An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate,
According to Curt Sachs:[Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments, pp. 457, 459. W. W. Nortan & Company, Inc. ]
These may be lips, a mechanical reed, or a sharp edge. Also, an aerophone may be excited by percussive acts, such as the slapping of the keys of a flute or of any other woodwind. A free aerophone lacks the enclosed column of air yet, "cause a series of condensations and rarefications by various means."
Overview
Aerophones are one of the four main classes of instruments in the original Hornbostel–Sachs system of musical instrument classification, which further classifies aerophones by whether or not the vibrating air is contained within the instrument. The first class (
41) includes instruments which, when played, do
not contain the vibrating air. The bullroarer is one example. These are called
free aerophones. This class includes (
412.13)
free reed instruments, such as the
harmonica, but also many instruments unlikely to be called wind instruments at all by most people, such as sirens and whips. The second class (
42) includes instruments that contain the vibrating air when being played. This class includes almost all instruments generally called
— including the
didgeridoo, (
423) brass instruments (e.g.,
trumpet,
,
baritone horn,
tuba,
trombone), and (
421 &
422) woodwind instruments (e.g.,
oboe,
,
,
clarinet).
The wind factor is not only provided by the players' lungs function. The organ and the
Harmonica are also aerophones, both supplied with free reeds, which are blown by a mechanical system.
Additionally, very loud and impulsive sounds can be made by explosions directed into, or being detonated inside of resonant cavities. Detonations inside the calliope (and steam whistle), as well as the pyrophone, might thus be considered as class 42 instruments, despite the fact that the "wind" or "air" may be steam or an air-fuel mixture.
Other cases of aerophones with impulsive sounds are the and the so-called , made up of cylindrical pipes that are struck on the sides (boomwhackers) or extremes (thongophones), thus generating percussive aerophonic tones.
History
According to
Ardal Powell, the flute is a simple instrument found in numerous
Ancient history. There are three legendary and archeologically verifiable birthplace sites of flutes: Egypt, Greece and India. Of these, the
transverse flute (side-blown) appeared only in ancient India, while the
fipple flutes are found in all three. It is likely, states Powell, that the modern Indian
bansuri has not changed much since the early
Middle Ages.
Identifying the origin of the aerophone is difficult, though it is believed that Americans and their descendants developed the largest diversity of aerophones, and they are understood to have been the major non-vocal, melodic instruments of Native America.
Examples of aerophone-type instruments in China can be dated back to the Neolithic. Fragments of bone flutes can be found at the burial sites of the Jiahu of ancient China, and they represent some of the earliest known examples of playable instruments. The instruments were typically carved from the wing bone of the red-crowned crane, and had five to eight holes. The flutes were efficient enough to produce sound in a nearly accurate octave, and are thought to have been used ceremonially or for ritualistic purposes.[ Jiahu (ca. 7000–5700 B.C.)][ "Brookhaven Lab Expert Helps Date Flute Thought to be Oldest Playable Musical Instrument" . Brookhaven National Laboratory.] Examples of bamboo flute in China date back to 2nd Century BC. These flutes were known as Dizi's or simply Di () and typically had 6 holes for playing melodies that were framed by scale-modes.
Flutes including the famous Bansuri, have been an integral part of Indian classical music since 1500 BC. A major deity of Hinduism, Krishna, has been associated with the flute.
Types
Free
Free aerophones are instruments where the vibrating air is not enclosed by the instrument itself.
Displacement
The air-stream meets a sharp edge, or a sharp edge is moved through the air.
Interruptive
The air-stream is interrupted periodically.
Plosive
Also known as percussive aerophones, plosive aerophones are percussion instruments sounded by a single compression and release of air.
An example of a plosive aerophone is the
scraper flute which has tubes with ridged or
serration edges so that they can be scraped with a rod to produce sound.
Another example of a percussive aerophone is the so-called thongophone, consisting of a cylindrical pipe that is struck by a special mallet, somehow equivalent to a Flip-flops (thong). A thongophone may sound like an open-open pipe if the mallet is quickly removed after striking the pipe's extreme. Also, it may sound as an open-closed pipe, if the mallet remains closing the pipe after the attack. In the first situation (open-open), the first resonance mode will have a wavelength that corresponds to two times the pipe length, approximately. It is called by acousticians as a "half-wavelength" air column. In the second situation (open-closed), the first resonance mode will have a wavelength that corresponds to four times the pipe length, approximately. Acousticians call it as "quarter-wavelength" air-column.
Non-free
Non-free aerophones are instruments where the vibrating air is contained within the instrument. Often called
, they are typically divided into two categories; Woodwind and
Brass instrument. It is widely accepted that wind instruments are not classified on the material from which they are made, as a woodwind instrument does not necessarily need to be made of wood, nor a brass instrument made of brass. Woodwind instruments are often made with
wood,
metal,
glass or
ivory, with examples being
flute,
oboe,
bassoon,
clarinet, recorder and the
saxophone. Brass instruments are often made with
silver,
copper,
ivory, horn, or even
wood. Examples include the
trumpet,
cornet,
Natural horn,
trombone and the
tuba.
Flute
A flute is a type of aerophone, as is the
Eunuch flute, also referred to as a mirliton.
A flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening, usually a sharp edge. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. Aside from the voice, flutes are the earliest known musical instruments. A number of flutes dating to about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago have been found in the
Swabian Alb region of
Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a developed musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe.
[. Citation on p. 248.
]
File:Indian bamboo flute.jpg|A Carnatic music eight-holed bamboo flute
File:Eight Flute1.JPG|An eight-holed classical Indian bamboo flute.
File:Flûte_a_l'_agnon1.jpg|Example of a Eunuch flute
Reed
A reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound by the player's breath being directed against a lamella or pair of lamellae which periodically interrupt the airflow and cause the air to be set in motion. Reed aerophones can be further subdivided into two distinct categories: single-reed and
Double reed instruments. The former includes
and
, while examples of the latter are
and
.
File:FoxBassoon.jpg|A bassoon
File:Clarinet A-flat 1.jpg|An Piccolo clarinet
File:Duduk.jpg|A duduk
File:CurvedSopranoAltoTenorSaxophone.jpg| – from left to right, an E alto saxophone, a curved B soprano saxophone, and a B tenor saxophone
Brass
A brass aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular
resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called
labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments".
There are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. Slides,
, crooks, or keys are used to change vibratory length of tubing, thus changing the available harmonic series, while the player's
embouchure, lip tension and air flow serve to select the specific harmonic produced from the available series. Unlike all other aerophones, brass instruments can be "muted", in other words, their sounds can be somewhat suppressed as one would use a silencer on a firearm. A variety of mutes exist for these instruments, ranging from those made of plastic to others made of metal, and in various shapes.
File:Deutsches Althorn in Tenorhornform.jpg|An alto horn is a type of brass instrument and aerophone.
File:Trumpet in c german.jpg|Rotary Valve Trumpet in C
List of aerophones
See also
Further reading
-
-
Perono Cacciafoco, Francesco. (2019). A Prehistoric 'Little Goose': A New Etymology for the Word 'Ocarina'. Annals of the University of Craiova: Series Philology, Linguistics, XLI, 1-2: 356–369, Paper.
