0:02

of the past and the curious has a new

0:04

book available. That's me. I

0:06

see Lincoln's underpants as a book about famous people

0:09

and their underwear. 16 chapters

0:11

on 16 people and their undies and

0:13

lots of other stuff too, like the underwear Hall

0:15

of Fame. Lots of laughing, lots of

0:17

learning. It's available wherever

0:19

you get your books. And if you wind up with a copy,

0:22

please leave a review. Be sure to request it at

0:24

your local library too. That will help.

0:26

This is an indie effort. I am indie

0:29

operation.

0:30

Thank you. Well, hello,

0:33

it's episode 78 of the past and

0:37

the

0:41

curious and I am Mick Sullivan and this

0:43

is my show. First off,

0:45

I want to say hello again and thanks to everyone

0:48

who came out to WBUR, the

0:50

podcast festival in Boston at the

0:52

beginning of this month of April. It

0:55

was amazing to meet so

0:57

many listeners and I was thrilled to

0:59

see everyone. I hope you had a good time. I was literally

1:02

moved to tears. So if anyone out there

1:04

has pictures that they want to share, send them on

1:06

my way. I'd love to see them. It was

1:07

also great to spend so much time with so

1:10

many of my kids. Listen, podcast pals.

1:12

And speaking of kids, listen, podcast

1:14

pals. The first story of this episode

1:17

features my good friend, Mellie Victor. Mellie

1:20

is the creator and voice of stoop kids stories

1:22

podcast, but you've heard her work all

1:24

over the place, including on imagination neighborhood,

1:27

the podcast. You may have even seen

1:29

her on stage in New York city.

1:31

She also happens to be the chair of kids. Listen,

1:34

she also happens to totally rule. She's

1:37

going to narrate a

1:37

story about one of my favorite singers, Ella

1:40

Fitzgerald. And then the second half of the episode

1:42

looks at an age old problem,

1:44

tuning musical instruments with each

1:46

other.

1:47

But you might be surprised by some of the problems

1:49

that came about because people

1:51

didn't tune. We'll get to

1:53

that in a minute right now. Let's get started

1:56

with Mellie Victor talking Ella

1:59

Fitzgerald. On

2:04

the evening of November 21, 1934, a very nervous

2:06

young woman named Ella Fitzgerald stood

2:12

off stage waiting to go on at

2:14

the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New

2:16

York.

2:17

Never before had she stood in front of

2:19

a theater audience like the one filling the

2:21

many seats of the Apollo. Honestly,

2:25

she had barely worked up the courage to sign

2:27

her name on a piece of paper that gave

2:29

her the chance to be there in the first place.

2:32

But a few friends

2:34

convinced her to give it a shot. They

2:37

believed in her. They believed in her

2:39

so much that she later realized

2:42

that those friends hadn't actually filled

2:44

out cards of their own for the lottery to

2:46

perform at the Apollo. Years

2:48

later, it dawned on her

2:50

that they also filled out their cards

2:52

with the name Ella Fitzgerald.

2:55

It seems they wanted to

2:57

improve their friend's chance at getting her

2:59

big chance. It worked because

3:02

here she was, nervously

3:04

fidgeting while waiting to take the stage at

3:07

the Apollo's Amateur Night.

3:10

Long before there was American Idol, The Voice,

3:12

or any other culturally important

3:15

talent competition, there

3:17

was Amateur Night at the Apollo

3:19

Theater. But at

3:21

the Apollo, the judges aren't

3:24

official talent scouts or famous

3:26

music producers. Instead,

3:28

there are the 1,500 audience members

3:31

filling the cushioned seats of the historic building.

3:34

It's that way now, and it's been that

3:36

way since it opened. Leaving

3:39

your destiny up to your talent and

3:41

how an unfamiliar audience reacts would

3:43

be nerve-wracking to say the least. And

3:46

Ella was most certainly nervous.

3:49

She was the first act of the amateur portion,

3:52

and had walked through the doors with a plan to

3:55

dance a dance she had choreographed in

3:57

her head.

