Horn (music)

Horn is a non-specific term for various wind instruments and signal devices.

term

The name is derived from the horn of the horned bearers ( Bovidae , including cattle, goats, sheep, antelopes), a hollow covering of horny substance over a bone cone. This structure comes off easily and was therefore used in many ways to generate sounds. To do this, the tip of the horn has to be opened to form a mouthpiece , and the conical shape serves as an excellent sound amplifier, the horn , a principle that - by analogy - is used as a construction principle for loudspeakers under the name of horn . The name originally stands for all instruments made of various animal horns, then for the analog design regardless of the material.

The Jewish shofar is a wind instrument made from animal horn from the Middle East . In the Vedic scriptures, the ancient Indian horn trumpet is called Shringa ("animal horn") in Sanskrit , in some modern North Indian languages ​​the same word for animal horn denotes a metal trumpet. Latin cornu ("horn") is associated with the Iranian-Central Asian trumpet Karna and with cornet .

Wind instruments

A buffalo horn ( tetum karau dikur ), which is used in East Timor as a signaling instrument and to accompany ritual dances.

Natural horns

→ Main article : natural horn

All horn instruments that do not have keys or valves are called natural horns . It does not matter whether it is a wood or a brass instrument . - Natural horns are used as signal or musical instruments .

• Alphorn
• Baroque horn
• Corno da caccia
• Cornu
• Dord
• Hip horn
  • Olifant , large ivory horn
• Inventionshorn
• Hunting (forest) horn
  • Parforcehorn , the direct forerunner of the French horn (see below)
  • Plesshorn (Fürst-Pless-Horn)
  • Trompe de Chasse
• ( Lure )
• Middewinterhorn (Dewertshorn, Adventshorn)
• Phalaphala
• Post horn
• Russian horns
• Snail horn (snail trumpet, mussel horn)
  • Manure
• Shofar

The demarcation between the more cylindrical natural trumpets and the more conical natural horns is blurred in European wind instruments made of metal and is generally unsuitable for natural tone instruments .

Key and valve horns

Horn instruments with keys or valves are found exclusively in the class of brass instruments . They are mainly used as musical instruments .

Key horns iwS:

• Bass horn
• Ironing horns with keys, e.g. B .:
  • Kenthorn (flap horn i. E. S.)
  • ( French horn with keys )
• Ophicleide
• Serpent in a late design

Valve horns :

• Bow horns with valves ( sax horns ):
  • Alto horn
  • Baritone horn (baryton)
  • Euphonium
  • Flugelhorn
  • Tenor horn
  • tuba
• Horn (french horn)
  • Wagner tuba
• cornet

Horn called tone generator

There are woodwind instruments and other sound generators that contain “horn” in their name or are described as “horn”, but the type of sound generation is not horn instruments.

Woodwind instruments

• Basset horn
• English horn
• Gemshorn
• Krummhorn

Organ register

• Gemshorn, Nachthorn, Krummhorn, Prinzipalhorn, as organ stops , see list of organ stops

Signaling devices

• Impact horn
• Diaphon , belongs to the membranopipes
• Following tone horn (Martinshorn)
• Megaphone (whisper bag)
• Foghorn

literature

• Gregor Widholm : Horn. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Curt Sachs : Reallexicon of musical instruments. Berlin 1913, p. 189.