Contributions around the alphorn.
If interpretation is the act of appropriating a piece of music, a work born from the soul of a composer, it’s the interpreter’s job to grasp the very essence of the message that the creator of the work is trying to convey. Stick to the information noted by the composer on the score, the unspoken words that everyone should know, and technical mastery.
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What happens when an alpine instrument meets modern mindfulness practice? This article explores the alphorn as a meditative tool — tracing the path from breath awareness to physical vibration, bringing ease and intention to performance, with practical techniques any player can try.
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Lisa Conway-Bühler is a Swiss-Canadian composer, sound artist, songwriter, researcher, recordist, and mixer. Over the last years she has been exploring the sound of the alphorn..
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The complex tones used in Swiss ethnic music correspond to the harmonic sequence of waveguide resonance modes. These musical tones turn out to be a discrete logarithmic curve. The mapping of them onto positive integers produces a different way of counting scales as is usually used in western music.
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Play-Alongs are very popular with alphorn players. Many scores are now available in electronic formats, and with the free software Musescore, rendering to audio is no problem. Here is a step-by-step guide for the technically inexperienced.
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Alphorn playing is sometimes described in history as “blown yodeling”, as “yodeling on the instrument”, or as “yodeling on the alphorn”. What is meant by this? On the occasion of the publication the English translation of the book “Alpenstimmung” (“Alpine Vibes”), Yannick Wey and Andrea Kammermann comment on this question.
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Brandi and Lindsey Jones are, to my knowledge, the only alphorn making couple in the world. They have known each other since their school days. Musically, they went the way of the trombone to the French horn as an inseparable duo. Lindsey graduated early and dedicated himself to restoring brass instruments with his Nevada-based business, Silver & Brass Musical Instruments, beginning in 2013. Brandi joined the business full time when it began generating enough sales to cover the young couple’s
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The first months on the alphorn are for beginners mainly a struggle with the lips. After just a few minutes of playing the alphorn, the muscles go slack – then it just croaks, high notes no longer come and the lips hurt. The usual advice is “be patient, it will come in time, just don’t push it…”. That may be. But isn’t there a shortcut? What was that again about bodybuilding for the lips? If you do some research on
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The alphorn presents such a unique, timeless beauty in its natural production of the overtone series; a sound that captivates with its resonance and simplicity. However, the absence of any kind of keys or valves means that they player is entirely responsible for vividly hearing the correct pitch before playing it. Unlike a piano or a fretted guitar string, the alphorn will never inform the player what the correct pitch is. For this reason, it requires a very clear musical
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For an article by Robert Scotton on the same topic (in French), see here. The question here is, “How do I find the alphorn mouthpiece that best suits me and my alphorn?” This is not a topic for beginners! At the beginning of the alphorn career, the mouthpiece feels unfamiliar, and there is a lack of reference to classify subjective impressions. For the first few years, you should therefore refrain from experimenting. Better to settle on an “average” mouthpiece from
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