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COUNCIL OF EUROPE --------------- ----------------CONSEIL DE L’EUROPE Strasbourg, 22 April 1970 CCC/ACV (70) 11 Or. Pr. COE064166 WORKING PARTY ON THE STANDARDISATION OP INITIAL TUNING FREQUENCY I ‘ t Third, meeting (Toledo, 20 - 22 May 1970) Consolidated technical paper (preliminary text) and observations communicated to the Secretariat by the Working Party members 17.745 04.4/51.04 CCC/ACV (70) 11 - 1 - CHAPTER I AIMS OP THE CONVENTION (Mr. Leone) The Convention is the outcome of a widespread demand for a remedy to the unfortunate situation existing in the musical world as a result of the instability and the rise in concert pitch, which threaten the musical heritage of the past as well as music now and in the future. Experience, history and the recent work of the Council of Europe Working Party on the Standardisation .of Concert Pitch have amply proved that it is practically impossible to achieve any concrete or satisfactory result without some legal instrument. At the present time, inter-state structures are being transformed in accordance with the desire for a regrouping, especially in Europe, following modern notions of international co-operation and with the tendency to pool those states' resources. At such a time, having regard to the special nature of the 'subject matter, which thanks .to present-day communication media knows no frontiers,.such a legal instrument, must be common to different countries and'thus international in its effect. In the historical context of today this can only be attained by a Convention or agreement drawn up in accordance with the traditional rules and structures of international law. A state which signs a Convention (and ratifies it, whei'e its constitutional rules provide for-this) undertakes to apply and enforce it on its own territory: this is generally done by introducing into its national legal system a statute or order reproducing the text of the Convention and so giving it force of law. The Convention prepared by the Council of Europe is designed to serve the musical heritage, and this major concern has never been lost sight of in its preparation^ its aim is to protect music and musicians from the harmful effects of instability and the upward trend in the musical tuning frequency without in any way restricting the freedom of artists by enclosing them in a straight-jacket which might prejudice the flowering of their creative and interpretative faculties. While the basic aim, without any doubt whatever, is to fix the initial tuning frequency at 440 c/s at 20 C, much of the text of the Convention is concerned with the conditions - 2 - CCC/ACV (70) 11 . .CHAPTER I OBSERVATIONS Mr'. - Sasso remains convinced tha.t the work done by the Working Party was necessary in order to establish the; precise nature of the problem but fears that there would be great difficulty in applying any law, however good. He would prefer a preliminary understanding, if possible a sort of "gentlemen's agreement". essential to its implementation. In particular, account is taken of the problem of temperature in the place where the musical performance is to be given, and consequently of the air conditioning of halls, where possible, and the standards which govern (or will govern) the manufacture and importation of musical instruments. The adoption of regulations for the transitional period is additional proof of the flexibility of the Convention and its adaptability to the real requirements of musical performance. (There will be inserted here a detailed commentary, article by article, on the Convention including its preamble.) m CCC/ACV (70) 11 Observations Observations on Chapter I as a whole Mr. Defossez informs the members of the Working Party that, following- its report after the Salzburg meeting, the Belgian Ministers of National Education and Culture have adopted an attitude which represents tremendous progress towards standardisation of the initial tuning frequency. Mr. Sasso wonders what the situation would be after ratification of a Convention in this field; in his view this would not solve the problem, seeing that in the musical world there are two parties, one for and the other against the idea of standardising A at 440 c/s. Mr. Crüft feels it would be preferable to adopt a recommendation rather than a Convention. CCC/ACV (70) 11 CHAPTER II Training the ear (Mr. Defossez) I. AIMS II. METHODS PROPOSED III. RESULTS. DESIRED I. AIMS - A. To arrive at a single system for correct intonation. B. To review ear training for musicians in the light'7'' of the above. It certainly seems that the work done on the standardisations of concert pitch at 440 is of the greatest importance and' that'"a ' conclusive solution is urgently needed. The continual rise (some orchestras are playing almost a tone