Accidental or “Accidentally on Purpose”?

[thereallyniceman]

My friend, the audio software expert, commented that the pitch on many Classic Banjo tracks of original artists now available was above concert pitch, and in some cases (including recent Morley and Oakley tracks) considerably sharpened.

 

Last week I posted a recording of Olly Oakley playing Paderewski’s Minuet.

 

MINUET sharp Olly Oakley

 

…and Mike Moss said that he didn’t like the recording commenting:

“The performance just feels aggressive, it lacks any form of subtleness, and that just kills it to my ears.”

 

Here is the recording corrected for concert pitch/tempo and it does have a softer quality to it:

 

MINUET concert pitch Olly Oakley

 

It appears that the recording was off by what is described as around an “ear-jerking” semitone and a bit!

 

He simply explains: Until the digital age, recording and playback devices were analogue machines. When cylinders or discs, encoded with grooves during the recording or pressing are spun, the grooves are tracked by a needle or stylus. The stylus tracking frequencies are amplified to create audible sounds. For analogues, the rate of spin affects both pitch and tempo simultaneously. Increase the spin rate and a recorded voice both speaks faster and rises in pitch. (Magnetic recording tape is another analogue medium having similar properties).

Spin rates on analogue players are not always calibrated correctly. In that event, both pitch and tempo are affected.

 

When digitally correcting recordings from the analogue era, both pitch and tempo should be corrected, in order for the result to accurately represent the original analogue performance. 

 

Now the question

Many, possibly less proficient, modern day bluegrass players, to me, seem to be involved in a race to the end when playing, some even competing on Youtube to see who can play the most notes per minute or play Dueling Banjos the fastest in the world… why???

 

Maybe even original Classic Banjo players were not immune from  idea that playing a piece fast makes you look skillful and more impressive,  just as it seems that modern players seem to? (and not just banjo players either.. listen to 90% of pianists playing Scott Joplin Ragtime… they sound like they are chasing the music …dreadful!)

 

I am sure that the performers were fully aware of the facts and that cranking up the lever on the cylinder recorder or gramophone would make it seem as if they were playing faster???

 

I have heard loads of tracks that play above concert pitch but only noticed the odd recording that seemed to be below concert pitch…  just a coincidence??

 

[Trapdoor2]

I some performers actually tuned higher (this is documented with Flatt & Scruggs, who tuned to G# for many of their recordings. Lester Flatt always said it suited his voice more...but that doesn't explain why the instrumentals were tuned up too...). Also, there was no concensus regarding "concert pitch" until the 1920's when A440 was adopted (at least, here in the US).

It doesn't surprise me that a given acoustic recording turns out to be off pitch. The human ear seems to prefer sharpness to flatness, faster to slower. There has been some studies (as I recall) regarding tempo vs age. As children, we tend to prefer faster tempo music but as we cross into our middle-age, faster tempos become annoying. I know that I absolutely loved fast ragtime as a kid. Joe "Fingers" Carr was my favorite player...I think he could play "Spaghetti Rag" (all parts) in a minute flat. Now, I can hardly stand to listen to it.

[Jody Stecher]

The Foggy Mtn Boys (Flatt and Scruggs), like several other acoustic country bands of their time, tuned a half step higher because they found that the most performing situations had only one or two microphones. They discovered —or believed — that their instruments had more carrying power at higher tension. It was no problem for banjo as the steel banjo strings of that era (Bell Brand, Black Diamond, Mapes, Gibson, etc) were all light gauge. The guitars and mandolins mostly eventually got somewhat damaged from this.  A bonus of tuning this way was the discovery by Flatt and others that their voices sounded good in these odd keys. The reason the instrumentals were also tuned up at their recording sessions (where each instrument did have its own mic) is The Band Was Already In Tune. Why change the tuning of so many instruments just because there is no voice for 3 minutes? In other words, they tuned high in Nineteen Forty Whatever It Was and stayed that way until performance conditions no longer necessitated high tuning.

