Re: Brass accompaniment was Re: Listen To Me Sing In Rokbeigalmki!

On Fri, Jan 17, 2003 at 02:09:54PM -0800, Padraic Brown wrote:
[snip]
> > So what is it exactly that separates woodwinds
> > from brass instruments?
>
> Depends on what you mean by "woodwind"!
Indeed. The various orchestration texts I've bought all recognize the
unfortunate lack of a consistent categorization of the instruments. The
traditional brass/woodwind/strings/percussion division is pretty
arbitrary. Even within the most homogenous strings category, there are
oddballs like the viola-de-amore (sp?) which works by resonance, unlike
the other strings. And some orchestrators consider bowed strings as a
completely different instrument from plucked strings (pizzicato), even if
it's the same player playing the same instrument!

And the piano is technically a cross between strings and percussions, yet
we mentally link it with the organ and other keyboard instruments which
have very different methods of sound production.

> Largely, woodwinds are confined to reed instruments (apart from organs
> and harmoniums) and flue pipes (also apart from organs).
And there is also a prominent difference in sound between the single-reeds
(the clarinet family) and the double-reeds (oboe, "English" horn, and
bassoons).

> Brasswinds are all those that rely on a cup shaped mouthpiece and
> buzzing lips. Trumpets, tubas, cornetts, ophicleides, serpents, keyed
> bugles, didgeridus, etc. are all therefore brass; oboes, clarinets,
> flutes, recorders, hornpipes, crummhorns and bagpipes are all woodwinds.
> What separates them best is the method of sound production.
And I might add that the saxophone is technically a woodwind, even though
it's a regular member of brass ensembles. :-) (Just as the horn ("French"
horn for you 'merrycans :-P) is a regular member of the wind orchestra,
even though it's no woodwind by any far stretch.)

> I suppose you could argue that an organ is a woodwind (it's nothing more
> than a bunch of fancy recorders and crummhorns set up in racks, really)
> in the same way a piano is a percussive instrument. But we call them
> both "keyboards" and live with an imperfect system!
What then would you call a harpsichord? :-) How about accordions? Indeed
it's an imperfect system. But that's OK, musicians can live with it, so
can we. :-)

(Actually, now that I think of it... harpsichords and harps are very much
alike. I never realized their names are not completely coincidential. :-)


T

--
Roasting my brains over a slow fire. Please do not interrupt this process.

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