Aerophones (Blown Instruments)

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Article

Aangún  

Brian Diettrich

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

[angun]

Nose flute from the islands of Chuuk, Micronesia. It is made from bamboo or mangrove root. Similar bamboo nose flutes have been documented for the atolls surrounding Chuuk, with instruments reported in the Mortlock Islands (there called áttik), as well as on Pollap, Polowat (anin), Houk (likáttik), and Satawal (janil). All these flutes are obsolete. In Chuuk the mangrove flute was made by removing the core from an aerial root of the mangrove tree, then inserting a plug of coconut meat with a small hole made in the centre in one end of the tube as the blow-hole. The bamboo flute was made from a single length of cane with the blowing end fitted like the mangrove flute. Museum specimens range in length from 18 to 87 cm, with an average diameter of 1.5 cm. These examples and historical reports represent instruments with one to three fingerholes as well as overtone flutes without fingerholes. Chuukese men played the melodies of ...

Article

Abadie, Claude  

Michel Laplace

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2002
Published online:
2003

(b Paris, Jan 16, 1920; d Suresnes, Hautes de Seine, France, March 29, 2020). French clarinetist and bandleader. In 1941 he put together a jazz band which by 1943 had been joined by Boris Vian and was considered the first revival band in France. At its peak, in the years 1944–6, Abadie introduced such musicians as Claude Luter, Jef Gilson, and, from 1945, the Fol brothers, who may be heard on Tin Roof Blues (1946, Swing 212) and I’ve found a new baby (1946, Pathé 1013 [EP]). The band was strongly influenced by the Chicagoans and Bix Beiderbecke. In 1949 Abadie assembled a new band with such young players as Benny Vasseur and Jean-Claude Fohrenbach. He then retired from music (1952–63), but from 1965 led a modern-jazz nonet or tentet, which included the tenor saxophonist Paul Vernon (playing in a style influenced by Lester Young), with a repertory consisting of compositions by Ahmad Jamal, John Lewis, John Coltrane, and others. Abadie continued to lead this group for the remainder of his life, to age 100, directing and playing clarinet solos; they perform compositions of Thelonious Monk in the video ...

Article

Abrams, Ray  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2002
Published online:
2003

[Abramson, Raymond Joseph]

(b New York, Jan 23, 1920; d New York, July 6, 1992). American tenor saxophonist, brother of Lee Abrams. In the early 1940s he played in the resident band at Monroe’s Uptown House, which accompanied Coleman Hawkins in performances and on the first studio recordings of bop (February 16, 1944); he remained with the group when it became the core of Dizzy Gillespie’s first big band in 1945. The following year he recorded with Kenny Clarke and (during a tour of Europe) Don Redman; his solo playing is well represented on Redman’s For Europeans Only (1946, Ste. 6020–21). His own band (formed 1947) recorded with the singer Billy Stewart (1947, 1949) and under Abrams’s name (1948); Fats Navarro and Coleman Hawkins were among his sidemen. After playing with Andy Kirk (1947–8) he rejoined Gillespie and recorded with Cecil Payne (both ...

Article

Abu  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

[bu]

Large, complex horn of the Luo people of Kenya. It is formed from a round gourd to which is affixed an elongated gourd neck joined at the top to a cow or antelope horn. It is side-blown through a hole near the tip of the animal horn. The sections are joined with beeswax, and the instrument is dampened with water before use to seal any cracks. It is played at funerals and other functions. The player introduces a song, and after the chorus enters he plays the ...

Article

Abume  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

Article

Abwokazo  

Jeremy Montagu

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

End-blown conical flute of the Mombutu people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is made of antelope horn and has two fingerholes. Such flutes, with a curved or straight blowing edge and two or three fingerholes, are common all over this area of the DRC under various names....

