Acoustical affordances and challenges with indigenous and orchestral wind instruments

Abstract

All our orchestral wind instruments evolved over many centuries from indigenous prototypes. The latter were developed using found hollow objects like animal horns for early brass instruments, vulture bones for flutes, and termite-infested eucalyptus branches for the Australian didjeridu. Already over 40,000 years ago, the concept of finger holes was conceived that allowed musicians to play various scales on instruments. During the Rennaissance and early Baroque, wind instrument ranges were extended to 1 1/2 octaves and beyond on a diatonic scale and extended cross-fingering capabilities, but it was during the romantic period that our orchestral instruments reached their final form, with chromatic extended tonal ranges and known well balanced timbral qualities. Built on an industrial scale, these instruments became a commodity without real alternatives for subsequent music styles, including jazz, rock, and classical avant-garde. These styles often sought a new timbral expressiveness that can go beyond the intended design of orchestral instruments. In this paper, it will be discussed how different wind instrument designs offer(ed) unique opportunities for music genres over time and how the original design of indigenous instruments better meets some of the more recent requirements than our commonly used orchestral instruments.