" signals. It is conceivable that some bands - or some stations - may have felt they got a better sound by tuning "off" a little one way or the other.

On the other hand, he may have "discovered" someone on the radio that he could play with by retuning, and made his own conclusion that it was a "practice." My own AM-radio-days experience at trying to play along with the radio indicated that most broadcasts were not in "concert pitch" tuning, but I never found a consistent change. The explanation I got - mid '50s - was that the recording studio sometimes shifted the tape speed to get what they wanted after the players went home - and before they put everything on the "master tape." Sometimes up - sometimes down. I doubt that the "authority" for that explanation was actually knowledgeable, though.

Before electronic tuners became common, it was often the custom to "tune to the piano," and it was not unlikely that the nearest piano would be tuned to "standard pitch" rather than to "concert pitch." "Standard pitch" is a little more than a half tone lower than what we normally use now. It doesn't make much difference for an "all-strings" band, but if you have an accordion or flute in the group, you'd have to "tune up a half tone" because many "concert instruments" can't satisfactorily tune down to "standard pitch."

This is all speculation, of course. It would be helpful (or just interesting) to know if your dad actually played in radio sessions - and when/where, and perhaps what your reference for "standard tuning" was.

John

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 03:14 PM

John's point about concert versus standard is probably spot on.

Searching the web, the term "radio pitch" shows up with two meanings -- a slang term for a baseball pitch, and a term for a marketing spiel to sell one's story to a radio station, or an advertising spiel meant to be delivered over radio.

A

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 03:23 PM

If you are olde enough to remember, as I am, most radio stations would go off the air during the night. Some stations did not completly shut down, but would broadcast a solid tone. That tone/note was 440A. Also, during early telephones, we could could tune to the dial tone, which was also 440A. CHEERS, old Bob

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 01:08 AM

Deckman - You're note ties in with the "radio pitch" terminology, but doesn't explain why Leeder and his dad considered that a "half tone high." A440 is what most of us now would consider the normal tuning - and probably would have been commonly used by radio performers quite a while back.

It would still be interesting if our original poster would give us a clue about how they "normally" tuned. (I'm still guessing it was to the piano in the parlor.)

John

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 06:19 AM

I asked my Rog, the broadcast engineer, about this, as well as a couple of other "radio" guys. They haven't got back to me, yet, but one thing Rog did say is the tone used by most radio stations, in the past, was 400. He said it was the WWB (time signal) which broadcasts at 440, FWIW.

kat

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 09:55 AM

No wonder I grew up singing bass!

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Ralphie
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 10:22 AM

Ah....memories...!!

In my early days (nights?) at the BBC, we did indeed close down our networks overnight, the process (for MF transmitters) involved at least 4 minutes of Silence on the lines feeding the beasts, which triggered the off switch all over the country..
To keep our Transmitter colleagues amused overnight (and to keep them away from the sheep!) Each Network had what we called Pulse or Bong tone sent down the lines to prove that they still existed.!

Radio 1 660 Hz
Radio 2 440 Hz
Radio 3 200 Hz
Radio 4 900 Hz

These bongs where not enough to wake up the Transmitters.
That was done manually (or once a year...Old Joke!) by yours truly, at some ungodly hour with a 4 minute burst of steady 440 Hz.

This must be what Bob D is referring to....
Of course nowadays, such satanic nightly rituals, along with the Test Card are just a distant memory...Ah Well...

A nostalgic Ralphie dreaming of happier halcyon days...

Next time children, a description of the mind altering properties of Negative Pips!

All of which of course has nothing to do with the original question, about whitch, I haven't a clue...Sorry !!!!

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 10:31 AM

The 'radio pitch' in baseball refers to a ball thrown so hard it's 'one you can hear, but can't see'. An exaggeration of the sound a baseball can make(if thrown hard enough)as it passes the batter. It's a sound with which I'm very familiar...

