Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997
Click here to subscribe and connect!
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997
Click here to subscribe and connect!
|
|
||
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BLA-BOS |
|
|
BOMBARDON, or BASS TUBA , the name given to the bass and contrabass of the brass wind in military bands, called in the orchestra bass tuba
The name of bombardon is unquestionably derived from bombardone, the Italian for contrabass pommer (bombard), which, before the invention of the fagotto, formed the bass of medieval orchestras; it is also used for a bass reed stop of 16 ft. tone on the organ. The bombardon was the very first bass wind instrument fitted with valves, and it was at first known as the corno basso, clavicor or bass horn (not to be confounded with the bass horn with keys, which on being perfected became the ophicleide). The name was attached more to the position of the wind instruments as bass than to the individual instrument . The original
tuba
The modern bombardon is made in two forms: the upright model, used in stationary band music; and the circular model, known as the helicon, worn round the body
shoulder , after the style of the Roman cornu (see HORN), which is a more convenient way of carrying this heavy instrument when marching. The bombardon, and the euphonium, of which it is the bass, are the outcome of the application of valves to the bugle family whereby the saxhorns were also produced. The radical difference between the saxhorns and the tubas (including the bombardon) is that the latter have a sufficiently wide conical bore to allow of the production of fundamental sounds in a rich, full quality of immense power. This difference, first recognized in Germany and Austria, has given rise in those countries to the classification of the brass wind as " half " and " whole " instruments (Halbe and Ganze Instrumente). When the brass wind instruments with conical bore and cup-shaped mouthpiece first came into use, it was a well-understood principle that the tube of each instrument must theoretically be made twice as long as an organ pipe giving the same note; for example, the French horn sounding the 8ft. C of an 8 ft. organ pipe, must have a tube 16 ft. long; C then becomes the second harmonic of the series for the 16ft. tube, the first or fundamental being unobtainable. After the introduction of pistons, instrument-makers experimenting with the bugle, which has a conical bore of very wide diameter in proportion to the length, found that baritone and bass instruments constructed on the same principle gave out the fundamental full and clear. A new sera in the construction of brass wind instruments was thus inaugurated, and now that the proportions of the bugle have been adopted, the tubes of the tubas are made just half the length of those of the older instruments, corresponding to the length of the organ pipe of the same pitch, so that a euphonium sounding 8 ft. C no longer needs to be 16 ft. long but only 8 ft. The older instruments, such as the saxhorns, with narrow bore, have therefore been denominated " half instruments," because only half the length of the instrument is of practical
double
wood
1 See Dr E. Schafhautl's article on Musical Instruments, section 4 of Bericht der Beurtheilungscommission bei der Allg. deutschen Industrie-Ausstellung, 1854 (Munich, 1855), pp. 169-170; also Friedr. Zamminer, Die Musik and die Musikinstrumente in ihrer Beziehung zu den Gesetzen der Akustik (Giessen, 1855), P. 313. The bombardons possess a chromatic compass of 31 to 4 octaves. The harmonic series consists of the harmonics from the 1st to the 8th.End of Article: BOMBARDON, or BASS TUBA If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BLA_BOS/BOMBARDON_or_BASS_TUBA.html"> BOMBARDON, or BASS TUBA </a> |
|
|
(Previous) BOMBARDON IN E FLAT |
(Next) BOMBAY CITY |
|
Sponsored Advertisements
