Re: A different sort of Helicon


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Posted by Don Shirer on February 03, 2003 at 21:42:09:

In Reply to: A different sort of Helicon posted by Klaus on February 03, 2003 at 20:56:54:

Forsyth lists six members of this family:
The High-Schalmey (17in long)
The Discant-Schalmey (26in) (the direct ancestor of the Oboe)
The Alto-Pommer (30.5 in)
The four keyed Tenor-Pommer (54in)
The four-keyed Bass-Pommer (72 in)
The four-keyed Double-Bass-Pommer or Bombard (116 in) (DoppeltQuintPommer)

He says "It needs something of an effort to imagine what a band of these coarse, powerful instruments must have sounded like...a tone quality simply non-existent today."

I marvel at your pictures. Once I played a set of krummhorns (a relative of the shawm or schalmei) in a Christmas concert. They had a rather piercing tone which penetrated a 50 voice choir like a Halls eucalyptus drop in a clogged sinus. If the schalmei sounded like this or the organ pipe of the same name, I can see why there was never any "schalmei d'amore"!

Don "tuba d'amore" Shirer


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