PITCH
Wild Word Friday!
PITCH is one of those words that takes up a third of a column in the dictionary because it has so many meanings. It also has two separate entries in the dictionary because there are two separate and unrelated origins for the word, each with its own group of meanings.
Today I’m going to talk about only one of those meanings: “in music, to determine or set the key of a tune, an instrument or the voice.” [Webster’s New World Dictionary] According to Webster, the origin of this meaning for PITCH is from pick, meaning to strike. However, the other evening I was studying THE LUTHIER’S HANDBOOK by Roger H. Siminoff, to strengthen my research for my current novel, which features a main character who builds exquisite handcrafted violins.
According to Siminoff, the first strings used for musical instruments were made from animal gut, which had to be dried and cured. To vary the sound of the strings, some were soaked in different kinds of varnish or PITCH from trees. The hardened coat of PITCH on the strings added mass and thus lowered the tone or PITCH. The word PITCH that refers to tree sap comes to us from the Anglo Saxon, pic via the Latin pix.
Now I’m just wondering– do you think if Webster had known how the first musical strings were made thousands of years ago, would he have decided that PITCH, the musical tone, isn’t a descendant of pick meaning to strike, but of pix, Latin for tree PITCH?
Hmmmmm…
Do you play a musical instrument? Please tell us what it is.
Blessings,
Sue
(Photograph from Wikipedia.)
Hello there Sue…..You got me with this question cause it’s a running joke. I played Flute and Saxophone in Band when I was a kids. I can still read the music but I’m not sure if I can still play. Erin played the violin for 7 years and now Steve is playing Trumpet and Guitar. John on the other hand doesn’t play anything and can’t read music and it just drive him nuts that the rest of us can. :o)
John sounds like my husband Neil, Mary! Neil took one year of band and played the drums. (Sixth grade.) He has taught himself to read music, but wishes for more proficiency. Get John started on the guitar. Then he can just learn the chords. That’s what Neil started with and now he plays the banjo, too, and is working with the violin – um, fiddle!!
By the way, I’ve always wanted to play the clarinet and the saxophone. The flute was my band instrument, too. Still play.
Last spring, at the ripe old age of 63, I took up the bass guitar. I’ve always wanted to play, but when the bassist at my church (Aldersgate UMC, Midland, Michigan) graduated from high school last year and went off to college, I saw my opportunity. I bought a guitar on eBay, found an amplifier on Craigslist, took a few lessons, and have been playing with the band pretty much ever since. And incidentally, I am not the oldest in our praise band.
One of the great joys in my husband’s and my lives has been music. We’ve both embraced an assortment of new instruments in the past three or four years. Great fun! Congrats on playing bass!