Membranopipe
Membranopipe (English, "membrane wind instrument"), also membrane aerophone, membrano-reed, membraerophone, membranohorn, membrane reed, is an aerophone whose sound is produced by a vibrating membrane . When at rest, the membrane covers an opening and, periodically raised by blowing air from an inner tube, sets the air in an outer tube to vibrate. The Membranopipe, for which no German name has yet been established, is not classified in the original Hornbostel-Sachs system due to its special type of sound generation . In a version revised by MIMO in 2011, the Membranopipe was assigned the new wind instrument group (424).
Design
In the case of the Membranopipe, the air flow is periodically interrupted by a membrane, causing it to vibrate. The wind instrument consists of a cavity with a blow-in opening and a second opening, which is closed by a rubber or plastic membrane that rests all around the opening. The blowing pressure lifts the membrane in at least one point and allows some air to escape, whereupon the air pressure on the inside decreases and the membrane lies tightly over the opening again. This process is repeated periodically when blowing in and, similar to reed instruments, leads to a sound that corresponds to the oscillation frequency. Its height and quality is not primarily determined by the type of membrane, but by the size and shape of the air chamber. By increasing the membrane tension, the tone can only be increased by about a minor third . Some membranopipes have finger holes to influence the pitch.
Modern simple sound generators made from a PVC tube with a plastic film membrane, which are mainly used as children's toys, presumably came onto the market in the mid-1970s. The American musical instrument developer Bart Hopkin was the first to document plastic membranopipes that he found in Indonesia as children's toys sold by street vendors in the 1990s . A Chinese-made type, acquired in 2011 in the United States for the Roderic C. Knight Musical Instrument Collection at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio , looks like a small vuvuzela . A double-walled vessel is used to generate the sound, into which the player blows through a tube on the side. The inflowing air enters an outer chamber and presses against a membrane that is stretched over the face of a cylinder located in the middle. It lifts this membrane and escapes through the inner cylinder into a bell. This sound instrument has a total length of 28.5 centimeters, a diameter of the membrane chamber of 5 centimeters and a funnel diameter at the end of 8.5 centimeters. The pitch can be changed significantly by varying the blowing pressure.
For do-it-yourself construction for children under supervision and for young people, Bart Hopkin describes different ways of making a membrane pipe from two cardboard tubes pushed into one another with a membrane that is pulled over one end and secured by a rubber band. The cardboard tube is blown through a small hole in the side near the membrane. Another variant consists of a bamboo tube with four finger holes and another of a PVC tube from the sanitary area with four finger holes. Air is blown into this via the branch of a PVC T-piece . The tube is attached to one straight end of the T-piece and the other end is sealed with the membrane. There are any number of other simple ways to build such a sound generator yourself.
On this basis, Fran Holland, a specialist in children's musical instruments , developed a “balloon organ” from eight differently tuned membranopipes, for which he introduced the name membraerophone . The double-walled vessels for sound generation consist of copper fittings that are mounted in a row and are selectively supplied with air via valves. The blown air is generated with a foot-operated bellows, like the one used for air mattresses, and kept constant by a balloon attached to the side based on the principle of a bag pipe.
Classification and dissemination
The Hornbostel-Sachs system classifies the actual wind instruments (42) into three categories:
- (421) flutes , in which the air stream impinges on a cutting edge, either the sharp edge of the Einblaslochs (flutes without a core column) or a core column ( core gap flutes may be),
- (422) Wind instruments with a vibrating tongue, which either strike freely against one another ( double reed instrument ) , have a striking tongue ( single reed instrument ) or a tongue that penetrates through an opening , and
- (423) Brass instruments in which the vibrating lips of the blower set the air in motion.
The sound-producing membrane in the Membranopipe takes on the function of the reeds or lamellae in the wind instruments of category (422), but differs fundamentally from them. While with reed wind instruments tongues swing freely between a frame, tempered at reed instruments the reeds at rest the air inlet to the mouthpiece open. They vibrate against each other under a stream of air, so that the opening is periodically closed when playing. In contrast, the membrane of the Membranopipe closes the air passage when it is idle and only opens it under air pressure. This principle was already distinguished by Curt Sachs from the other sound generation options in wind instruments and is described under the keyword "Ausschlagende Tunge" in his Real-Lexikon der Musikinstrumenten (Berlin 1913, p. 24b). There Sachs refers to the organ pipes with a diaphone introduced into organ building by Robert Hope-Jones . This is a plate that, when at rest, keeps an opening closed by means of spring force and lifts off when there is a flow of air. The first organ with diaphone pipes was made for Worcester Cathedral in 1896 . They did not establish themselves in organ building and were only installed in cinema organs that contributed music and sound effects to silent films at the beginning of the 20th century . Today, the Sound When Hope-Jones is still in Diaphon used fog horns above. Roderic Knight (2014) describes two membranopipes that are manufactured by the Chinese company Ja-Ru: The Sonic Blast Horn with a 28 centimeter long plastic horn produces the tone f 1 (349 Hz), while the Mega Blast Horn consists of only one mouthpiece . If this is extended by a cylindrical tube, a clarinet-like sound is created.