3:58

Everyone knew her to be a terrific

4:00

dancer so it made sense

4:02

that she would compete on the stage as Ella

4:04

Fitzgerald dancer.

4:07

Doubt soon crept in to compound

4:09

her nerves. Just before

4:12

her moment in the spotlight, a

4:14

pair of professional dancing sisters worked

4:17

their audience into a frenzy.

4:20

The Edwards sisters had come to

4:22

New York from Chicago with a flashy

4:24

and perfectly polished tap dance

4:27

that took Ella's breath away. She

4:29

knew that there was no way she could compete

4:31

with what the audience had just witnessed.

4:34

So she panicked a bit

4:36

and informed the host at the last minute

4:39

that she wouldn't be dancing after all.

4:43

Ella Fitzgerald was born

4:45

in Newport, New Virginia in 1917 or maybe 1916.

4:47

It's been up for debate

4:49

for quite some time now.

4:53

Much

4:55

of Ella's life has remained mysterious because

4:58

though she became internationally famous,

5:01

she was a very private person.

5:03

Her beloved mother Tempe

5:06

was a strong force in her life

5:08

and when Ella was elementary school age

5:10

they moved to Yonkers which is north

5:13

of Manhattan, Harlem, and the Bronx

5:15

in New York City.

5:17

Her mother Tempe and Ella's stepfather

5:19

were in search of work and like many

5:21

others they found it in the factories

5:24

and industries of northern cities in

5:26

the years around World War I.

5:28

It was called the Great Migration and

5:31

the wave of people from the south moving

5:33

to big cities completely changed neighborhoods.

5:37

It was around this time that nearby

5:39

Harlem became the epicenter of

5:41

African-American culture,

5:43

a time known as the Harlem

5:46

Renaissance. Ella

5:48

thrived as a young girl growing up in

5:50

the neighborhood bustling with people from many

5:52

places. She was active in

5:54

sports, a model student, and

5:57

also clearly had a natural ability

6:00

and dancing. From the records

6:02

her mother owned, she memorized popular

6:05

songs of the day. Ella

6:07

loved to sing her name Connie Boswell

6:09

and developed an incredible ability for mimicry.

6:12

By teasing her voice, she could just sing

6:14

like Louis Armstrong and

6:17

then even imitate the sound of his trumpet

6:19

when he played his exciting hot jazz.

6:22

Beyond popular music in school, she

6:24

loved to dance for her friends and sing in

6:26

the church choir. But when she

6:28

was 15,

6:29

her life fell apart.

6:33

It was 1932 when her dear mother,

6:36

trying to protect a friend's child during

6:39

a car accident, died as

6:42

a result of her own injuries. It

6:44

was a monumental shift in Ella's life. Soon

6:48

fleeing the abuse of her stepfather,

6:50

she moved to Harlem to live with an aunt, but

6:53

she couldn't focus in school. With

6:56

little support and the grief from

6:58

the loss of her mother,

7:00

her grades slipped to the point that she stopped

7:02

going to school altogether.

7:04

Like many other young people considered truant

7:07

at this time, she was taken to

7:09

a reform school, this one

7:11

in Hudson, New York.

7:13

By all accounts, it was a terrible

7:15

place for her. 400 or so young women lived

7:18

in 17 cottages.

7:20

Black students were segregated and shared

7:23

the two most crowded of these.

7:25

There is a record of abuse towards many of the girls

7:27

and furthermore, Ella was without

7:30

opportunities the white girls were allowed. After

7:33

class activities like choir, which

7:35

certainly would have been a good way for the future

7:38

lady of song to censor, recover,

7:40

and find herself, were not open

7:43

to her.

7:44

Only white students were allowed. Somehow,

7:48

some way, she escaped.

7:51

We don't know details because she never talked about

7:54

it. It's clear she hated

7:56

that place. Since she couldn't

7:58

go back to her aunt's home,

7:59

where they'd be able to find her again,

8:02

Ella Fitzgerald was homeless in

8:04

New York at the age of 17. Technically,

8:08

a ward of the state, since she

8:10

was not yet an adult,

8:12

she made money working for a gambling

8:14

operation and singing and dancing

8:17

on bustling street corners for spare change.