Article

Accordion  

Helmi Strahl Harrington and Gerhard Kubik

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2001
Published online:
2001

[accordeon, accordian, squashbox, squeezebox] (Fr. accordéon; Ger. Akkordeon, Handharmonika, Klavier-Harmonika, Ziehharmonika; It. armonica a manticino, fisarmonica; Russ. bayan, garmonica, garmoschka)

A term applied to a number of portable free-reed aerophones. Their common features include a mechanical keyboard under each hand, manipulated by the fingers to select pitches. The keyboards are connected by folded bellows which induce air to flow through the reedplates; these move horizontally and are controlled by arm-pressures that in turn regulate the loudness of the sound emitted. An air-button or -bar on the left-hand end, operated by the thumb or palm, is used to fill and empty the bellows without sounding a note. Straps hold the instrument in the hands or on the shoulders. The casework around the keyboards and covering the reedplates is usually of a style and decoration that has become associated with the type of accordion and is sometimes identifiable with its company of origin. Accordions are related historically, organologically and technologically to the Reed organ, specifically the table harmonium, and the harmonica (...

Article

Accordion in the United States  

Ron Emoff

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
26 November 2013
Published online:
11 February 2013

A family of portable, bellows fueled, free-reed instruments. The right hand typically has access to a series of piano-like keys or circular buttons that activate melodic tones by allowing air to flow over reeds and set them in oscillation. The left hand has access to a separate set of buttons that regulate bass, chord, and in some cases independent tone sonorities. The term “accordion” may apply to instruments that are either diatonically or chromatically scaled. More specifically, a melodeon is a smaller, diatonic button accordion. Another type, known as a concertina, is made in both diatonic and chromatic tunings and is sometimes distinguished by its polygonal sound box. Most accordions have left-hand side air buttons that, when depressed, allow the bellows to be moved rapidly without sounding a reed tone, or provide more bellows when a performer reaches either the bellows’ conventional limits of extension (draw out) or compression (push in)....

Article

Achromatic horn  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

[Englisches F-Horn]

A cornet-shaped horn invented by Johann Riedel of Pressburg (now Bratislava) in 1854. It had four valves, for a half step, whole step, and whole plus half step, plus a combination valve, and a compass from G′ to g″; it was not a success.

F.L. Schubert: Die Blechinstrumente der Musik...

Article

Acordeon  

Tiberiu Alexandru

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

Piano accordion of Romania. Early forms were known in rural communities in the 1880s under the name armoniu, etc. It became widespread in the period between the two World Wars, replacing the button-keyed Armonicǎ and encouraging the demise of certain other traditional instruments among the lǎutari (professional folk musicians), particularly the small ...

Article

Actis Dato, Carlo  

Stefano Zenni

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2002
Published online:
2003

(b Turin, Italy, March 21, 1952). Italian tenor and baritone saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and leader. He first played jazz in the Turin area in the early 1970s. In 1974 he was a founding member, with the guitarist Claudio Lodati, the double bass player Enrico Fazio, and the drummer Fiorenzo Sordini, of the quartet Art Studio, for which all four members provide compositions and arrangements; the group plays throughout Europe in a style mixing free improvisation techniques, extended forms, and contrapuntal work. In 1984 Actis Dato formed his own quartet, consisting of the saxophonist Piero Ponzo, Fazio, and Sordini; it toured internationally through the 1990s, from the USA to Africa to Japan. He was also a member of the Democratic Orchestra (1982–5), Mitteleuropa Orchestra (1982–90), Pino Minafra’s quintet (1984–9) and Sud Ensemble (from 1994), and the Italian Instabile Orchestra (from 1990). In ...

Article

Adjulona  

John M. Schechter

revised by Alice L. Satomi

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

Term for several aerophones of the Carajá and Savajé Indians of Brazil. Izikowitz documents it as a ribbon-reed aerophone made from a narrow blade of burity plant fibre that is twisted spirally into a tube and then somewhat flattened. Harcourt calls it an ocarina (vessel flute) with five fingerholes. Krautze calls it a gourd vessel flute having a narrow rectangular opening for an embouchure and two fingerholes on the opposite side, and also gives it the Savajé name ...

