The stub-ended Swanson tonette is a small (6" cavity), end-blown vessel flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education. Though the tonette has been superseded by the recorder in many areas, plastic Tonettes are still in use in elementary schools around the nation due to their price, durability, and simplicity. The range of the tonette is from C4 to D5. A skilled player can produce notes above the principal register by overblowing and half-covering holes. Similar instruments are the song flute, [1] flutophone, [2] and precorder.
The Swanson tonette was introduced in 1938. Designed as a pre-band instrument, the tonette was nearly unbreakable, chromatic, and tunable. It was easy to blow, and the fingering was simple. By 1941 over half of the grammar schools in the United States had adopted the tonette as standard pre-band equipment. The tonette's pleasant flute-like sound was also used for special novelty effects in radio, television, and film.
As a closed pipe (with all tone holes closed), the Swanson tonette's pitch (in Hz) is approximately half that of a recorder (an open pipe) of comparable length. Although the cavity appears to be conical, the overblown (1st overtone) of the low C4 is G5, an octave and a fifth above, indicating a cylindrical pipe such as the clarinet. (The 2nd overtone is C6. A conical pipe, such as the saxophone, has as its first overtone the octave.)
However, the pitch analysis is more complex above the fundamental, as the tonette is actually a Helmholtz resonator (like the ocarina) rather than an open or closed pipe. The pitch depends upon the ratio of the total area of open tone holes to the volume of the resonating cavity. Tonette tone holes are of varying sizes designed to provide a clarinet or recorder like fingering scale. But one can find other tone hole combinations with similar total areas that produce similar pitches. The shorter length required for pitches at around the child's voice made the tonette ideal for carrying as well as finger placement for small hands.
The tonette came originally in basic black, but the line expanded to many colors, including camouflage green for the benefit of the armed services, who, in World War II, found the tonette to be an inexpensive and entertaining way for idle troops to pass the time.
Peter Schickele has described the tonette as "a cheap, synthetic recorder with amusing pretensions"; it is one of the instruments featured in the Gross Concerto by P. D. Q. Bach.
This instrument was played by Felix Pappalardi on "Pressed Rat and Warthog" on Cream's Wheels of Fire album.
The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell.
The oboe is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites.
The recorder is a family of woodwind musical instruments in the group known as internal duct flutes: flutes with a whistle mouthpiece, also known as fipple flutes. A recorder can be distinguished from other duct flutes by the presence of a thumb-hole for the upper hand and seven finger-holes: three for the upper hand and four for the lower. It is the most prominent duct flute in the western classical tradition.
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. The tin whistle is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music. Other names for the instrument are the flageolet, English flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, tin flageolet, or Irish whistle.
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch. For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing instrument produces a pitch other than middle C; that sounding pitch identifies the interval of transposition when describing the instrument. Playing a written C on clarinet or soprano saxophone produces a concert B♭, so these are referred to as B♭ instruments. Providing transposed music for these instruments is a convention of musical notation. The instruments do not transpose the music; rather, their music is written at a transposed pitch. Where chords are indicated for improvisation they are also written in the appropriate transposed form.
The ocarina is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from clay or ceramic, but other materials are also used, such as plastic, wood, glass, metal, or bone.
The Galician gaita is the traditional instrument of Galicia and northern Portugal.
Overblowing is the manipulation of supplied air through a wind instrument that causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one without a fingering change or the operation of a slide. Overblowing may involve a change in the air pressure, in the point at which the air is directed, or in the resonance characteristics of the chamber formed by the mouth and throat of the player.
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B♭ (while the alto is pitched in the key of E♭), and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F♯ key have a range from A♭2 to E5 (concert) and are therefore pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the tenor saxophone are known as "tenor saxophonists", "tenor sax players", or "saxophonists".
The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a “flautist” in British English, a “flutist” in American English.
A flue pipe is an organ pipe that produces sound through the vibration of air molecules, in the same manner as a recorder or a whistle. Air under pressure is driven through a flue and against a sharp lip called a labium, causing the column of air in the pipe to resonate at a frequency determined by the pipe length. Thus, there are no moving parts in a flue pipe. This is in contrast to reed pipes, whose sound is driven by beating reeds, as in a clarinet. Flue pipes are common components of pipe organs.
An organ pipe is a sound-producing element of the pipe organ that resonates at a specific pitch when pressurized air is driven through it. Each pipe is tuned to a note of the musical scale. A set of organ pipes of similar timbre comprising the complete scale is known as a rank; one or more ranks constitutes a stop.
The xaphoon is a chromatic keyless single-reed woodwind instrument. It has a closed cylindrical bore and a very slightly flared bell. The xaphoon has a full chromatic range of two octaves, and overblows at the twelfth like the clarinet.
An overtone flute is a type of a flute that is designed to play in the upper harmonics, typically well above the two or three harmonics that are the practical limit for most woodwind instruments.
The gemshorn is an instrument of the ocarina family that was historically made from the horn of a chamois, goat, or other suitable animal. The gemshorn receives its name from the German language, in which Gemshorn means a "chamois horn". According to Etymologist Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, the form could have prehistoric origins and come from Proto-Germanic *gămĭtă-χŭrnă-n < Indo-European *gʱŏm-ĭdó-ḱrhₐ-nŏ-m (or *gʱŏm-ĭdó-ḱrhₐ-nŏ-m > Gämshorn, indicating a "'specific' wind instrument, crafted by using the horns of ungulated animals and different from a hunting horn or a signaling horn".
In music, fingering, or on stringed instruments sometimes also called stopping, is the choice of which fingers and hand positions to use when playing certain musical instruments. Fingering typically changes throughout a piece; the challenge of choosing good fingering for a piece is to make the hand movements as comfortable as possible without changing hand position too often. A fingering can be the result of the working process of the composer, who puts it into the manuscript, an editor, who adds it into the printed score, or the performer, who puts his or her own fingering in the score or in performance.
Fingering...also stopping...(1) A system of symbols for the fingers of the hand used to associate specific notes with specific fingers....(2)Control of finger movements and position to achieve physiological efficiency, acoustical accuracy [frequency and amplitude] and musical articulation.
Acoustic resonance is a phenomenon in which an acoustic system amplifies sound waves whose frequency matches one of its own natural frequencies of vibration.
A tone hole is an opening in the body of a wind instrument which, when alternately closed and opened, changes the pitch of the sound produced. Tone holes may serve specific purposes, such as a trill hole or register hole. A tone hole is, "in wind instruments[,] a hole that may be stopped by the finger, or a key, to change the pitch of the tone produced."
In music, the bore of a wind instrument is its interior chamber. This defines a flow path through which air travels, which is set into vibration to produce sounds. The shape of the bore has a strong influence on the instrument's timbre.
A vessel flute is a type of flute with a body which acts as a Helmholtz resonator. The body is a vessel-shaped, not a tube- or cone-shaped; that is, the far end is closed.