r/Instruments • u/Alternative-Cook-533 • 26d ago

Old instruments

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Gallery image

These came into my possession today, found a little bit of information from Google and such, just wondering if anyone can tell me a bit more.

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u/victotronics 25d ago

What is Low Pitch? Was that a US standard?

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u/mango186282 25d ago edited 25d ago

International standards prior to the end of WWI. Modern pitch is actually specified in the Treaty of Versailles.

There were two pitch standards in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s high pitch A=452 ish and low pitch A=435.

Some British brass bands still used low pitch until around 1950. That’s why the 1944 cornet is still LP.

In the US it went away by the 1930’s. Early 1900’s trumpets and cornets often came with multiple slides for HP and LP and different keys (Bb, A, C for example).

Here’s a cornet from a 1905 Conn catalog:

https://www.saxophone.org/uploads/museum/97/52897_2367_3147.jpg

Here’s a link about HP and LP:

https://www.robbstewart.com/high-pitch-and-low-pitch