Curt Sachs failed to assign the “beating tongues” of the organ pipes a separate category in his instrument classification of 1914, although he also applied this classificatory term to a wind instrument with a membrane known at the time: the ippaki-ni of the Ainu . The indigenous people in northern Japan differ not only in their isolated language ( Ainu ), but also in their music fundamentally from the Japanese majority society. Her most popular musical instruments are the five-string shell zither tonkori and the bamboo- framed jaw harp mukkuri . There is also the single-headed shaman's drum kačo . The vocal music associated with religious and magical rituals is more essential. Hunting and fishing experiences are described in songs and dances. Both form their subsistence-based livelihood. The uttering of certain animal sounds is part of ritual music. The high point of traditional culture is the great bear sacrifice ritual.
The Ainu used the ippaki-ni as an animal call. It consists of a flat piece of wood with a blowing nozzle on one side and a continuous hole. The other side with the outlet opening of the bore is formed by a wide edge. An animal skin pulled over the piece of wood is attached on three sides. If the wood is blown into, the air escapes under the skin. As a result, "the skin swings like a tongue out," as Sachs writes in the Real Lexicon of Musical Instruments .
The ippaki-ni was made known to European experts as early as 1902 by Francis W. Galpin in a treatise on the wind instruments of the Indians on the American northwest coast . Sachs adopted the description in his Real Lexicon . Galpin mentions the ippaki-ni as a correspondence to a group of wind instruments of the Indians of British Columbia , which he classifies as retreating reeds ("receding / yielding reeds") according to their sound production and claims to have adopted this term from Hope-Jones, who this is how his diaphone whistles work. Retreating reeds corresponds to Curt Sachs' “tongue swinging”. The main differentiating criterion between reed instruments and retreating reeds is, as Galpin notes, that the former have a little distance to each other or to the mouthpiece when they are at rest and the distance is periodically closed when playing (primary action: close), while the latter, conversely, are closed when idle and open periodically during play (primary action: knocking out). The wind instrument of this category found by the Bella Bella in the 19th century consists of a piece of cedar wood, which is first carved in the shape of a gymnastics club and then split lengthways . The wider end of both halves is hollowed out in the shape of a spoon at the wide end and to form a narrow groove on the "spoon handle". The halves placed on top of each other are only wrapped with vegetable fibers at the narrow end. When the player blows in through the thin tube, the free, wide ends vibrate apart and a harsh sound is created. The instrument can be held in different positions with the thumb and forefinger to change the length of the free-swinging parts and thus the pitch. Similar wind instruments from the Haida and Tlingit are kept in museums. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford houses the simplest form of this type of instrument: a piece of plant pipe from Morocco from the 19th century, which is open at one end and closed by an ovary at the other. The end of the ovary was slit for a certain length. The player blows in through the opening, causing the two halves of the ovary to hit each other.
In addition to the ippaki-ni , other instruments with a swinging tongue are known from music-ethnological research. The music of New Guinea includes a 60 centimeter long bamboo tube of the Keraki, a small ethnic group on the Fly River , which is slit from the open end to the ovary at the other end. The player puts the open end in their mouth and blows until the two halves vibrate and produce a high pitched sound. Two players take turns blowing with tubes, the pitch of which differs by about a third .
The British musical instrument expert Jeremy Montagu (1998), born in 1927 , proudly reports that his grandson Eliezer Treuherz invented a new musical instrument at the age of two and a half. Eliezer blew into a A4-size spine, which consists of a plastic tube that is slit its entire length. By locking the lower end with a finger, he forced the air to escape through the slit, creating the typical sound of a reed. The "musical instrument" christened by grandfather eliphone falls into the category of "inverted reed instruments", according to Montagu the instruments with closed-standing reeds, with lamellas that close the blow opening when not in use, that is, with a kicking tongue. When the tube is hummed, it acts as a mirliton . Montagu's grandson reinvented the split bamboo tube from New Guinea.
Montagu creates a connection between the slotted plastic binder and the fadno , the only traditional wind instrument made from seeds , which consists of a fresh, green plant stem with a few finger holes cut into it, like a flute. The fadno can be distinguished from a flute by the way in which it is produced. This consists of a short longitudinal section at the upper end, which periodically expands when it is blown into the tube ( dilating reeds ). In contrast to the plastic spine, the fadno does not blow from inside the tube through the slot outwards, but through the slot inwards.
The Idoma living in central Nigeria are made up of different ethnic groups. Their rich inventory of musical instruments points to the cultural and social relations to the Islamized north and south of the country. Her numerous wind instruments include vessel flutes , reed instruments and animal horns. Unusual are a cross-blown reed instrument ( ògàlúmpe ) made from a 90 centimeter long sorghum stalk and another wind instrument called ùfié made from a plant tube , which is closed at one end by an ovary . At the closed end, a short longitudinal cut is made in the pipe. The player takes the tube across his mouth, enclosing the slot. The edges of the slot periodically open and let air in, creating a high-pitched squeaky sound that can be changed with two to three finger holes at the bottom. The ùfié is played by children in the rainy season, sometimes in groups of instruments that sound differently high. Its tone generation corresponds to the longitudinally blown fadno . Well-known wind instruments made from a slotted plant tube , which are blown lengthways like the fadno , are also a rice alm ( ole-ole ) from some Batak groups on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and a rice alm on the Indonesian island of Nias ( tola waghe ).
