(Fr. flûte d’accord, diapason; Ger. Stimmpfeife; It. corista a fiato).
A term used for various aerophones designed to give standard pitches to singers or to aid tuning an instrument. Originally it referred to a ‘piston flute’ (see Swanee whistle, consisting of a recorder head fitted with a movable wooden plunger or piston on which a scale of notes with a range of about one octave was marked. Bédos de Celles (1766–78, p.35) described ‘Un Tuyau de ton’ as ‘a small flute used to give the pitch to the organ and other instruments. It is made of hardwood, such as boxwood, green or black ebony, ivory …. Along the plunger, pitches are marked that correspond to a well-tuned organ at the proper pitch’.
Pitchpipes operate on the same level of accuracy as recorders, with a pitch tolerance of about 15 cents. They are important sources of information on earlier pitch standards, since they give names for each of the notes they produce, they are often stamped by the maker, and they sometimes include a date. The spacing of their scales also indicates what kinds of tuning systems were used in practical, everyday music-making. Numerous sources indicate that pitchpipes rather than tuning-forks were normally used as tuning devices for vocal and instrumental ensembles and keyboard instruments until the beginning of the 19th century. Pitchpipes were described by Mersenne (1636–7, p.169), William Turner (i) (1697), Mattheson (1721, p.428), Tans’ur (1746, p.57) and others. Mendel (p.82) cities a pitchpipe which Handel ‘constantly carried with him’.
Pitchpipes were often used to fix the pitch of keyboard instruments. Couchet provided his customers with a ‘fluijtien’ (‘little flute’) with which to tune his harpsichords. J.C. Petit advised that for tuning the harpsichord the first note should be ‘true to the Flute. It should be a small, square Pipe, with which Organ-builders take the fixed Tone to tune the Organ’ (Apologie de l’excellence de la musique, London, c1740). Pitchpipes were described as commonplace for tuning pianos in the Clavier-Stimmbuch by Gall (first name unknown) published in Vienna in 1805, but by 1827 they had been replaced by tuning-forks, according to Kiesewetter (AMZ, xxix, cols.145–56).
A number of early pitchpipes have survived. Three that are preserved at the Musée de la Musique, Paris, are especially interesting. One, probably made after 1711, gives ‘Ton de l’opera’ as a' = 394 and ‘Plus haut de la chapelle a versaille’ as a' = 407. Another is believed to be by the maker Dupuis (fl 1682) and is pitched at about a' = 391. The third, made in the late 18th century by Christophe Delusse (no.E.244, C.743), gives two sets of pitches, neither named, at a' = 395 and a' = 419. Such small ‘pocket’ pitchpipes should not be confused with the Stimmpfeife used by organ makers and described by Adlung (1758; see also Barbour, pp.85–7). The latter were usually larger metal affairs and were blown through the organ’s wind-channel. Modern free-reed pitchpipes made of metal (often cased in plastic), which give a series of discrete pitches, are still much-used by students and amateurs.
J.M. Barbour: Tuning and Temperament: a Historical Survey (East Lansing, MI, 1951/R, 2/1953)
A. Mendel: ‘Pitch in Western Music Since 1500: a Re-Examination’, AcM, l (1978), 1–93
B. Haynes: Pitch Standards in the Baroque and Classical Periods (diss., U. of Montreal, 1995) [appendixes 1 and 8]
BRUCE HAYNES