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

--- "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:

> 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.
An "aerophone" if I remember right - the
sympathetic strings are made to vibrate because
of air currents from the main strings'
vibrations.

> 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!
Yeah. Weird! Plucked and bowed strings are, of
course, subdivisions of "strings". The division
isn't that arbitrary, though: guitars, lutes and
bajos are all plucked, but can't be bowed. Just
about any bowed instrument can be plucked. The
hurdy gurdy can't be plucked for example.

You can also divide strings into over and
underhand (bowing techniques); and off the
neck/shoulder or knee (physical position of the
instrument). But those are really styles of
playing more than real differences in instrument
form.

> 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.
Yep. Not to mention synthesizers which are
totally electronic in nature and are are only
tenuously connected to any other kind of keyboard
instrument.

> > 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).
Yep. And a further complication when you add reed
caps to the above (hornpipes are basically
clarinets with a reedcap and crummhorns are
basically oboes with reedcaps).

> And I might add that the saxophone is
> technically a woodwind, even though
> it's a regular member of brass ensembles. :-)
Well, it's totally a woodwind - because of the
reed.

> (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.)
Weird combinations musicians get up to! Another
curious, and traditional combo is the trumpet
choir and kettle drums. Used during the
renaissance and thereafter for fanfares and
similar. Six trumpet parts and two kettles, I
think was standard. And they were guilded.

> > 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? :-)
A glorified lute! Or a harp.

> How about accordions?
Harmoniums. They are in fact descended from the
harmonium and sheng, which are both free reed
instruments that came from India and East Asia
(respectively) a couple centuries ago.

> (Actually, now that I think of it...
> harpsichords and harps are very much
> alike. I never realized their names are not
> completely coincidential. :-)
Yep. The piano too - if you look inside, there
are one or two cast iron "harps" in there! I
chose lute becuase the lute can be plucked with a
plectrum; and the harpsichord is all plectra
inside. And the two sound similar when so played.

Padraic.


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