As part of the Musical Instrument Museum Online (MIMO), a project funded by museums and universities that aims to bundle and make digital information about musical instruments in European museums available, the Hornbostel-Sachs system was extended to individual categories after a definition in 2011 subdivided and supplemented by new categories. A fourth category for the membranopipes (424) was added to the group (42) of the actual wind instruments. It is defined as follows: A column of air is made to vibrate by a flow of air that is interrupted by a membrane that periodically opens and closes an opening. The further subdivision takes into account the technical equipment, whether the instrument has valves, finger holes or an air reservoir or not.
Since the retreating reeds described by Francis Galpin (1902) , which are similar in shape to beating forks , the air vibrations are generated in the open air and are not limited by a tube, they are classified as free aerophones (41). The new group of free aerophones, (412.15) Retreating reeds , is based on information from Galpin (British Columbia, Morocco). By contrast, according to the MIMO supplement, the dilating reeds of the fadno mentioned by Montagu belong to the actual wind instruments: (422.4) Dilating reeds . The fadno stands for a group of plant-based tubes with a longitudinal cut at the upper end, which is completely enclosed by the player's mouth, so that the air vibrations form inside the tube.
Roderic Knight, who in 2015 independently published his own revised version of the Hornbostel-Sachs system with a partially changed numbering, criticizes the distinction between retreating reeds (blown air from the inside out) and dilating reeds (blown air from the outside in), because it are the same structure and would like to combine both as normally closed tubes with a longitudinal slot ( normally-closed split reed, A22.221). Knight defines an upper group normally closed reed (A22.22) for wind instruments with reeds / lamellae / membranes which normally close an opening - corresponding to Montagus instruments with closed-standing reeds - and divides them into split (A22.221) and membrano -reed (A22.222), i.e. Membranopipes.
Another group of rare aerophones with an independent type of sound generation, for which there is no category in the Hornbostel-Sachs system, are the sucked trumpets , in which natural tones are created with the lips by sucking in air from a tube.
literature
- Bart Hopkin: Musical Instrument Design: Practical Information for Instrument Making. See Sharp Press, Tucson 1996, Chapter: Membrane Reeds , ISBN 978-1884365089
- Edmond T. Johnson: Membranopipe. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 3, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 442
- Susanna Schulz, Andreas Richter, Verena Höhn: New Instrument Type Discovered. In: MIMO Newsletter, No. 4, September 2010, p. 5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edmond T. Johnson, 2014, p. 442
- ↑ Sonic blast horn. The Roderic C. Knight Musical Instrument Collection
- ↑ Bart Hopkin: Making Musical Instruments with Kids: 67 Easy Projects for Adults Working with Children . See Sharp Press, Tucson 2009, ISBN 978-1884365485
- ↑ World's Loudest Homemade Air Horn! Youtube video (production of a membrane pipe from a film can and a drinking straw)
- ^ Fran and His Balloon Organ. Youtube video
- ↑ Edward L. Stauff: Diaphone. In: Encyclopedia of Organ Stops
- ^ Roderic Knight: The Membrano-Reed. A Discovery for the Twenty First Century. In: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 67, 2014, pp. 235-238, 268f, 272f
- ↑ Kazuyuki Tanimoto: Japan. VIII: Regional traditions. 2. Ainu. In: Grove Music Online, 2001
- ↑ Deer call (ippaki ni) . Community of American Ainu (Photo)
- ↑ Curt Sachs : Real Lexicon of Musical Instruments at the same time a polyglossary for the entire field of instruments. Julius Bard, Berlin 1913, p. 197a, keyword: Ippaki-ni ( at Internet Archive )
- ^ Francis W. Galpin: The Whistles and Reed Instruments of the American Indians of the North-West Coast . In: Proceedings of the Musical Association, 29th Session, 1902-1903, pp. 115-138, here pp. 127-129
- ↑ Don Niles: Ari (ii). In: Grove Music Online , September 3, 2014
- ↑ See Albert R. Rice: Review: Reed Instruments. The Montagu Collection: An Annotated Catalog by Jeremy Montagu. In: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 56, June 2003, pp. 267-269
- ↑ Jeremy Montagu: The Eliphone - A Retreating Reed . In: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 51, July 1998, pp. 196f
- ^ Roger Blench: Idoma musical instruments. In: African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1987, pp. 42–52, here p. 50
- ↑ Margaret J. Kartomi, Gini Gorlinski: Ole-ole. In: Grove Music Online , May 28, 2015
- ↑ Jeremy Montagu: Tola waghe. In: Grove Music Online, May 28, 2015
- ^ Classification of Musical Instruments. International Committee for Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music (CIMCIM)
- ^ Roderic C. Knight: The Knight Revision of Hornbostel-Sachs: a new look at musical instrument classification . 2017, p. 34f