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134 ORCHESTRAL WIND-INSTRUMENTS. [V. §§ 67, 68. |
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4. Sounds of orchestral wind instruments and of
the human voice. |
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67. The flute is in principle identical with an open flue-pipe. The lips, and a hole near the end of the tube, play the parts of the narrow slit and opposing edge. The quality of the instrument is sweet, but too nearly simple to be heard during a long solo without becoming wearisome. Its best effects are produced by contrast with the more brilliant timbre of its orchestral colleagues.
The clarionet, hautbois and bassoon have wooden reeds. The clarionet has a cylindrical tube, the hautbois and bassoon have conical tubes.
In the horn and trumpett the lips of the performer supply the place of a reed.
68. The apparatus of the human voice is essentially a reed (the vocal chords) associated with a resonance-cavity (the hollow of the mouth).
The vocal chords are elastic bands situated at the top of the wind-pipe, and separated by a narrow slit, which opens and closes again with great exactness as air is forced through it from the lungs. The form and width of the slit allow of being quickly and extensively modified by the changing tension of the vocal chords, and thus sounds widely differing from each other in pitch may be successively pro- |
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