8:21

It was an uneasy and unfortunate

8:23

life for anyone, but luckily

8:26

for Ella, someone helped her.

8:29

That year, a group of older women

8:31

took her in and offered her a bed.

8:34

After hearing her sing,

8:36

they also convinced her to try her luck

8:38

at the new amateur night competition

8:40

at the Apollo Theater.

8:44

When the building

8:44

Housing the Apollo first opened

8:46

on 125th Street in 1913, it

8:50

was called Herdick and Seaman's Theater.

8:53

And like many other theaters in the area, it

8:55

was only open to white New Yorkers.

8:58

By 1933, a man named Sidney Cohen bought it, renovated

9:04

the inside, and with the help of actor

9:06

and local radio personality, Ralph

9:08

Cooper, the Apollo began to

9:10

reflect the Harlem neighborhood around

9:13

it. Harlem was bursting

9:15

with creativity and achievement, and

9:17

the Apollo soon became a jewel

9:19

of the neighborhood. Black artists

9:22

performed for largely black audiences,

9:25

and as the years went by, it

9:27

played host to some of the most important

9:29

names in music, from Duke Ellington

9:32

to James Brown, to the Jackson Five,

9:34

to Mary J. Blige. But

9:37

the Apollo's most famous gift to the world

9:39

was amateur night, when anyone

9:41

could wind up on stage where they

9:44

either find

9:44

the rowdy applause of 1,500

9:47

new found fans, or

9:49

the demoralizing boos

9:51

of 1,500 people who think the

9:54

artist on stage should get off

9:56

stage and go home to practice.

9:59

a similar segment of Ralph Cooper's radio

10:02

show. But the live

10:04

audience of the Apollo really said it all.

10:07

As a result, the onstage

10:09

adaptation has never ceased to draw

10:12

a crowd ready to make or break any

10:14

performers brave enough to stand

10:16

on the Apollo stage.

10:19

It was less than a year after

10:21

the very first amateur night that

10:24

17-year-old Ella found herself on

10:26

that stage.

10:28

A million things led her to

10:30

that moment. Some small,

10:33

some big,

10:34

some happy, and

10:36

some tragic.

10:38

Would she have been there if her mother hadn't

10:40

bought those records?

10:42

Would she have been there if her mother had still

10:44

been alive? Would she

10:46

have been there if she hadn't run away

10:48

from reform school? Would

10:51

she have been there if someone who cared

10:53

enough had never encouraged a homeless

10:55

teenager to give it a

10:57

try?

10:58

And while we're

11:00

asking questions,

11:01

what if she failed? Would she drift

11:04

off into obscurity in a hard life alone

11:06

in New York?

11:07

We'll never know. But it's

11:10

important to consider all of the

11:13

things that get someone to any point

11:15

in their lives. And

11:17

it's also important to consider what they're

11:20

capable of, if only given

11:22

the right chance. Ella

11:24

had her chance, but she

11:27

knew she couldn't dance. There was

11:29

no topping the Edwards sisters

11:31

who just left the stage and left the crowd

11:34

feeling great.

11:36

After Ella unfroze from a short panic

11:39

and informed Ralph Cooper that she wouldn't

11:41

be dancing after all, the host

11:43

probably worried for the young woman a bit. This

11:46

was a lot of pressure. It'd

11:49

be easy to crack. Who could blame her?

11:52

But then she told him that she instead

11:54

be taking the stage as Ella Fitzgerald's

11:57

singer.

11:58

It was a momentous decision to-

11:59

say the least.

12:01

Conveniently, the Apollo had

12:03

its own house band to back up performers

12:06

live and in person. Ella

12:08

asked if they knew a few songs that she had memorized.

12:12

At the time, she didn't know anything about keys,

12:15

tempos, or anything else about the technical

12:17

aspects of music. She just

12:19

had to follow their lead and hope

12:22

they started in a key she could sing.

12:24

What happened next is unclear.

