h a l f b a k e r yNaturally low in facts.
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Please, consider selling this instrument door to door. I predict you will go far. |
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// like a dead person's vocal chords? // |
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A a dead person's vocal chords are well known for making a noise like " ". It's actually one of the primary diagnostic signs used my doctors to detect vitality, based on the technique of "Do something intensely painful and see if the patient screams". |
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Amongst the bestiary of forgotten musical
instruments, alongside the sackbut, bladderpipe
and crumhorn, sitting in a dusty corner at the
back of the musical toy cupboard, there is the
raghorn. |
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The raghorn (or ragge horn, radhorn... spelling was
more personalized back then) was a sort of reed
instrument, with a wooden stem and a bell made
of horn or bone. The "reed" was actually a flap of
thin leather, anchored at one end and with a hole
in it, held between two grooves. |
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When the player blew, the leather flap would
move first one way then, blocking one of the
grooves, would cause air pressure to build up until
it was pushed the other way, and so forth. |
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The result (according to the University of York,
who made replicas of several ancient raghorns
based on unplayable museum specimens) was a
"rasping ullulating bellow". The instrument had to
be played "with great gusto" and required
prodigious amounts of wind. |
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Pitch control was imaginative. The mouthpiece
was quite wide and flat, and the stem of the
instrument was quite narrow. The player could
control the pitch by twisting the instrument while
gripping the mouthpiece firmly between her
teeth; this twisted and narrowed the 'throat'
containing the leather tongue, and modulated the
pitch. Some instruments also had finger holes,
but it's not clear if these were of much use, given
that the instrument could never be guaranteed to
produce the same note twice. |
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Interestingly, nobody (including the team at York)
has been able to ascertain the purpose of the hole
in the leather tongue, even though this was found
in all surviving instruments and is shown in the
only contemporary engraving of the instrument. |
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two cheeky buns for rumpet. |
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