sounds that get under your skin
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.
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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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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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