General Archive - NATURTOENE.CH

Patience – a rare and valuable commodity

17. December 2025 Sami Lörtscher Leave a comment

The “Geduld” (for “patience”) is derived from the Proto-Germanic word githult (8th century), which in turn comes from the verbal abstract ga-thuldis. This goes back to the Indo-European root *tel(ə)-, which means “to bear”, “to endure” or “to tolerate”. The modern verb dulden is related to this and also originally means “to endure”. In our time, it seems to have gone out of fashion to endure something. To practice humbly without seeing an immediate effect. Investing with confidence without seeing

The alphorn as an inclusive music education vehicle

22. August 2025 Benno Weber Leave a comment

Anyone who often works with groups and the alphorn knows that a lot happens! The alphorn lets us breathe together, we listen to each other improvising, perceive common vibes, communicate sensitively and non-verbally. Can these experiences sustainably improve the quality of relationships in the group? As part of an action research project, Thomas Heel explored the question of how the alphorn can be used as an inclusive music education vehicle. He processed his experiences with a class at the vocational

The Alexander Technique and the alphorn

10. June 2025 Mario Schenker Leave a comment

The sound of the alphorn is calm, expansive and deep. Unfortunately, this calm and breadth can quickly turn into strain and narrowness when playing. The sound is not responsive, the pitch is lacking, the quick and clean change between notes is not successful or the sound does not carry as far as desired. Instead of remaining calm and meeting the challenge in a thoughtful way, we usually try harder and restrict our breathing in the process. At first, we may

Explorations in Alphorn Composition and Improvisation – Work with the Alpine Sisters

31. January 2025 Lisa Conway Leave a comment

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..

Playing the alphorn is fun and beautiful!

31. January 2025 Jessica Frossard Leave a comment

Playing the alphorn is fun and beautiful! That’s why it’s good to play a musical instrument. When it’s just for fun, as a hobby, financial questions remain personal and directly linked to the budget you can devote to the hobby. For me, the situation, or rather the reality, is quite different: I’m a professional freelance musician and I have to make a living from my work.

Sound proof alphorn practice room

15. December 2024 Benno Weber Leave a comment

This summer I published an article about alphorn silencers here. If you have the space at home, you can of course build a soundproof practice room as an alternative. Here are a few photos of my latest project. Material costs approx. 1500 CHF, around 4-5 working days for a 12 square meter room. All walls / ceiling double in 15mm plywood; ventilation with sound labyrinth. Measured insulation approx. 33 db.

A visit to the Matsumoto Alphorn Club

24. June 2024 Mike Maurer Leave a comment

Mike Maurer shares his personal impressions of a visit to Japan’s alphorn scene.

Alphorn mutes

14. June 2024 Benno Weber Leave a comment

If you play the alphorn in your rented apartment, you risk getting into trouble with the neighbors. Mutes are a possible auxiliary solution. Which model works best?

Electronic Alphorn Sounds – Update for Ableton Live 12

1. April 2024 Benno Weber Leave a comment

With the latest release of Ableton Live 12, it is now possible to load tunings programmed in Scala directly and apply them to a variety of samplers and synthesizers. You can download tuning files for alphorns and Büchel here.

Towards a logarithmic theory of music

12. March 2024 Rolphe Fehlmann Leave a comment

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.