Change of Pitch of Sound with Distance

Abstract

IN Mr. West's letter in NATURE of December 12, 1901, he suggests that a lowering of pitch with distance may have been noticed, although his experience has been the reverse. My grandfather, the late Mr. Henry Knaŭff, who, during his lifetime, was an organist and organ builder in Philadelphia, mentioned having noticed this lowering of pitch on several occasions. In long churches, with the organ over the front doorway, he claimed that the voice of the celebrant at the altar sounded distinctly flat to a listener at the organ, but on advancing to the altar this flatness disappeared. I have never noticed this myself, but I have not his ear for small differences of pitch.