Article

Bhumibol Adulyadej  

Rainer E. Lotz

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2002
Published online:
2003

[Rama IX Bhumibol; Phoemipol Aduldej]

(b Cambridge, MA, Dec 5, 1927; d Bangkok, Oct 13, 2016). Thai clarinetist and reed player. He was brought up in the USA and in Switzerland, where he learned to play clarinet; he later mastered the whole family of reed instruments, favoring soprano saxophone. Although he was interested in early jazz he was influenced predominantly by Benny Goodman, and participated in jam sessions with Goodman and other jazz musicians who visited Thailand, notably Jack Teagarden and Lionel Hampton. He occasionally played with his court orchestra in a swing style of the 1940s that was modified by the strong influence of traditional Thai music, but, on account of his official status as the king of Thailand, no recordings by him have been authorized for distribution. (H. Esman and V. Bronsgeest: “Een jazz king: Koning Phoemipol,” ...

Article

Aeolian (aerophones)  

Laurence Libin

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

Article

Aeoliphone  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

Term applied generically to instruments activated by the wind. Examples include several types of instrument with the prefix Aeolian, notably the Aeolian harp. The term may also denote an instrument whose sound imitates that of the wind, for example the Wind machine.

See also Aeolian ; Aeolian harp ; Wind chime ; Wind machine ...

Article

Aerophone  

Howard Mayer Brown

revised by Frances Palmer

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2001
Published online:
2001

General term for musical instruments that produce their sound by setting up vibrations in a body of air. Aerophones form one of the original four classes of instruments (along with idiophones, membranophones and chordophones) in the hierarchical classification devised by E.M. von Hornbostel and C. Sachs and published by them in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914 (Eng. trans. in GSJ, xiv, 1961, pp.3–29, repro. in Ethnomusicology: an Introduction, ed. H. Myers, London, 1992, pp.444–61). Their system, which draws on that devised by Victor-Charles Mahillon for the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and is widely used today, divides instruments into groups which employ air, strings, membranes or sonorous materials to produce sounds. Various scholars, including Galpin (Textbook of European Instruments, London, 1937) and Sachs (History of Musical Instruments, New York, 1940), have suggested adding electrophones to the system, but it has not yet been formally extended.

Aerophones are subdivided into ‘free aerophones’ (e.g. the bullroarer), in which vibrations are set up in a body of air unconfined by the structure of the instrument, and wind instruments where the air is enclosed inside a tube or vessel. The latter group includes those instruments where sound is produced by directing a stream of air against an edge (flutes and duct flutes), by the vibration of a reed, or by the vibration of the player’s lips. Each category is further subdivided according to the more detailed characteristics of an instrument. A numeric code, similar to the class marks of the Dewey decimal library classification system, indicates the structure and physical function of the instrument. The Hornbostel-Sachs classification (from the ...

Article

Aerophor  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
20 January 2001
Published online:
2001

[Aerophon]

A device invented by the German flautist Bernhard Samuels in 1911. By means of a tube with a mouthpiece, it provides players of wind instruments with air from bellows operated by the foot and thus enables them to sustain notes indefinitely as on the organ. Although Richard Strauss called for it in his ...

Article

Aflekungkwe  

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
03 September 2014

Article

Agolora  

Ferdinand J. de Hen

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

[akoti]

End-blown gourd trumpet of the Logo people of the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. About 90 cm long, it consists of three hollow calabashes joined in a line and adhered together with clay. The Logo call the instrument also by other vernacular names such as akoti, aori, and kanga...

Article

Agwara  

Peter Cooke

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2014
Published online:
01 July 2014

Sets of side-blown trumpets formerly of the Alur people of northwestern Uganda. Ranging in length from 50 to 200 cm, they are made by splitting a wooden branch lengthwise and carving each half into a gently conical wooden trough. The halves are then glued together and sewn into a cowskin cover. Used in hocketing sets of up to eight different-size trumpets for dancing and other festivities, they were formerly played only by men but in 2006 members of an Alur women’s club adopted them. In Kampala, male university students blow them while processing around their campuses during electioneering rallies and other festivities. Similar trumpets used by other peoples of northern Uganda include the Acholi tuum, the Madi turi or ture turungule, the generally shorter gwara me akuta of Lango, and the arupepe of the Teso and Karimojong peoples in the northeast.

The Para-nilotic word-stem gwara applied to side-blown trumpets occurs also in the terminology of Bantu peoples, hinting at the historic influence of Nilotic migrants on their culture, hence the ...