Trapdoor2 said:

I some performers actually tuned higher (this is documented with Flatt & Scruggs, who tuned to G# for many of their recordings. Lester Flatt always said it suited his voice more...but that doesn't explain why the instrumentals were tuned up too...). 

[Steve Harrison]

Tone and pitch is very subjective. I studied electronics at college in the 1960's and when dealing with hi fi and other audio systems, my lecturer always said the most important piece of equipment are those two things attached to either side of your head. Everyone perceives sound differently and the older your ears get, the less responsive they are to the higher frequencies. At the age of 65, I have to wear a hearing aid in my right ear and my hearing quality varies from day to day. Some days my banjo sounds good, other days it sounds thin and distorted. The good news is that when' she who is to obeyed' gets into nagging mode, I can always turn it off!

[Jody Stecher]

You raise some interesting points and questions. I agree that the recording of OO sounds better "corrected" to today's concert pitch of A 440. But that was not standard pitch at the time of the recording. There was no standard pitch. As Marc pointed out 440 began to be used in the states in the 20s. However it did not become Really Official until the mid 1930s. Sort of a moot point since fixed pitch instruments like horns were already being manufactured to that standard by that time. The UK soon accepted this convention. But Continental Europe did not always agree. And even now European orchestras tune to a different A than UK and American orchestras. Most tune higher. It used to be lower.  I would think that Olly Oakley would have chosen whatever pitch the piano was tuned to. I mean *he* could tune five pegs  well enough but the pianist was pretty much stuck with how the studio piano was tuned. 

As for bluegrass banjo players racing, that is how adolescents and adult newbies play bluegrass banjo. No banjo player who did not keep a steady beat would last a day in a real professional bluegrass band. There are indeed some Country Music professional fiddle players who admonish their pickup bands to pretend to not be able to keep up with them so that the fiddle player will appear to be more able than his accompanists. But this has nothing to do with bluegrass aesthetics or how good bluegrass banjo is actually played. In that field, steady timing is essential.

[Alan Sims]

Johnny Cash and his band were always tuned up half a pitch in the early years . If it was to suit his voice or he did not know a b flat i dont know.

[Shawn McSweeny]

"  .  .  .  Olly Oakley would have chosen whatever pitch the piano was tuned to."

That certainly makes sense. But on reviewing the recently posted Morley cuts, all of which have piano accompaniment, can it be that the pianist is constantly retuning to suit the banjoist? Or is there something else amiss?

Yankee Glide, first part of which corresponds to A Banjo Diversion, written in C, is pitched accurately to our modern C tuning. One might expect the other pieces to likewise be in tune, but RAF's Parade, Japanese Patrol and Butterfly are all pitched a half tone higher than the keys they are written in.  The piano remains in tune with the banjo. Blackbird, whose first strain corresponds to that of TV Tattoo, is apparently played a full tone higher than written. 

Perhaps  three pianos were used, and they varied  in pitch by semi-tone increments, leaving Joe to retune several times.  Also possible and perhaps more likely, is that during production of the CD, available notation or manuscript weren't consulted adequately to confirm notation pitches when playing pitches were being adjusted off the cylinders.

If Blackbird has been mis-pitched high by as much as two semitones, it may be presenting Joe's playing at a tempo even greater than the lightning speed he was famous for.

[Jody Stecher]

The Tarrant Bailey Collection, the CD on which these recordings were gathered, is comprised of recordings that were made on different cylinder recorders on different occasions between 1910 and 1918. I think it is likely that these cylinder recorders did not each operate at exactly the same speed and perhaps not even the same machine operated on one occasion at the same speed at which it operated on another.  One indication as to whether the recording we are listening to is at accurate speed is the sound of the voices speaking the introductions. But that is confounding as well. For instance there are two recordings of the Blackbird on the CD. The spoken intro on the first one sounds natural. On the next one it sounds speeded up. But the pitch of the instruments is identical on both. 

Is there reason to believe that Joe Morley's published notations were always in the same keys in which he performed them, or in which he originally composed them?

