Pitch (building material)

“ From father to son, from teacher to scholar the tradition of pitch was carried on. The string affected by heat and moisture and by the strain when twanged, never remains accurately to pitch. Although pipes and strings have run a parallel course, we do not find that the lyre players actually cared to refer to pipes as guiding them in setting the pitch. Yet it was the custom, so Plutarch tells us, for reciters and orators to have a pitch pipe sounded by an attendant to keep their voices to a prescribed pitch, and he mentions an ivory pipe being used for the practice. ”

“ The pitch of the roof is determined by the distance the peak of the roof rises above the walls; thus if a roof has a quarter pitch, the peak would rise above the walls one quarter the width of the building; if half pitch the peak would rise one half the width of the building, etc. For simplicity in laying out this problem we will make the pitch one half. The points A, B, represent the span of the walls; also the lines A, C, and B, C, show the outside margin of the upper chord of the truss. ”

“ The air rushing out through the bamboo pipes will naturally escape through the holes cut below the reeds, making no sound, but if the finger stops one or more of these holes, the air is forced up through the reeds, thus giving a musical sound, the pitch of which will be dependent on the length of the pipes and the force with which the air passes through the reed. ”

“ In India we find flutes which seem to show a compromise or blending of the tip-blown and side-blown methods. In the India Museum some pipes may be seen with a curiously shaped hollow tip, cut with a slant curve, across which the player blows. These several ways are but different illustrations of one and the same principle—that is to say—the stream of air blown across the hole creates suction in the pipe, which reaching its limit is constantly broken with a rapidity of action resulting in periodic vibration of definite sound or pitch. ”

“ As we approached the summit of the hill, a fine breeze gave us new courage, and the sight of the Pitch Works, not far distant, dissolved our fears of the heat into most absorbing interest of the great phenomenon coming into view. An endless train of buckets, which led the way up the long ascent, on a wire rope supported at short intervals by large sheaves on iron pillars, went squeaking along, one row down to the dock, full of great chunks of pitch, and the other back, empty, to be filled and started on its round again. ”

“ The pitch may vary from an almost horizontal surface (as largely adopted in dry countries and also in temperate climates for roofs of metal or asphalt) to the steeply pitched roofs required for the ordinary flat tiles which to be weatherproof must be laid at an angle of from 45° to 80° with the horizon. Besides serving the useful purpose of protection against inclement weather the roof, both externally and internally, may be designed to form an architectural feature in keeping with the character of he building. ”

“ Chamber Music Pitch. Formerly absolute pitch did not exist. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the pitch was high. This we find according to the old organs, which are some of them a tone higher than our present French diapason. Chamber pitch in olden times differed from church pitch. The adoption of a uniform pitch is very much to be desired at the present time.
Divertimento, a kind of chamber music suite, or combination of pieces of a pleasing and diverting kind.
Gudok, a violin-like Russian instrument with drones. ”

“ I am well aware that a few musicians have this gift of absolute pitch, and perhaps a greater number still, from long practice with one fixed sound—like the singing master with his C tuning fork—are able to guess the pitch of that one sound with moderate success, but for a musician to have the pitch of all the range of sounds so thoroughly established, as to feel a sense of disappointment if an isolated note was sounded either slightly above, or below concert pitch, is almost an impossibility, if such an one does exist he must be considered an exception to the above. ”

“ In selecting the numbers to use on the tongue and the blade of the square, in laying out seat and plumb cuts of hip or valley rafters of intersecting roofs of different pitches, any numbers may be used -91- providing they have a ratio equal to that of the run and rise of the rafter being framed. Since the angle of intersection changes with every change of pitch, it is hardly worth while developing a constant to be used on the tongue in framing hip and valley rafters on irregular pitches. ”

“ Should the cords become slightly stretched, flattening the pitch, causing the representative numbers to change, the performer need only give his indicator an extra turn to bring his instrument back to pitch, each note having several notches at its service. The internal mechanism, being of an elastic nature, has no detrimental effect on the tone but tends to increase its volume and improve its quality. ”

“ If a cord of but moderate thickness be fastened at each end to a thin piece of wood, say a split shingle, and a little block of wood, in imitation of the bridge of a violin, be placed under the cord so as to render it tense, we have the essentials of a stringed instrument, the pitch of which can be made to vary by moving the block about and thus varying the tightness of the cord. ”

“ Strength and pitch were the first two distinctions of different tones. The third is the timbre. When we hear one and the same tone sounded successively upon a violin, trumpet, clarionet, oboe, upon a piano, or by a human voice, &c., although it is of the same strength and of the same pitch, yet the tone of all these instruments is different, and we very easily distinguish the instrument from which it comes. The changes of the timbre seem to be infinitely manifold ”

“ At the last sale, these articles formed two distinct lots, and they realised more than thirty-six thousand francs—that is, fifteen hundred pounds sterling.
The question of ‘musical pitch’ has for many years troubled musicians, each country adopting a note giving a different number of vibrations per second as its standard. In Britain, we have the Philharmonic pitch, and when any one talks of having his piano tuned up to concert pitch, the Philharmonic standard is the one indicated. ”

“ When with the modern knowledge of musical instruments we examine the nature of those which they had in their command, we have every reason to doubt the practical application of those fine distinctions of the pitches of the musical notes insisted upon by their learned theorists. The instruments simply could not give them, the exactness was beyond their staying and playing powers. The strings of a lyre had not the delicate permanence of pitch requisite for such claims, and certainly the flutes could not have rendered intervals so accurate. ”

