Crook (music) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A crook, also sometimes called a shank, is an exchangeable segment of tubing in a natural horn

Natural horn

The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:* Modulating the lip tension as...

(or other brass instrument

Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

, such as a natural trumpet

Natural trumpet

A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series.-History:The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication ....

) which is used to change the length of the pipe, altering the fundamental pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

and harmonic series

Harmonic series (music)

Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...

which the instrument can sound, and thus the key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

in which it plays.

Master crook and coupler system

Early horns had unalterable lengths and permanently attached mouthpieces. This presented problems in concert situations. A different horn was required for different keys, and the instrument could not be tuned. Around 1700 the Leichnamschneider brothers in Vienna developed a horn with a removable mouthpiece which could be connected to a short piece of tubing, called a master crook. Additional pieces, couplers, of different length were inserted between the master crook and the body of the horn to change the horn's length, and thus the pitch. For pictures of horns with master crooks and couplers see the online picture gallery of the University of Edinburgh Collection of Historic Musical Instruments (items 3296 and 3297). Fine tuning was done with even shorter segments called tuning bits. This simple and relatively inexpensive solution remained in use even into the 19th century. Charles Tully's Tutor for the French Horn, published in London, recommended this system for beginners as late as 1840.

The master crook and coupler system presented some problems. In high keys the instrument was uncomfortably close to the face, while in low keys, so many pieces needed to be added that the instrument could become unstable, adversely affecting the accuracy of the playing. Moreover, the instrument became so long that it was sometimes difficult to reach the bell for hand-stopping

Hand-stopping

Hand-stopping is a technique by which a natural horn can be made to produce notes outside of its normal harmonic series. By inserting the hand, cupped, into the bell, the player can reduce the pitch of a note by a semitone or more...

, a technique for lowering the pitch of individual notes a semitone or more. This important innovation had been introduced around 1720, and codified by Anton Hampel of Dresden in about 1750, so that the horn could be played chromatically

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

Inventionshorn

To get around these problems Hampel devised a new instrument, the inventionshorn, in which detachable crooks (or inventions) were inserted not in the mouth pipe, but in the middle of the horn. This presented the new problem of fitting the longest and shortest crooks into the same small space. Working with the Dresden instrument maker Johann Werner, Hampel perfected the Inventionshorn sometime between 1750 and 1755. The new horn was capable of the full range of transpositions and quickly became a regular member of the developing symphony orchestra. Fine tuning of the Inventionshorn remained a problem until J. G. Haltenhof replaced the tenon and socket fittings with slides in 1776. About 4 years later the Parisian instrument makers Joseph and Lucien-Joseph Raoux, in collaboration with Carl Türrschmidt, came out with the cor solo, a refined version for soloists with crooks in G, F, E, E♭, and D. (Orchestra players needed more crooks, since they needed to play in more keys).

The Inventionshorn design was also applied to other brass instruments. Some examples are a pair of invention trumpets by Michael Saurle (1805) at the National Music Museum

National Music Museum

The National Music Museum: America's Shrine to Music & Center for Study of the History of Musical Instruments is a musical instrument museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, USA. It was founded in 1973 on the campus of the University of South Dakota...

. For photographs and a detailed description of the Saurle trumpets (NMM 7131 and 7132), see here (Accessed 21 May 2009).

Terminal crooks

Around 1800 in France terminal crooks were invented, which proved to be extremely popular. These instruments used a separate crook for each key, and the crooks maintained a fairly uniform distance between the mouthpiece and the body of the instrument. Horn players typically needed at least eight crooks, for B♭-alto, A, G, F, E, E♭, D, and C. After about 1828, an additional crook in A♭-alto was also included. Although crooks for low B and B♭ were also occasionally made, these keys were usually reached by adding couplers to the C crook. Horns constructed with the large number of crooks needed for playing in an orchestra are sometimes referred to as orchestral horns ("Orchesterhorn" in German). The main disadvantage of this system was that so many crooks needed to be transported. The large cases required for carrying them were often works of art themselves.

Characteristics of manual crooks

According to John Humphries' The Early Horn, A Practical Guide:

The discovery of crooks is usually a great and unexpected pleasure to performers who have previously used only modern double horns, for they differ greatly in timbre and response. The highest keys, B♭ and A, are very focused and penetrating in tone, and respond quickly, making rapid tonguing easy, but they soon become tiring to play because they are usually used for very high parts. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the low B♭ and C crooks have a rich, dark almost muddy tone, but, because of their length — B♭ has 18 feet (about 5.5m) of tubing — are slow to speak. Indeed, the difference in response between a horn crooked in B♭ alto and one in B♭ basso is akin to the difference in handling between a sports car and a lorry.

The invention of valves

The use of crooks in conjunction with hand-stopping made the horn into an almost completely chromatic

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

instrument, but the change in timbre associated with stopped notes, and the length of time needed to change crooks, did greatly limit their usefulness. The addition of valves around 1815 by Heinrich Stölzel

Heinrich Stölzel

Heinrich David Stölzel was a German horn player who developed some of the first valves for brass instruments. He developed the first valve for a brass instrument, the Stölzel valve, in 1814, and went on to develop various other designs, some jointly with other inventor musicians...

and Friedrich Blühmel revolutionized the playing of many brass instruments and the music that could be written for them. The name "valves" is somewhat misleading, since what is involved is that the crooks have become a permanent part of the instrument, and are opened and closed in various combinations by the use of valves, rendering the switching between crooks effectively instantaneous (see also the articles on the French horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, the cornet

Cornet

The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...

, and the valved trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

Hybrid instruments

In the 19th century brass instruments were produced which incorporated many of the features described above in one design. For instance, the National Music Museum

National Music Museum

has a German (or Austrian) trumpet in G (NMM 7077), ca. 1840, which includes terminal crooks, two piston valves, and a tuning slide. For photographs and detailed description, see here and here. The museum also has a cornet (cornopean in B-flat, Raoux, Paris, ca. 1850, NMM 6852) with terminal crooks, Stölzel valves, tuning slide, and tuning shanks, one of which was also used as a coupler. See here and here. (Accessed 21 May 2009).

Sources

Apel, Willi, ed. (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. SBN 674375017

Humphries, John (2000). The Early Horn. A Practical Guide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521632102. (See preview at Google books. Accessed 22 May 2009)

Nelson, Kayla (2007). Horn History. Accessed 22 May 2009.

University of Edinburgh Collection of Historic Musical Instruments. Accessed 30 May 2009.