Vol. 1, No. 73

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|CONTRABASS-L                                       |

|        An email list for discussion of bass and   |

|        contrabass instruments of all kinds.       |

|        Contact gdgreen@crl.com for subscription.  |

|        See www.contrabass.com/c-arch1.html   for  |

|        back issues.                               |

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9 January 1997

EDITOR'S NOTE: Let's welcome another new subscriber, Carl Kleinsteuber < carl@tip.nl >. Welcome aboard!

From: KUUP84A@prodigy.com (MR MARK A TRINKO)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 17:01:24, -0500
Subject: Philadelphia Music Museum

I may be wrong, but I think I asked you all on the list about info on a Music Museum hat is in Philadlephia one of you had mentioned? I still know nothing about it and am planning my Philadelphia trip now for July 1-4, 1997.

While surfing around, I ran across two sites that may be of particular interest to the brass players among us. The first is essentially a resume for Dr. Frederick J. Young, http://develope.plantrol.com/youngfj/ , who amongst other things plays a subcontrabass tuba. The page doesn't really mention much about the instrument, although there is an image of the impressive instrument.

The second site is Carl's "build your own tuba" site, http://www1.tip.nl/users/t012748/tuba.index.html , which is quite well done. What really caught my eye was Carl's homemade (but very professional looking) contrabass trumpet, pitched in F. Unfortunately, Carl says that after building four of them, he's stopped making instruments for sale.

I also found a site that mentions a subcontrabass "bourdon" saxophone, http://www.furman.edu/~cleaman/pat3226.htm . Does anyone know if one was ever actually built?

Grant

From: "Carl Kleinsteuber" <carl@tip.nl>
Subject: Re: Contrabass trumpet
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 23:44:29 +0100

Hiya Grant:

Thanks for the kind words about my page! To date, I've built 4 of the Contrabass Trumpets, all in the key of F. I was also willing to build them in other keys, but did my best to dissuade folks from the "heavier" keys: CC and BBb. That much weight makes for tense music-making!

I checked out digest # 71. It looks very interesting! How do I set myself up to receive it in digest form? I'm currently a member of the tuba list and brass list, and the procedures seem to differ slightly. Thanks for the tip!

Carl Kleinsteuber
carl@tip.nl

To: "Carl Kleinsteuber" <carl@tip.nl>
From: gdgreen@contrabass.com (Grant Green)
Subject: Re: Contrabass trumpet

>Hiya Grant:
>Thanks for the kind words about my page! To date, I've built 4 of the
>Contrabass Trumpets, all in the key of F. I was also willing to build them
>in other keys, but did my best to dissuade folks from the "heavier" keys:
>CC and BBb. That much weight makes for tense music-making!

Hi Carl,

Would it be possible to have one built in Eb? Perhaps I'm being silly, but most of my horns are in Eb or Bb (and a couple in C). None are in F, and I think it would be easier for me to deal with the transpositions I've already learned (on top of relearning trumpet). A little weight never stopped me! (Who else would volunteer to play bari sax in a marching band? Although I guess that's still not as bad as marching with a tuba...)

How long would it take to make an Eb contra? I assume it will take a little recalculation to get the proportions just right, and possibly some experimentation to make sure it plays in tune. Do you need a deposit ($) to start?

>I checked out digest # 71. It looks very interesting! How do I set myself
>up to receive it in digest form? I'm currently a member of the tuba list
>and brass list, and the procedures seem to differ slightly. Thanks for the
>tip!

Right now, digest is the only available option: I still put this together manually (although actual listserv software is on the way). You're now subscribed!

Grant

From: "Carl Kleinsteuber" <carl@tip.nl>
Subject: Re: Contrabass trumpet
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 18:34:14 +0100

Hi again, Grant:

Re: the CB trumpet, I'm really not making them anymore. First of all, the price was WAY too low. Second, after a month's worth of arduous, caring construction and two weeks of play-testing, one of the purchasers told me he didn't like it. Didn't like it?! It was then that I realized that I was too personally invested in my products to sell them to uncaring strangers for mere money.

Sorry, guy.

Carl Kleinsteuber
carl@tip.nl

From: Philip Neuman <neuman@uofport.edu>
Subject: Re: Contrabass-L, No. 72

Grant,

About Peter Wutherich's giant alphorn: while playing it, I could pick out the intervals of the 16th down to the 8th partials, the 16th being the Ab next to the lowest A on the piano. It would be interesting to make a larger mouthpiece for it, to see if its lower partials could be produced by a human!

Peter has a special trailer to carry it in - the bell section fits in the middle and the other sections are stored around the outside. He puts the narrower sections inside the larger ones. The bell itself is about 3' across. A sign painted on the outside of the trailer reads "World's Largest Alphorn".

Phil Neuman

Author: Francis Firth <Francis.Firth@uce.ac.uk>
Date: 1/9/97 8:21 AM
Subject: Oktavin

I'm afraid that I don't have my books in front of me so some of this information may not be quite correct and if it isn't I'll try to correct it tomorrow.

The Oktavin was invented around the turn of the 19/20th centuries by Adler of Markneukirchen? It is a wooden conical bore instrument with a single reed, like a wooden saxophone or tarogato. However, the fingering is much more awkward as the instrument has a doubled-back bore. You play it like a clarinet but imagine the doubled back bore bringing the bell of the instrument up near your mouth except, I think, that the bell itself is bent upwards so that it's not pointing straight at you. The thumbs need to be used as well as the fingers and, unlike the bassoon where the instrument is supported by a sling or strap, this is difficult to do while also supporting the instrument.

