Weekly Music Lessons

I am repeating this to ensure that all of my students receive the same information as many were missing from our Zoom meeting at Howe last week, but no worries!

21-22 – Special Ed – Week of 10/18 – 10/22

Instrument of the Week

The Woodwind Family

The Saxophone

The saxophone is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to produce a sound wave inside the instrument’s body. The pitch is controlled by opening and closing holes in the body to change the effective length of the tube.[2] The holes are closed by leather pads attached to keys operated by the player. Saxophones are made in various sizes and are almost always treated as transposing instruments. Saxophone players are called saxophonists.[3]

The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in the early 1840s[4] and was patented on 28 June 1846. Sax invented two groups of seven instruments each—one group contained instruments in C and F, and the other group contained instruments in B♭ and E♭. The B♭ and E♭ instruments soon became dominant and most saxophones encountered today are from this series. Instruments from the series pitched in C and F never gained a foothold and constituted only a small percentage of instruments made by Sax. High Pitch (also marked “H” or “HP”) saxophones tuned sharper than the (concert) A = 440 Hz standard were produced into the early twentieth century for sonic qualities suited for outdoor use, but are not playable to modern tuning and are considered obsolete. Low Pitch (also marked “L” or “LP”) saxophones are equivalent in tuning to modern instruments. C soprano and C melody saxophones were produced for the casual market as parlor instruments during the early twentieth century, and saxophones in F were introduced during the late 1920s but never gained acceptance. The modern saxophone family consists entirely of B♭ and E♭ instruments. The saxophones in widest use are the B♭ soprano, E♭ alto, B♭ tenor, and E♭ baritone. The E♭ sopranino and B♭ bass saxophone are typically used in larger saxophone choir settings, when available.

#SaxophoneKeySounds an octave lower thanSounds an octave higher than
1SopranissimoB♭##Soprano
2SopraninoE♭##Alto
3SopranoB♭SopranissimoTenor
4AltoE♭SopraninoBaritone
5TenorB♭SopranoBass
6BaritoneE♭AltoContrabass
7BassB♭TenorSubcontrabass
8ContrabassE♭Baritone##
9SubcontrabassB♭Bass##

“DANCE MONKEY” – STREET SAX PERFORMANCE

La Pantera Rosa ”PINK PANTHER THEME” Saxophone Cover

Meet The Instruments

The Woodwind Family

The English Horn

The cor anglais (UK: /ˌkɔːr ˈɒŋɡleɪ/, US: /- ɑːŋˈɡleɪ/[1][2] or original French: [kɔʁ ɑ̃ɡlɛ];[3] plural: cors anglais), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe.

The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B♭ key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E3 (written B♮) below middle C to C6 two octaves above middle C.

Dvorak 9 English horn solo, Dominik Wollenweber

Dvořák “New World” – English Horn Solo

R.Wagner : English Horn solo from Tristan und Isolde / Sho Music Festival Online

Musical Fact Of The Week

Question

What was the first instrument?

The oldest musical instrument in the world, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute is a treasure of global significance. It was discovered in Divje babe cave near Cerkno and has been declared by experts to have been made by Neanderthals. It is made from the left thighbone of a young cave bear and has four pierced holes.

Question

What was the first song?

“Hurrian Hymn No. 6” is considered the world’s earliest melody, but the oldest musical composition to have survived in its entirety is a first century A.D. Greek tune known as the “Seikilos Epitaph.” The song was found engraved on an ancient marble column used to mark a woman’s gravesite in Turkey.

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

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