higher than in Mozart’s time) was undoubtedly dangerous. But many people think the notion of correct intonation by performers depends primarily on accurate initial tuning; they fail to realise that even when an entire orchestra tunes in carefully and accurately to an A only a tiny part of the problem is solved. How many times have we heard orchestras which have carefully tuned up and then started to play out of tune; and how many times have we met instrumentalists - even in the greatest orchestras - who were aware that some of their notes were wrong but could not decide whether they were too sharp or too flati The question of correct intonation is admittedly a highly debatable one, for the scales used in ancient and medieval times (and perhaps even today in some parts of the world) are rather different from our major scale. - 6 - CCC/ACV (70) 11 CHAPTER II OBSERVATIONS • Mr. Sackur wonders (a) what is the precise meaning of the statement that "some orchestras are playing almost a tone higher than in Mozart’s time", and what historical foundation there is for this assertion? (b) on what information the hypothesis stated in the sentence as a whole is based? Mr. Sasso supports the idea expressed in the last sentence of this paragraph, adding that he has often observed the same phenomenon among 'colleagues of his when they have been tuning. He wonders whether a musician with a'good ear plays out-of­ tune simply because he just does not have the time to listen to himself, and whether education of such a person's ear is possible: the ear itself is good but the individual needs more time than others to judge the pitch desired and only a full psycho-technical examination before musical studies or training could reveal this lack of reflex and the psychological reasons for it. Mr. Sackur feels it is very dangerous to use the word "scale" ' when referring to the musical theories of the Middle Ages and of Antiquity, which remained unchanged for more than 20 centuries. It is, moreover, very difficult to determine what was the relationship between theory and practice. There is a vast amount of literature on the subject, but it does not fall within the scope of this document to either quote it or discuss it. But we can say that performed.music today (including the music of the dodecaphonists and the avant-garde) is, with very few exceptions* based, on our.major.scale (the minor scale being simply derived from the major). So would it not be sensible and useful for musicians to agree on a single system? We would even say that this was essential. We speak of ’’musicians” and this is important in view of the well-known long-standing difference between musicians and physicists on the subject of pitch. It has frequently been pointed out at Council of Europe meetings that work on the standardisation of concert pitch is chiefly aimed at musicians; yet we know that most of those present do not accept as sufficient indications of pitch the terms used by musicians for divisions of the scale. And they look upon "comma”* which is the only term used by the musicians of the world to refer to that interval as an amateur expression. We realise that no physicists find the comma satisfactory as a division of pitch* for it is not susceptible to adequate mathematical control. In addition, most musicians are ignorant of the differences between the three most common scales (the Pythagorean*'the Zarlinean and the tempered), since with a few rare exceptions our music schools, big and small alike* hardly teach .them. Just how complete the chaos, is* and always has been, can be seen from a few random statements by experts : (l) "Pythagorus says we find the radiance of the number 5 in the beauty of a perfect 5th". "Descartes and Leibnitz maintain that the ear can only count up to 5"- Huygens, Mersenne and* later, Euler say* "perhaps up to 7"* And Ch-ladmi, somewhat later adds: "up to 19, in certain cases”. With. Helmhotz*. the scale which humanists had previously recommended for its mathematical simplicity i.e., the "geometrists1 scale”, was adopted as the scale of the physicists and was frequently and quite arbitrarily called thè I. "natural scale", although hardly .any serious experients had been carried out to test.the .validity of the theory. v Those who looked Dor confirmation had to make do with very piècemeal findings", .. ' (l) "Qu’est-ce que jòuer juste?"-, van Esbroek Monfort. CCC/ACV (7 0) Observations (l) The problem of how to determine pitch or frequency is not a simple one. It has given rise to violent polemics* the first signs of which we see in the age of Platoj and we do not appear to have done with them even now: "Pythagoras’ scale is based on successive fifths and is limited to 7 notes* a figure accepted by all musicians at that time .
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