source file: mills3.txt


Subject:  Re: Historical temperaments

From:  hainline@unr.edu

On Sat, 19 Jul 1997, Gary Morrison wrote:

> >The use of unvalved
> >brass in the lower harmonics will naturally restrict key choices
> as a Bb.

>
>    Now I don't know for sure, but I doubt if natural hornists had literally
> twelve (or more) crooks, in which case I suppose that they might use, for
> example, an A crook for something in E if they couldn't afford both.  So in
> that sense their ranges of keys could have been "restricted".

Being a horn player I must also add that the hand is a necessary element
in tuning with the natural horn.  By slowly inserting the hand into the
bell the pitch can be lowered by as much as a half a step.  However by
completely "stopping" the horn with the hand, the pitch is raised by about
half a step because you are effectively shortening the length of the tube.
Therefore the natural horn is quite flexible for use in chromatic playing,
though at times it is problematic with variations in the timbre, etc.

Bruce Kanzelmeyer



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