12:26

It's been told many ways and

12:29

in fact Ella herself has

12:31

gone on record saying that she sang different

12:33

songs. There was no recording

12:36

so we don't know for certain. Regardless,

12:39

it's become the stuff of legend. It

12:42

seems the most accurate scenario goes

12:44

like this. Ella chose

12:46

to sing a hoagie Carmichael song called

12:48

Judy and though she had memorized

12:51

the lyrics, she fumbled a bit at first,

12:53

likely thanks

12:54

to her nerves. The audience

12:56

rumbled and perhaps Ralph Cooper

12:59

came out to calm her and urged

13:01

her to start again.

13:03

If that was the case, it worked

13:06

because most recollections say she

13:08

knocked them dead. Ella

13:10

sang with the powerful swing

13:12

that seemed to dance around time while

13:15

she also improvised melodically around

13:17

the tune every one of the audience members

13:19

knew. By the end, the audience

13:22

was squarely on her side, filling

13:24

the Apollo with cheers and claps

13:27

and hoots of joy.

13:29

That night Ella was the winner of Amateur

13:32

Night at the Apollo, but

13:34

it didn't stop there.

13:36

Her voice was so unique. She

13:39

was so confident in her delivery

13:41

and she could swing so hard that she was soon

13:44

asked to join as the lead singer

13:46

of the Chick Webb Band, a band

13:48

who split time as the Apollo house band.

13:52

From that point on, Ella Fitzgerald

13:54

spent almost every day of her life surrounded

13:57

by and performing music.

14:00

Known as the First Lady of Song,

14:03

Ella set the precedent of conquering

14:05

the Apollo and then making

14:07

a bigger splash and breaking into

14:10

the music world at large. In

14:12

the years that followed her debut, the

14:15

Apollo remained a springboard for

14:17

many. Just a few years

14:19

after her fateful switch from dance

14:21

to song, she celebrated a

14:24

big commercial breakthrough when she

14:26

recorded her song, A-tisket,

14:28

A-tasket, which she adapted

14:30

from a nursery rhyme. In

14:32

her early years,

14:33

Ella sang with Duke Ellington, Louis

14:36

Armstrong, and Count Basie, all

14:38

of whom were huge figures in swing

14:40

and jazz. Ella's

14:42

voice was perfectly suited to their styles.

14:45

But as the music changed and jazz

14:48

moved towards the complicated and

14:50

technically challenging styles like beat-bop,

14:53

many of the singers did not make the transition.

14:56

Ella, however, was as strong of

14:58

an improviser as anyone who picked

15:00

up an instrument.

15:02

And thanks to her pioneering in the art of scat

15:04

singing, she would share stages with

15:06

Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Pass, and

15:09

even Brazilian bossa nova composer

15:12

Antonio Carlos Jobim. She

15:15

made incredible music for over 50 years,

15:18

toured the world, was adored by

15:20

audiences, and was a beloved collaborator

15:23

to some of the greatest musicians

15:25

of her era. Under any

15:27

other set of circumstances, this

15:29

remarkable life probably wouldn't have looked the

15:31

same for

15:32

Ella Fitzgerald. And what a shame

15:34

it would have been if the world had

15:36

never heard Ella's voice.

15:42

For this month's You Have 30 Seconds, we

15:44

have a perfect fit. And

15:47

I love it when that happens. Inna from Ohio

15:49

is going to tell you about another incredible singer. But

15:53

this lady was more than just a singer. I'll

15:56

let Inna fill you in. Take it away! God

16:00

be and I'll be talking about Josephine Baker. She

16:03

was born June 3rd, 1906 and died April 12th, 1975. And

16:08

was a famous black performer

16:10

and was an official spy of World War II. She

16:13

also played in the Broadway show Shuffle along

16:15

the first with an all African American cast.

16:18

She also adapted 12 children all over the

16:20

world and called them

16:23

the Rainbow Tribe. That is why everyone

16:25

should know about Josephine

16:26

Baker. She's very inspiring.