“ Not only is it more rhythmical, but it is more musical; that is to say, though the pitch is not deliberately regulated, as in song, there is a tendency to a level monotonous intonation, and changes of pitch, when they occur, are more conscious and more noticeable. ”

“ He discovered first, that a musical sound is very rarely a simple tone, but is made up of several tones, sometimes as many as ten or fifteen, having different degrees of intensity and pitch. The lowest sound, which is also the strongest, is called the fundamental; and it is this tone we mean when we speak of the pitch of a sound, as the pitch of middle C upon a piano, or the pitch of the A string on a violin. ”

“ It is the concept of pitch which forms the vocal instrument, gives it the exact amount of tension necessary to vibrate at the rate of the pitch desired, but the action is automatic, not the result of direct effort. ”

“ After the design for the decoration of the front of the frame has been transferred to the same side of the metal as the outline, it must be prepared for the repousse process. This is done by placing it on a pitch pot. The pitch is softened enough so that the metal will stick to it. After placing the metal on the pitch, work a little of the pitch over the edges as this will hold it more securely. It is then allowed to cool or harden before working. With a suitable tool and hammer, after the pitch is hard, follow the lines which make up the design or decorative part of the frame. ”

“ He would simply make one rafter as I have shown, for a pattern, and use this pattern for laying out all the other rafters for that particular pitch and rise on the same roof. Most workmen, however, make a pattern from thin stuff of some sort, as it is lighter and easier handled. The reviewer suggested as a better way “that the pitch be 74 arranged on the iron square, then measure across the angle from the points of run and pitch, and multiply this measurement by half the width of the roof to be covered.” ”

“ The flute and the piccolo are the only wood-wind instruments played without a reed, the performer blowing across a hole in the side instead of into the end of the tube. As in all other wood-wind instruments, differences in pitch are obtained by opening and closing the finger-holes and keys. ”

“ The pitch of any one bell is determined conjointly by the size and the thickness. Of two bells equally large, the thicker gives the higher note; of two bells equally thick, the smaller gives the higher note. But then bell-founders look to the quality of the tone as well as to the pitch ”

“ A question is uttered with rising inflection, that is, with a higher pitch at the end. Declarative sentences usually have a falling inflection just before the final period, that is, a lower pitch. Exclamations often have a circumflex inflection, as "Really!" spoken in a sarcastic tone; that is, the pitch rises and falls.
Experimental attempts to indicate variations of pitch by our common musical notation are given by Verrier. A single example will suffice here. [18]
Perhaps the most important aspect of pitch from the point of view of rhythm is its actual influence upon accent. ”

“ The first one presented to our consideration is the difference between the various instruments, whose invention and elaboration has been found essential to create that totality of musical sound, which in respect to musical sound constitutes a sphere of different tones independently of all distinction of the relation of pitch whether it be a high or a low one. ”

“ A method very successfully adopted is to leave the end joints slightly open, and'to place strips or laths one-tenth of an inch thick between the courses, so that hot' pitch can be poured down to fill the joint and 'cover the surface. ”

“ For, however exact in design such standards of pitch may be, experience teaches us that scientific exactitude in pitch can only be secured when the pressure of wind producing the note is weighed, as in our organ pipes. With lip blown flutes, when a certain pressure is exceeded, the pipe blows its octave and thus no doubt the player is warned, and custom enables him to restrain his breath to the correct force. The Chinese are wonderfully methodical in their systems, but they have not in these matters ever attained to the accuracy of practical scientific demonstration. ”

“ The musical scale now in use arose to fit the needs of keyed instruments. The voice and stringed instruments can give the natural scale with many more intervals. Pitch has mathematical niceties, and its standard is a variable quantity. Philosophical pitch is determined by subdividing a wire that vibrates once a second. The variety of musical instruments has resulted from employing different vibrating substances, and from exciting vibration in these by several methods. ”

“ Whatever the tension of the strings, the little inlaid nacre studs serve to indicate the relative divisions. They guide the player but do not restrict him; since, if a string gets slack he can judge by ear how much difference to make in distance,—thus shortening the261 sounding length in order to obtain the pitch required for conformity to the other strings. Also a firmer pressure on the string will raise the pitch, and the practice is resorted to by the player as an embellishment often desirable. ”

“ It would appear that the art has almost been lost of making mutes for trumpets and French horns, which should affect the timbre only, giving it a certain veiled mysterious quality similar to that of the sons bouches or hand-stopped notes, but affecting the pitch not at all. We read that when it is necessary to produce this peculiar timbre on the valve-horn, as for instance in Wagner’s Rheingold, the rise of a semi-tone in pitch caused by the introduction of the mute or the hand into the bell of the horn must be compensated by means of the second piston which lowers the pitch a semi-tone. ”

“ Musical connoisseurs often express disappointment at the sound of some imposing-looking organ. The instrument with the great dimensions of its outer frame and the gorgeous show of its great gilded pipes in front would give the impression of great power. But those pipes, instead of being of hollow and sonorous metal, are solid pieces of wood. They are decorated dummies, incapable of giving forth a single sound. The musical pipes in such an instrument are hidden from view but they alone are of service. ”

“ The reciprocal principle of elective affinity between fundamental and overtone, between the shape assumed by the larynx for pitch and the shape assumed by the resonance-cavities for quality, is illustrated by the exciting influence of a sounding instrument upon a silent one tuned to the same pitch which, although not touched by human hand, sounds in sympathy with the one that is being played on. ”

“ For here, when the pitch shifts, the voice, by change of position, stations itself on one pitch, then on another, and, as it frequently repeats this alternating process, it appears to the senses to become stationary, as happens in singing when we produce a variation of the mode by changing the pitch of the voice. ”