Talk:Pitch of brass instruments

Article is missing information on the wide range of brass instruments pitched in G. These include soprano, mellophone, alto, french horn, baritone, euphonium and contrabass bugles. These are not rare or unusual, but they are commericially produced products by major manufacturers that are widely used, particularly through the 20th century in the US. The most famous of course is the (soprano) bugle used to play popular calls such as "taps." US Military bugles were all in G, as are many bugles used throughout the world.

__ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.129.196.115 (talk) 03:23, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure how far to go with this - I tried a version with all the tpt pitches in but it looked dreadful. The trouble is that some of this stuff does need covering - for example people looking up pitches for Baroque tpt parts or romantic F parts are probably going to go away as confused as anything. But maybe this page (which does, after all, say it is dealing with the main or most common insts) is not the right place for an exhaustive (and probably exhausting!) list conerning one instrument. Nevilley

It might be nice if all western instrument pages on Wikipedia adopted a uniform system of pitch/octave notation like C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 etc. Jaxdelaguerre (talk) 23:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

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I'm not completely happy with the thing about horn pitch but I don't know exactly why, and the previous author has actually made their case very well. I hate the term orchestral horn which I think is OTT when we already say Horn and French Horn.

The solution to the "name of the horn" problem is to make the first reference to it a Wikipedia link - done. Jaxdelaguerre (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've changed the word key to valve throughout. I am sure that somneone will eventually remove the gibbon thing as not being serious enough, but I rather liked it and have left it unmolested for now. I changed Fsharp to F#: I hope that's OK and that there was not some good (browser display?? pound signs????) reason for it.

I thought there was a general W. policy against Too Many Capitals, which I think makes things look a bit like a Victorian Concert Programme, so I have Taken Some Of Them Out and will hope to Do More Later. But if this was A Mistake, please Let Me Know.

On general matters - you're quite right to remove All The Capitals - things begin to look like a Winnie the Pooh book when there are too many of them, which is All Very Well for A. A. Milne, but is a Very Bad Thing for us. Changing "key" to "valve" is also certianly correct. Using F# is fine, although I don't do it myself, because if I use # for sharp, I feel compelled to use b for flat, and I just don't much like the look of b. I also don't much like abbreviations in general, so I write everything out in full ("F sharp", "B flat"). That's just a personal thing though, and I wouldn't generally change #s into "sharp"s if somebody else had written them that way. I agree with you about the gibbon thing, though we should probably link it to gibbon ;)

As for this specific page - I must confess that I'm confused by the "french horn in Bb" - I've never played a brass instrument, but I was brought up to believe that modern french horns were pitched in F, end of story. I know that they generally play higher than this might suggest, but the article isn't called "ranges of brass instruments".

I'm also made a bit uneasy by the article as a whole, though I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is that makes me feel so. It's partly the lack of a good opening paragraph, I think, partly the title of the article, which seems somehow "wrong", and partly the fact that most of the article is made up of "notes". However, beyond suggesting the article might be cut down a bit and merged into brass instrument (where I see our old friend the "tenorshawm horn" is listed - I'll get rid of him), I don't know what to do about it. And merging into the brass page doesn't seem like a very good idea either, somehow. I'll leave it in your capable hands - I'm sure you know more about this subject than I do. --Camembert

OK and thanks. I may have a proper go at this page sometime and take these points on board. About the horn thing - yes, it's essentially in F, but nearly all horns played now are doubles, with a Bb "side", and the other author is right when they say that the player spends more time on the Bb side than the F, especially if they are playing higher parts. But many horn players still see that as using a transposing valve on top of an F instrument, rather than actually playing a Bb instrument, even though that is what they are (in a way) doing. But in any case horn players sometimes have a very odd weltanschauung and I have had more weird conversations with them about transposition than with all other instrumentalists put together, so maybe I will just grit my teeth and have a go at something which I think makes sense. Essentially it is not a Bb instrument, I feel, and to say it is moves things a little too far in acknowledging the use of the 4th valve. Also, the article gets itself into difficulties over the issue of what the actual range is and what bits we use once or twice, which may need more thinking about. Nevilley

Blimey, I didn't realise I'd wittered on for so long back there... Anyhow, good luck with it if you do decide to get stuck in. --Camembert

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Meybe I missed something from an earlier discussion, but shouldn't the orchestral (French) horn be placed an octave higher than it is, i.e. above alto horn?Pnswmr 14:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Not really - it's about twice the length. In a sense, it's a low instrument with the gift of playing high too! :) 138.37.199.206 (talk) 09:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a general problem with the brass pages for all the different instruments that they tend to view the question of range differently. Some ranges ignore the pedal tones and some include them. Jaxdelaguerre (talk) 23:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)