16:30

I love it. Thank you so much. I was

16:32

so excited to see one about Josephine Baker. It's one

16:34

of my favorite stories. In

16:36

fact, if you remember our episode about

16:39

Eugene Bullard, the World War I pilot

16:41

and civil rights figure. When they both lived in

16:43

Paris, Josephine would sing at his jazz

16:45

club. But it was also believed

16:48

that she filled in as a babysitter for his

16:50

kids from time to time too, which is awesome.

16:53

So thanks and I love what

16:55

you did with it. Great job. If

16:57

anyone else out there has a you have 30 seconds,

17:00

all you got to do is record it usually with a phone

17:02

or a tablet. Tell me a story from the past in 30

17:04

seconds and send it to me. Hello

17:07

at thepastinthecurious.com.

17:10

It's quiz time. It's

17:12

quiz time. It's quiz

17:14

time. Time time.

17:20

Yep, it's that time again. Quiz

17:23

time. And your first question, which has

17:25

to do with musical instruments, is this.

17:28

A pair of instruments were found

17:30

in King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922

17:34

and later played live on

17:36

BBC radio in 1939.

17:39

What kind of instruments

17:41

were they?

17:47

A pair of ornate and ancient

17:49

trumpets were found among

17:51

King Tut's afterlife riches at

17:54

over 3000 years old. They are believed

17:56

to be the oldest trumpets in the world.

17:59

One is made of stone.

17:59

Silver and the other of bronze. When

18:02

played in 1939, 150 million international listeners tuned in to

18:04

hear the trumpets. The

18:10

audio is available through BBC's

18:12

program Ghost Music, if you'd like to

18:14

find it. In 2011,

18:17

the bronze trumpet was stolen from the Egyptian

18:19

Museum in Cairo, but it

18:21

was mysteriously returned a few

18:24

weeks later. Okay

18:27

question number two. Many people are familiar

18:29

with Louis Armstrong's hit What a Wonderful

18:31

World, which was easily his biggest

18:34

hit. So it's easy to think of him

18:36

as a singer, but he was an incredible

18:38

instrumentalist as well, actually for

18:40

most of his career. What instrument

18:43

did Louis Armstrong play?

18:49

Louis Armstrong played the trumpet. He

18:51

didn't play King Tut's trumpet, but

18:53

some of his trumpets are in museums too. Louis

18:56

Armstrong began his career in New Orleans

18:59

in the 1920s, and by the time of his

19:01

death in 1971, he had five

19:03

decades of success, stardom, and influence

19:06

on American music that no one could

19:09

rival. One of his

19:11

trumpets is in a place of honor in the Smithsonian's

19:14

National Museum of African American

19:16

Culture.

19:19

Question number three. So

19:21

Ella played with Louis Armstrong, and she

19:24

also played with Duke Ellington, one of music's

19:26

most important figures. What

19:28

instrument did Duke Ellington play?

19:34

Duke was the leader of a big band filled with

19:36

horns and drums, which he called his orchestra.

19:39

And Duke wrote much of the music and arranged

19:41

all of the parts that people would play. And

19:44

in the band, he played the piano. Duke

19:47

combined classical music ideas, swing, jazz,

19:49

and Afro-Cuban aspects into

19:52

a totally unique sound. Duke was

19:54

the king. But when you have all of

19:56

those instruments, everyone has to

19:58

agree on how to play.

19:59

get in tune. Lucky for

20:02

Duke, before he really hit his stride,

20:04

people had worked to settle the age-old

20:07

dilemma of tuning a group of musicians,

20:10

as you're about to hear.

20:18

On June 28, 1919, the

20:21

Treaty of Versailles was signed, clearly

20:23

marking an end to World War

20:26

I. The International Accord

20:28

took place in France's fancy-pants

20:31

Palace of Versailles, exactly

20:33

five years to the day that Archduke

20:36

of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, was

20:39

assassinated. This is notable

20:41

and symbolic, because

20:43

that historic moment is typically considered

20:45

the opening act of World War I.

20:49

This treaty, like pretty much all treaties,

20:52

was an agreement between nations.