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 11:10 AM

I also gre up very close to the classical music scene, as in Orchestras and Conductors. My best friend was gifted, or is it cursed, with perfect pitch. He was a concert violinst. He used to tune pianos for fun. I'm very familiar with the term "orchestra pitch" but I have no idea what "standard pitch" would mean if it referes to anything different that 440A. Bob

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 11:13 AM

By the way, I'll relate a story I posted some time ago on another thread that you might find interesting. The late Walt Robertson used to tune his guitars down one, or sometimes two, frets below pitch. He would publicly claim that this was to protect the instrument, but I often felt it was a control trick ... he didn't want others guitars playing when he played! It worked too! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 11:45 AM

There had been a long history of pitch before A440 was adopted at an international conference in 1939. See U.K. Piano Page: History of Pitch.

~Masato

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 04:52 PM

This from one of my other "geeks":-):

Basically, AM in the US uses a full 10KC bandwidth, radios tune in significantly less than that which challenges many things within the signal.   The new digital am is gonna be awesome though!

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 04:58 PM

A past national champion Dulcimist who wandered through our Winfield campsite a couple of years ago explained that he usually tuned to Eb-Myxolidian. The Eb part of it was quite obviously to keep "lesser" people from being tempted to play along, and the emphasis on "Myxolidian" gave him the entry to one of the longest and most detailed expositions I've ever heard on Modes and the use thereof.

I was able to follow enough of his rather "posturing" harangue to assure one and all that he was truly expert in modal music, but unfortunately he lost me somewhere along the way so I ended up not knowing much more than when he started. He played some impressive music to illustrate his points though.

There are a couple of campsites at Winfield that are a little "in-bred," who by custom tune somewhere "off norm" specifically to discourage wandering pickers from joining in. They apparently agree on a pitch somewhere away from the picking area, so that "the invited" can arrive in tune; but at least one of them changes their base pitch often, and apparently at random - and usually not by a semitone, but something like 1/3 tone or 7/9 of a tone.... Unfortunately for them, quite a few of the wanderers are sufficiently tone deaf that they try anyway, and don't notice how it sounds.

John

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Tweed
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 05:03 PM

I read somewhere along the line that songs on the radio (50's and 60's) had to run about 2:30 or so in order to cram as much play time and still have plenty of room for commercials. If my feeble memory serves well, it was common practice for the record companies in those days to speed up the recording a little to keep the songs down to that time span and of course the pitch went up a little too.

Tweed

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: Leeder
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 12:57 PM

To answer John's query, my father's radio broadcasts were in the '30s to '50s, on local stations where he happened to be going to schoool, mostly in North Bay, Ontario, somewhat later in Kingston, Ontario. He didn't have to tune to a piano or anything, there were just two guitars, and they both tuned a semitone high as a matter of course. He never explained why -- now I wish I'd asked.

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 03:04 PM

Leeder -

Your dad was probably "right," and everybody else was tuning a semitone low - but the real question is "what was everybody else tuning to?"

I played sax and clarinet in a small combo for a while in the 50s, mostly at local "Legion Hall" dance venues. All of our instruments were built to what we called "concert pitch" at A440 Hz. We never found a place to play that had a piano tuned at "concert." I'm not sure it would be safe to say that they were all tuned the same, but it was common to tune them at - least approximately - to what was then called "standard pitch" at A400 Hz.

The only one in the band who could really get in tune with those pianos was the drummer. The 'bone player could adjust his slide postitions "by ear," so he could get by. Our trumpet (actually a Bb cornet) had an "A slide" that he inherited from his dad, who had played a lot in the 30s, so he could make an "instant swap" to something a lot closer. By the time I'd pull the mouthpiece on the sax out far enough to get close - the mouthpiece would fall off.

By the 30s, most "band" instruments were built to A440. (My tenor sax was made in 1934, and was(/is?) "in tune" at that frequency.) Anyone who played with a combo that included an "untunable" instrument, like accordion, cornet, clarinet, marimba, etc., would pretty much need to tune to them, so you can probably assume that your dad's "radio pitch" was pretty close to that tuning.

The remaining question seems to be "what was your "regular pitch" that was a semitone lower?"

John

Subject: RE: 'Radio Pitch'
From: NicoleC
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 06:03 PM

Tweed is right. Dance, Top 40 and Rock stations often speed up the songs to keep listeners glued and energetic... or at least they were doing that well into the late 80's and early 90's. My ears were better tuned then and I couldn't stand to listen to the radio if I was familiar with the songs.

I can't imagine they've stopped doing it for any reason.