(These answers make for a very interesting history of the pitch pipe. Go to the referenced Grady Kerr web site for the complete story.]

1. The inventor of the pitch pipe, William Jacob Kratt, Sr., was born in Trossingen, Germany, on September 22, 1892. Matthias Horner, who invented the harmonica in 1857, was another native son of Trossingen. Kratt, in fact, worked at the Horner factory in Trossingen before he emigrated to America in 1910, specifically to Orange, NJ. After a short stint as a dishwasher in his aunt's restaurant, he went to work as a lathe operator for Thomas Edison, and later as a product designer, also for Edison. Kratt returned to Germany in 1918 and started his own harmonica company which competed with Horner. I guess we all know who won that competition.

It is noteworthy that many thousands of Kratt harmonicas were distributed by the Red Cmss as gifts to American GIs during WWII. Kratt Harmonicas have not been made in many years (the article did not indicate how many); the management of the company, however, is currently considering a return to harmonica production, but no firm decision has been made. In 1925 Kratt returned to NJ for good and remained there until he died in 1983 when his son, William, Jr., took over the business.

2. Kratt invented the pitch pipe in 1925. The Kratt Company was then operating from a factory in Union, NJ, and remained in that location as a family owned and operated business until 2001 when it was sold to the McNamara Company, a supplier of internal pitch pipe parts (say that fast five times). After the sale, McNamara retained the Kratt name but not the old plant in Union The company relocated to a manufacturing site in Kenilworth, NJ.

3. They were C to C only, were diatonic (not chromatic as are the ones we are familiar with, i.e., they could only play the equivalent of the white keys on the piano,. not the black), and were considerably smaller than modern pipes. The smaller size was evidently not an issue because the diatonic pipes cnly had to ptay eight notes, not twelve. The C to C model is still made, along with the F to F model preferred by male singers, and an E flat to E flat model.

4. In 1949. $2.50 in 1949, and $20.00 in 2006.

5. The official and correct name for a pitch pipe is a chromatic pitch instrument. The trade name that is seen on the distinctive red boxes that the pipes come in as well as stamped on the pipes themselves is The Master Key. Although lesser quality knock offs made in China and, ironically, Germany are now available, the William Kratt Company remains the one and only manufacturer in the United States, anywhere in the world for that matter, of the high quality pitch pipes with which barbershoppers are familiar.

With cheap overseas pipes on the market as well as electronic tone generators (boo, hiss, groan, etc.), there is some concern about the long term prospects of the Kratt company. Maybe it's time for us barbershoppers to buy a new pipe, need one or not. From the first one in 1925 through the most recent one made, every last one of the estimated three million pitch pipes manufactured by Kratt has been hand crafted in New Jersey! Their official state motto is the Garden State, but to barbershoppers (and other musicians who use pipes) they are also known, or should be, as the Accurate Pitch State.

Songs That We Sing

Down By The Old Mill Stream

Down By The Old Mill Stream is a fine arrangement of a truly good old song.

Tell Taylor, who composed the melody and wrote the lyrics, was an Ohioan. He later moved to Chicago, where he died while he was still a young man. Among many other songs, he composed "Hello! My Baby."

Not only is "Down By The Old Mill Stream" a good song, but it has its place in barbershop history. After the 1939 international quartet contest, the Society contracted with RCA Victor of Chicago to make a record album, and "Down By The Old Mill Stream" was among the songs in this recording. (For those who are too young to remember, a record album is a collection of songs on vinyl, packaged in a folder.)

It is interesting that, although the Bartlesville Barflies had won the international championship at that first contest, they were not asked to do the recording. Instead, O.C. Cash asked the Capitol City Four, the second place finishers, to do the honors.

Shortly before the recording was made, the quartet's bass singer, Fred Raney, died suddenly. Baritone Glenn Howard switched to bass, and the son of tenor singer Dwight Dragoo, Gene Dragoo, sang baritone. The recording was a success.

As was characteristic of this period in our Society, every arrangement was woodshedded. After hearing the recording, Tell Taylor wrote to Glenn Howard and told him the Capitol City Four had recorded "Down By The Old Mill Stream" the way it should be sung.

None of the songs on this first Society recording is probably better known or more frequently sung than "Down By The Old Mill Stream." Indeed. As noted in the Heritage Of Harmony Songbook, "No Close harmony songfest is complete without it."

Source: Dr. David Wright's class on the history of barbershop harmony and the Heritage of Harmony Songbook via PROBE aids to bulletin editors.