20:55

In it, there are a lot of words which

20:57

national representatives quibbled over and crafted

21:00

ever so diligently. So I'm

21:02

sure they would be very grateful,

21:05

even from their graves, if you read it today. But

21:08

I'm here to tell you, it's pretty

21:10

dry, unless you're someone who specializes

21:12

in the legal nitty gritty of the

21:14

war to end all wars. Not

21:16

your thing? Me neither. Mostly, the

21:18

many words had to do with ending

21:21

the fights over borders and Germany surrendering

21:24

and so on and so forth. But there were

21:26

a few other fights that had been going on

21:28

beyond the battlefield. The

21:31

Treaty of Versailles was an agreement

21:33

to end those fights too. And

21:36

my favorite?

21:37

It tried to end the war on how

21:40

to tune your musical instrument.

21:45

Yep, tuning instruments. It's

21:47

in there, all right. Article 282, Section 22. Like I told

21:49

you, there's a lot of words. Would

21:55

you believe that tuning an instrument wasn't

21:58

something everyone agreed on? Up

22:01

through the 1800s, many things were being standardized,

22:04

meaning everyone agreed on the details

22:06

of things. I'm talking measurements, time,

22:09

weights, cataloging numbers, you name

22:11

it.

22:12

And it was for good reason. I mean, it's pretty hard to

22:14

trade for something if you don't agree on a way

22:16

to measure it. Likewise, musical

22:18

tuning is something that is standardized today.

22:22

But it wasn't always. In a way,

22:24

it makes sense that the tuning clause… You mean Article 282,

22:26

Section 22? Yes, thank

22:29

you.

22:30

It makes sense that this clause was included

22:32

in a treaty signed in France. Because

22:35

France took musical pitch seriously and

22:38

actually passed a national law way

22:40

back in 1852 about how to tune.

22:45

Western music is a term used to describe

22:47

music that developed in Europe, and

22:50

the largest batch of early western music

22:52

was written to be performed in churches.

22:55

You

23:01

ever heard that joke?

23:02

What's the difference between a piano and a tuna

23:04

fish? You can tune a piano,

23:06

but you can't tune a fish. Yeah,

23:09

that's the one. Well, that joke

23:11

doesn't work with pipe organs. Ah,

23:14

bummer. You see, pipe organs

23:16

and tuna fish actually have something

23:18

in common.

23:19

You can't tune either. Pipe

23:22

organs are gigantic. So

23:25

gigantic that they'd be built right into

23:27

the church. The way they sounded was

23:29

the way that they were built. There

23:31

was no standardization. Michael

23:34

McOregon Builder, somewhere in Ireland,

23:36

would have built a different organ than Hermann

23:38

von Organmeister in Germany. And

23:41

all of those probably would have differed from Monsieur

23:44

Pierre Le Organ in France.

23:47

And if these guys were as good of organ builders

23:49

as their names would imply, the

23:52

organs would be in tune with themselves,

23:55

but probably not with one another. Not

23:57

that it mattered, their instruments would never

23:59

be

23:59

in the same room. They'd never be around

24:02

one another. These organs built

24:04

into the churches were pretty permanent

24:07

and they couldn't be moved, but

24:09

they also couldn't be tuned without

24:11

major, major work, unlike

24:13

a violin where you can just tighten

24:16

or loosen a string with a little peg at the

24:18

headstock.

24:20

So when it came time to play, the

24:23

other musicians would just tune

24:25

to the organ and singers

24:27

would, you know, follow their ears to match

24:29

those musicians. That meant

24:32

musicians in France might sound

24:34

a little different than the ones gathered around

24:37

Ol Herman von Organmeister's masterful

24:39

organ in Germany. Today

24:43

musicians tune to a note called A-440. It's

24:46

an A note, and

24:49

if it's played on a string, that string

24:51

will vibrate 440 times per second. In fact,

24:56

no matter what instrument is playing

24:58

the A note, the sound waves coming

25:01

from that instrument are vibrating at 440

25:03

times per second. But if it's a little lower, say 430 times

25:05

per second,

25:07

or a little

25:13

higher,

25:15

say 450 times per second,

25:17

we might not be able to tell easily.