Shawn McSweeny said:

"  .  .  .  Olly Oakley would have chosen whatever pitch the piano was tuned to."

That certainly makes sense. But on reviewing the recently posted Morley cuts, all of which have piano accompaniment, can it be that the pianist is constantly retuning to suit the banjoist? Or is there something else amiss?

Yankee Glide, first part of which corresponds to A Banjo Diversion, written in C, is pitched accurately to our modern C tuning. One might expect the other pieces to likewise be in tune, but RAF's Parade, Japanese Patrol and Butterfly are all pitched a half tone higher than the keys they are written in.  The piano remains in tune with the banjo. Blackbird, whose first strain corresponds to that of TV Tattoo, is apparently played a full tone higher than written. 

Perhaps  three pianos were used, and they varied  in pitch by semi-tone increments, leaving Joe to retune several times.  Also possible and perhaps more likely, is that during production of the CD, available notation or manuscript weren't consulted adequately to confirm notation pitches when playing pitches were being adjusted off the cylinders.

If Blackbird has been mis-pitched high by as much as two semitones, it may be presenting Joe's playing at a tempo even greater than the lightning speed he was famous for.

[marc dalmasso]

to add confusion , the sentence in French  on the record/down say " this record should be read at 80 rpm "

But they are supposed to be 78 rpm ....

Some others records of the same Co  say " read in 100 rpm " ................

[Shawn McSweeny]

"  .  .  . I think it is likely that these cylinder recorders did not each operate at exactly the same speed . . etc. "

Agreed. Differences of a whole tone or as in the case of  Pimpernel Mazurka, 3 semi-tones (written in F, presented on disc in Ab) are unlikely, even with the nascent technology of the day.

".  .  .  Is there reason to believe that Joe Morley's published notations were always in the same keys in which he performed them, .  .  ."

Is there reason to believe they weren't? I've seen a few of the original folios carefully prepared by Joe, in his hand, and in full detail with positions, fingering etc. for the publishers to transcribe. Would he do so in any key other than the one he played ? Perhaps, but I think unlikely.

[Jody Stecher]

One reason is the example of other musicians. What is presented to the public has historically been different (often simpler, but not always) from what the performer really plays. This is true for all kinds of music but even in the classic banjo field there are discrepancies  between the  printed notations and the recorded performances of Vess Ossman, Van Eps and Olly Oakley. So I speculated that it might be the same in the case of Joe Morley.  I have/had not seen the original folios you mention. 

Another reason is an impression I have that Joe Morley was not well organized about anything except for his regular attendance at horse races. Whenever he needed money it was time to contact a publisher with some new banjo solos that he could concoct at relatively short notice when needed. He might have been coherent in what he presented to the publishers but he doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would feel a need for his live performances for an audience to coincide on every occasion with some dots on a piece of paper that he did to get some quick cash. This is just a far-from-certain impression and it's an impression that is just strong enough to create a small doubt and prompt a question.

Shawn McSweeny said:

 

Is there reason to believe they weren't? 

[Shawn McSweeny]

Hi Jody,

Much like yours, my impression is that Joe was hopeless at managing his life beyond the music.  He obviously had great facility (which he exploited), at composing original, catchy tunes that fall well under the hands, indicating he composed directly on the instrument, and perhaps with greater care than we imagine.

As Joe himself wrote of his compositions : " Do not make any alterations in the printed copy of the solo without the permission of the composer : every bar is given careful thought before publication, and to add notes indiscriminately or to make any alteration will quite naturally ruin the effect at which the composer was aiming .  .  . "

Quote is excerpted from a series of six lessons by Joe Morley, originally published  in Rhythm, 1928.

In this series he presents his view of his music, is quite explicit on matters of fingering, technique, and discipline, showing great attention to detail. I don't think one can underestimate the degree to which he focused on his music and how seriously he took it.

[Jody Stecher]

It would have been nice if the manufacturers of cylinder recording equipment were as fastidious about recording speed as Joe Morley seems to have been about his compositions.