Czechoslovakian Pitch Pipe - 1950s
Pitch pipes are one of the earliest forms of tuning musical instruments. A pitch pipe works like a musical instrument. A musician blows air into the pitch pipe cylinder, which activates a reed, which in turn produces a musical note. Pitch pipes are simple, convenient, and easy to keep on hand for on-the-spot tuning of any musical instrument. They come in a variety of sizes and shapes, both for specific instruments and in chromatic versions, suitable for all instruments.
Choosing the Right Pitch Pipe
Pitch pipes can be purchased in chromatic versions, which means the pipe includes all of the notes in the musical scale. If you tune many different instruments, you will want to have a chromatic pipe on hand. If you are interested in tuning only the instrument you play, purchase a pitch pipe designed for your instrument. You can get pitch pipes for guitar, bass and violin. If you plan on tuning wind instruments with a pitch pipe, a chromatic pitch pipe is your best option.
Learning to Blow
Since the key element to making a pitch pipe work is the air you breathe into it, getting your breathing technique down is key to producing an accurate note. Place your lips loosely around the end of the cylinder where you blow air and tighten them slightly as you blow. Don't blow too hard or the note will go sharp, or too soft because you will produce a weak, flat tone. A firm but gentle breath produces a solid note that doesn't waver. Taking a good breath before you blow allows you to hold the tone longer while you tune.
Listen to the Sound Between the Notes
You can easily hear when you've tuned successfully to a pitch pipe by concentrating on the distance between the two notes. When you play a pitch pipe simultaneously with, for instance, a guitar string, you will hear a vibration when the notes are out of tune. Keep the pitch pipe note going as long as you can while you tune your instrument, and you will hear a shift in the quality of the vibration. The faster the vibration becomes, the further out of tune your instrument is. The slower the vibration becomes, the closer in tune your instrument is. The vibration will disappear altogether when the pitch pipe and your instrument are in tune.
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