25:20

Doesn't really matter as long as everyone has their

25:22

instrument tuned to the same note

25:24

and that is their agreed upon A.

25:27

But scientifically they are not the same,

25:30

and

25:32

they are clearly not in tune with one another. Now

25:36

it wasn't really a problem at first.

25:38

Some places played their music tuned low, usually

25:41

because that's what their organ player demanded.

25:44

But some tuned theirs high, like

25:46

Goldilocks, some tuned theirs just right. But

25:49

a few problems developed, and they got

25:51

worse over time. First

25:53

off, if you've ever been to a concert, you

25:56

may recall having an easier time hearing,

25:59

maybe even feeling,

25:59

the lower sounds like the bass and

26:02

the kick drum. That's because those

26:04

low sound waves are bigger and

26:06

slower, so they actually go farther

26:08

distances. You can imagine

26:11

the low notes of an organ blasting their way

26:13

through a church and drowning everyone else out. But

26:16

once the organ was phased out, orchestras

26:18

could tune however they liked, and soon

26:21

groups started to raise the pitch, so

26:23

the lower instruments in the ensembles didn't

26:26

overshadow them, since now everything

26:28

could be tuned together.

26:29

Many liked the way this higher

26:32

tuning sounded, it was bright and

26:34

brilliant. And what orchestra

26:36

wouldn't want to sound more brilliant?

26:39

Of course, with the rising pitch, it

26:41

meant

26:42

tighter strings, so a few

26:44

instruments got damaged and a lot of

26:46

snapped strings bothered musicians. But

26:49

in the name of brilliance, they tuned higher

26:52

and higher. In places like

26:54

Austria, things got really dramatic,

26:56

though. You see, singers

26:58

produce their music with their mouth, lungs,

27:01

and vocal cords. Ahh! You

27:03

know this. All of these are part of

27:05

the physical body, and like every

27:08

other body part,

27:09

they can be overstressed.

27:11

As orchestras raised their pitch

27:13

to stand out and be more brilliant than

27:15

their neighbors or their cross-continental

27:18

competitors,

27:20

the pitch got out of hand. And

27:23

high notes got higher. Ahh! And

27:25

higher. And higher. And

27:28

higher! Until the singers couldn't

27:30

keep up.

27:33

Enough was enough. Something had to be

27:35

done. This was around the time that France

27:37

passed a law saying that an A note

27:40

was 435 Hz,

27:42

which is the scientific way to say 435 vibrations per second. This

27:47

created a reference point for all of the other

27:49

notes to tune to. An A vibrated

27:51

at 435, a C above that

27:53

would vibrate faster, and an E above

27:55

that faster still.

27:56

But if the A's matched,

27:59

everything else would be fine.

28:00

wood too, and

28:01

if standard pitch had not been set,

28:03

people might just have kept raising their pitch

28:05

until everyone's vocal cords

28:07

were shot and all of the violins were broken

28:10

from overly tight strings.

28:15

Science to the Rescue One

28:17

guy working in Paris created the most complete

28:20

set of tuning forks the world had ever

28:22

seen,

28:23

or heard, more appropriately.

28:26

Rudolph Koenig was born in Prussia

28:28

but came to France to learn to make violins.

28:31

But instead of becoming one of the most famous violin

28:33

makers, he became one of the finest makers

28:36

of tuning forks in the world. Tuning

28:39

forks, if you're unaware, are the little

28:41

metal tools that you can strike and then place

28:43

on something like a table or an instrument

28:46

or your teeth, and hear a very precise

28:49

pitch which they are specifically

28:51

crafted to create. As

28:54

a maker, Koenig was so precise

28:57

and such a perfectionist that when adjusting

28:59

a fork's tuning,

29:01

he would file it no more than three

29:03

times,

29:04

and then let it sit for a full day to cool

29:06

down from that friction. So

29:09

when the tuning fork king showed up in America

29:11

for the 1876 World's Fair, everyone took

29:14

notice. Say, who's

29:16

the guy with the tuning forks?

29:19

Oh, I want to hear his pitch. It was a big

29:21

deal because Koenig had brought his

29:23

grand tonometer, which

29:25

was the most complete and most precise

29:28

set of tuning forks in the world.

29:31

With incredible precision and diligence, he

29:34

painstakingly created a whopping 670

29:36

forks in

29:39

all, ranging from the super low 16 Hz,

29:42

or vibrations per second, all the way

29:44

up to 4096 Hz. It

29:48

was incredibly accurate, complete,

29:50

and as close to a perfect collection

29:53

of reference pitch tools that the world

29:55

had ever seen.

29:58

they could

30:00

do to keep the tuning forks of the Grand

30:02

Tenometer on American

30:04

shores. Ultimately, the US Military

30:07

Academy paid him handsomely for it, though

30:09

now today the Grand Tenometer Collection is

30:12

in the Smithsonian's National

30:14

Tuning Fork Collection.

30:16

But, Rudolf König didn't

30:18

solve any international conflicts,

30:20

nor did he save the vocal cords of stressed

30:23

opera singers. France's laws

30:25

didn't even do that. Heck, the

30:27

Treaty of Versailles didn't even give us today's

30:29

standard of the 440 Hz A note.

30:32

The Treaty of Versailles set the standard at 435. The

30:36

International Standards Organization,

30:39

who regulates such things, recommended

30:41

the pitch be set to 440 vibrations

30:43

per second in 1955, but they didn't make

30:46

it the official international

30:48

standard until the 1970s.

30:51

It's kind of funny to think that nearly all

30:53

of the music written by people like

30:55

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or

30:58

anyone else really sounded very, very

31:00

different because of the relative tunings of

31:02

their time and place.

31:04

Unless you have the opportunity to hear Bach's

31:06

music played on what are called

31:09

period instruments today, tuned to the

31:11

tuning standards of his time,

31:13

you will never hear Bach the way Bach heard

31:16

Bach. Is there chicken in

31:18

here? And if you ever need

31:20

an A note at exactly 440 Hz for any reason,

31:22

you can hear them all over

31:25

the place.

31:27

In fact, there's often a short tone played at the top

31:29

of the hour on many radio stations.

31:31

That's a 440. Guess

31:34

what else is? The dial tone

31:36

on your phone. Or you can just hear it

31:39

here, right now. So if you ever need an A,

31:41

just, you know, come find this episode again.

31:44

Easy peasy.

31:47

Well, yeah, there's an A note for you. Hey,

31:50

thanks everybody for listening to episode 78. Huge

31:53

thanks to Melly Victor. I

31:55

love working with her and it was

31:57

really, really fun. Actually, really moving to put that

31:59

down. story together so I'm very proud of

32:01

that one. Also again I

32:03

want to thank everyone who came to Boston and thank

32:06

WBR BUR also because that was just

32:08

a wonderful opportunity. Had so

32:10

much fun. I'd love to hear from you

32:12

if you went you enjoyed it. Okay

32:15

I have some Patreon people to thank absolutely.

32:18

First off Ethan Turner of Hubley

32:20

Nova Scotia who turned 10 just

32:23

this April 13th. So happy

32:26

late birthday Ethan. I understand

32:28

that you are a car schooler so you listen

32:31

to podcasts such as mine and others I'm

32:33

sure as you're driving to school

32:35

to continue the learning process and I think that's

32:38

awesome and shout out to you and

32:40

shout out to everyone else all the car schoolers

32:42

out there who do that who learn while they commute.

32:45

I love it. Happy birthday Ethan.

32:47

I also need to thank Chi Sing

32:49

Com. Thank you so much for your

32:51

support. I am so glad that you are out there

32:54

and what we're producing matters

32:56

to you. It's so great to know. Glad

32:58

you're out there listening. And then

32:59

also Atticus, Mohammed

33:02

Zadeh and the rest of the family

33:04

including Molly Bloom who is not

33:06

the kids podcast star Molly Bloom but certainly

33:08

just as cool. I hear

33:10

that Atticus is a superfan and that