I don't understand why everybody is shouting around here!!! The intensity of these arguments is increasing--and the pitch of the arguments is increasing, too, come to think of it. I think this is becoming a high-pitched, loud argument.

Now, wwh, you do not have to say anything about those volume controls. We understand.

And I also don't think you have to throw in arguments about studying physics anymore either because no one is arguing against your volume control argument. If anything, we are agreeing with that point.

And, Faldage, you don't have to go shouting over and over about intensity. We understand your meaning of pitch and that is as clear as wwh's argument about volume control and pitch remaining as stable as it can.

The recorder note was quite true. I've played a great deal of recorder--the recorder is a remarkable instrument in that only very slight changes in air flow and air pressure will, indeed, cause the pitch to sharpen or go flat, depending upon how much or less pressure is applied.

The same goes for the flute, actually, which I played for almost a decade. If I blew hard enough, the pitch would sharpen. I suppose the same might be true of other wind instruments.

String instruments? Hmmmmmm. I just don't know. If one applies more speed to the bow--uses a great deal of bow plus much speed--the volume will increase, but I don't think the pitch will sharpen. I think the pitch in strings is pretty much determined by the finger position. Most modern violinists use vibrato to vary pitch, make the pitch warmer, more vibrant (at least so the theory goes), but vibrato produces several pitches rather than the one that would result from keeping the finger on the string perfectly still--as if human beings can do anything perfectly. But again: it's the speed of the bow and the pressure to the string that cause increase/decrease in volume.

However, this all began with the passage from Dickens. And I think the little dickens was ok in stating that this speaker had taken his pitch to the loudest volume simply because any pitch could be taken--theoretically at least--to its loudest volume.