Needless to say it never took off although several specimens survive. There are illustrations in Gunter Dullat's Fast Vergessene Blasinstrumente aus Zwei Jahrhundert and also in Adam Carse: Musical Wind Instruments. - London, 1939.

I am unaware of any compositions either for or using the instrument but would certainly be interested in hearing of any.

However, it has been used in early Jazz. When I was in Tony Bingham's musical instrument shop in North London about a year ago I bumped into the husband of the secretary of the American Musical Instrument Society (I'm afraid that I forget his name for the moment). He is an instrument collector and owns an Oktavin. The person he bought it off had used it to play jazz on in the 20s or 30s.

That's about all that I can remember for the moment but I'll check up for more when I get home and post any more information tomorrow if no-one else has completed the story by then.

Francis Firth
Francis.Firth@uce.ac.uk

Author: A Myers <am@tattoo.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1/9/97 8:21 AM
Subject: Re: Contrabass-L, No. 72

Philip Neuman wrote (8.1.97):

> In Pioneer Brass we all play alphorns ...
> ... and "big Al" a 24' FF alphorn.

This is one-upmanship ! That's about twice the size regularly used and composed for in Switzerland.

> Several years
> ago we had Peter bring his giant alphorn for one of our concerts. It is
> officially the world's largest alphorn at 154' in length. We could only
> fit 80' of it in the church ...

Just a question - does this maintain the cone angle characteristic of alphorn bores ?

Arnold Myers

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments,
Reid Concert Hall, Bristo Square, EDINBURGH EH8 9AG, Scotland
E-mail: A.Myers@ed.ac.uk
Web URL: http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author: A Myers <am@tattoo.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1/9/97 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: Contrabass-L, No. 72

Grant wrote (8.1.97) in reply to my post on alphorns:

> I *did* avoid saying "harmonics", as I know most acoustic instruments have
> some degree of inharmonicity in their upper components. However, don't the
> partials correspond to the frequencies of the overtones in the case of
> valveless brass instruments?

Actually, inharmonicity is a phenomenon of plucked and struck instruments, such as pianos and harpsichords. With instruments such as winds and bowed strings (when playing sustained sounds) the spectral components are harmonics of the fundamental. This is true even if the player bends a note up or down.

This is particularly important for contrabass instruments, of course. The lower notes of great bass racket, for example, contain over 100 overtones of sufficient strength to make a definite contribution to the audible tone. Imagine what a noise this would be if somehow their frequencies did not form a harmonic series !

Have you never wondered why there are no contrabass pianos, guitars or tuned percussion instruments ?

And no, the notes you can play on valveless brass instruments do NOT necessarily correspond to a harmonic series. Only if the instrument is well designed, and the player has the skill to lip the notes, do you get in-tune notes matching a harmonic series of frequencies.

Arnold Myers

Perhaps that's why they're called "racketts"?

Author: A Myers <am@tattoo.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1/9/97 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: Contrabass-L, No. 72

Mats 0ljare asks (8.1.97):

> Does anyone know more about the old octavin??It appears in every music
> dictoniary there is,but noone has ever seen one.

It would be more true to say that no-one has ever heard one. Many have ended up in museums, all I suspect showing little sign of wear. That's certainly true of the one here.

However, it is definitely not a contrabass. I'm not sure if sizes other than the soprano were intended when the Oktavin was invented in the 1880s.

It has a folded air-column in manner of bassoon, with descending and ascending portions bored parallel in single block. Out-turned metal bell, silver-plated. Tone-holes are not long tunnels like bassoon, but relatively short passages like clarinet. Wooden single-reed mouthpiece with silver-plated ligature and cap.

And no known repertoire !

Arnold Myers

Author: Steven & Jessica <lederman@inforamp.net>
Date: 1/9/97 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Contrabass-L, No. 72]

>Date: 7 Jan 1997 16:57:09 -0000
>From: "Mats 0ljare" <oljare@www.hotmail.com>
>Subject: re.contrabass-l no.7O
>Does anyone know more about the old octavin??It appears in every music
>dictoniary there is,but noone has ever seen one.
>Mats 0ljare

When I bought my bass sax, the gentleman who sold it to me also had an octavin! Imagine a teeny,tiny little bassoon body,with an alto clarinet bell on the bottom, all in glorius Albert System! I think I can answer any questions you have, or I can ask him whatever you want to know. I also know a genius of a man who can build you an octavin, if you're interested; he also makes bassett horns out of alto clarinets, and builds his own taragatos and such.....good ol' STEPHEN FOX.

and, regarding the last item of the list;

>One more CD: Hamiet Bluiett fans may be interested in "Bluiett's Barbeque......";
> "Body and Soul: "This happened because Pierre had been
> bugging me about the bass sax and even brought one around
> to the studio. So I practiced a couple of hour. I actually
> had a good time on that great big horn. Since the tune's
> been played a zillion times, the bass sax made it different
> right away."

Different right away? Obviously, he's never heard Charlie Ventura's classic recording of the tune played on (mostly) bass sax (and some tenor for good measure!) Ham, it's been done before. Glad that you actually had a good time on that great big horn, though.

Steven Lederman
lederman@inforamp.net

Who knows? If he has enough fun with it, maybe he'll popularize the instrument. And then we can urge him onto the contrabass.... ;-)

The whole disc actually strikes me as a bit odd, like an over-eager attempt to break into "mainstream" popular music. Like the cover of "Wind Beneath My Wings", or "Nanna/Ena Brown" that has 18 children and HB's granddaughter on vocals. Perhaps a little too much hype...

Grant

End Contrabass-L No. 73

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