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Re: A rose by any other name.

Do you ever see something written so authoritatively that for a moment you
believe it, even though all the evidence of your own eyes and ears tells you
it's wrong?

Well, Mike Lyons wrote. "By the way, a baritone is an alto instrument. It is
the euphonium which is the tenor tuba."

...and also... "The Flugel Horn is actually just a large bore cornet."

Wrong!!  Quite plainly a baritone is not an alto instrument. I can't sing
that
low even after 8 pints and a Vindaloo. And a flugel horn is not much like a
cornet (perish the thought!) except in pitch.

Apart from mouthpiece shape (all cup-shaped in a brass band), the main
differences between the various brass instruments are:

1. the shape of the tube for the majority of its length (parallel like a
trumpet, conical like a horn or a mixture of the two, like a cornet) and

2. the relative size of the tube (fat or thin).

Seems to me that the brass instruments in a British brass band fall into 4
groups:

1. Cornets - i.e. sop and Bb (part parallel, part conical)

2.  Horns - i.e. flugel, tenor horn and baritone (conical and thin)

3. Tubas - i.e. euph, