The blowing horn or winding horn is a sound device that is usually made of or shaped like an animal horn, arranged to blow from a hole in the pointed end of it. This rudimentary device had a variety of functions in many cultures, in most cases reducing its scope to exhibiting, celebratory or group identification purposes (signal instrument). On the other hand, it has kept its function and profile in many cattle raising, agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies.
The oldest varieties were made of horns of Bovidae and wood. The earliest findings in Europe are Bronze Age metal horns, the strength of which resulted in its better endurance of the rigours of time. As a result, previous traces of other materials have vanished, so the oldest surviving animal horn dates back to the Late Iron Age in Visnum, Sweden. [1] As big horned animals are rarely found in Scandinavia, blowing horns are often made from wood, wound birch bark or bout, called a "lur".
Many horns have been used as sounding cries by ancient societies. A modern day descendant of the horn, the bugle, is used to call out orders in military camps. The hunting horn was used to communicate on a hunt and is still used today in some places.
In Biscay, territory of the Basque Country, following an old tradition, a practice is being restored to blow the horn from five mountains in the province once a year. These mountains, namely Gorbea (4,859 ft.), Sollube (2,251 ft), Oiz (3,376 ft.), Ganekogorta (3,274 ft) and Kolitza (2,884 ft) are dubbed the montes bocineros, meaning the 'hornblower mounts'. According to historic evidence, up to the late 16th century the Biscayne were summoned to the General Council of the Domain of Biscay to be held in the town of Guernica by playing horns from the summits.
A like function may be attributed to the pututu , the sound instrument from the Andes. The device, usually made of a shell or hollowed out cow horn, is used to summon people to a meeting or a festival. In the Inca period, the messengers spreading throughout Empire known as chaski carried along a pututu, which was blown to herald their arrival to a particular place.
Cheap plastic vuvuzelas achieved fame and controversy in the hands of football supporters during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
One of the more widespread uses for blowing horns today is the shofar, a ram or Kudu horn with a hole drilled through it. The shofar is used mainly for Jewish ceremonies such as Rosh Hashanah. Horns also have significance in Christianity and Islam. [2] [3]
The dungchen is a ritual horn used in Tibetan Buddhism.
An angel (Moroni) blowing a horn as a warning voice is an unofficial symbol used frequently by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (frequently referred to by others as "Mormons"). A statue of the Angel Moroni sits atop the main spire of most of the sacred temples belonging to this church.
In classical music, bullhorns, cowhorns, oxhorns or steerhorns with the tips removed have been called for by Wagner (a stierhörner) for Der Ring des Nibelungen , Die Walküre , Götterdämmerung and Die Meistersinger . [4] [5] Such instruments have been used "since antiquity" in war (war horn) and for community events, such as signaling alarm, calling assembly, and herding. [4] [5]
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, flutes are edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist or flutist.
The cornett (Italian: cornetto, German: Zink) is a lip-reed wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. Although smaller and larger sizes were made in both straight and curved forms, surviving cornetts are mostly curved, built in the treble size from 51 to 63 cm (20 to 25 in) in length, usually described as in G. The note sounded with all finger-holes covered is A3, which can be lowered a further whole tone to G by slackening the embouchure. The name cornett comes from the Italian cornetto, meaning "small horn".
A shofar is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish ritual purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the player's embouchure. The shofar is blown in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur; it is also blown every weekday morning in the month of Elul running up to Rosh Hashanah. Shofars come in a variety of sizes and shapes, depending on the choice of animal and level of finish.
The bugle is a simple signaling brass instrument with a wide conical bore. It normally has no valves or other pitch-altering devices, and is thus limited to its natural harmonic notes, and pitch is controlled entirely by varying the air and embouchure.
The Basque alboka is a single-reed woodwind instrument consisting of a single reed, two small diameter melody pipes with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn is placed around the reed to contain the breath and allow circular breathing for constant play. In the Basque language, an alboka player is called albokari. The alboka is usually used to accompany a tambourine singer.
A bukkehorn (Norwegian) or bockhorn (Swedish), also called ″Billy Goat Horn″ in English, is an ancient Scandinavian musical instrument, made from the horn of a sheep or a goat. The horn is usually made from a goat horn harvested 5 to 7 years before the instrument is crafted. It was traditionally used by shepherds and milkmaids on summer dairy farms in the mountains, as a signal-instrument or as a scaring instrument. It is most commonly played by buzzing one's lips against the mouthpiece, but versions with a single reed similar to that of a clarinet also exist.
The xiao is a Chinese vertical end-blown flute. It is generally made of bamboo. It is also sometimes called dòngxiāo, dòng meaning "hole." An ancient name for the xiāo is shùzhúdí but the name xiāo in ancient times also included the side-blown bamboo flute, dizi.
The Swedish cowhorn is a primitive musical instrument constructed from the natural horn of livestock. The instrument has no separate mouthpiece and is blown similarly to a trumpet but with much greater force. There are two types of traditional cowhorns: one without finger holes for scaring off bears and wolves while herding livestock in the forest ("tuthorn") and one with three or four finger holes for calling the domestic animals or other people ("vallhorn"). The cowhorn was used in the Swedish transhumance or fäbodkultur, an ancient system of moving the cattle to remote summer pastures, thus making more efficient use of scarce resources. This was mostly women's work, which is why women excelled at cowhorn playing. Different melodies carried different meanings such as "one of my cows is missing" or "stop looking, your cow is here". Cows, sheep and goats would have each their own melody which made them come back from their foraging. Cowhorns were also played for entertainment, for dancing or for devotions. A testimony of its long-standing tradition, the oldest extant Swedish cowhorn with finger holes dates to the 6th century.
Mount Oiz, is one of the most popular summits of Biscay in the Basque Country (Spain). Its summits form part of a long range that feeds several rivers: Ibaizabal, Artibai, Lea, Oka and Deba in Gipuzkoa all of them running to the Bay of Biscay.
Olifant was the name applied in the Middle Ages to a type of carved ivory hunting horn created from elephant tusks. Olifants were most prominently used in Europe from roughly the tenth to the sixteenth century, although there are later examples. The surviving inventories of Renaissance treasuries and armories document that Europeans, especially in France, Germany and England, owned trumpets in a variety of media that were used to signal, both in war and hunting. They were manufactured primarily in Italy, but towards the end of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, they were also made in Africa for a European market. Typically, they were made with relief carvings that showed animal and human combat scenes, hunting scenes, fantastic beasts, and European heraldry. About seventy-five ivory hunting horns survive and about half can be found in museums and church treasuries, while others are in private collections or their locations remain unknown.
The chromatic trumpet of Western tradition is a fairly recent invention, but primitive trumpets of one form or another have been in existence for millennia; some of the predecessors of the modern instrument are now known to date back to the Neolithic era. The earliest of these primordial trumpets were adapted from animal horns and sea shells, and were common throughout Europe, Africa, India and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East. Primitive trumpets eventually found their way to most parts of the globe, though even today indigenous varieties are quite rare in the Americas, the Far East and South-East Asia. Some species of primitive trumpets can still be found in remote places, where they have remained largely untouched by the passage of time.
Rosh Hashanah is the New Year in Judaism. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah. It is the first of the High Holy Days, as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25, that occur in the late summer/early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah begins ten days of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur, as well as beginning the cycle of autumnal religious festivals running through Sukkot which end on Shemini Atzeret in Israel and Simchat Torah everywhere else.
Conch, or conque, also known as a "seashell horn" or "shell trumpet", is a wind instrument that is made from a conch, the shell of several different kinds of sea snails. Their natural conical bore is used to produce a musical tone. Conch shell trumpets have been played in many Pacific Island countries, as well as South America and Southern Asia.
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies.
The blowing of the shofar is a ritual performed by Jews on Rosh Hashanah. The shofar is a musical horn, typically made of a ram's horn. Jewish law requires that the shofar be blown 30 times on each day of Rosh Hashanah, and by custom it is blown 100 or 101 times on each day.
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation.
A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other brass instruments such as the trumpet, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument, and a section of brass or woodwind instruments, or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts.
Nafir, also nfīr, plural anfār, Turkish nefir, is a slender shrill-sounding straight natural trumpet with a cylindrical tube and a conical metal bell, producing one or two notes. It was used as a military signaling instrument and as a ceremonial instrument in countries shaped by Islamic culture in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In Ottoman, Persian and Mugulin miniatures, the nafīr is depicted in battle scenes. In Christian culture, it displaced or was played alongside of the curved tuba or horn, as seen in artwork of about the 14th century A.D.
The Russian horn orchestra flourished as a distinct music genre in 18th and 19th century Russia. It was a coordinated performance using hunting horns known as Rozhoks, each of which could produce only one specific sound.
http://www.nwhsa.org.uk/horn.html Hunting calls for fox & deer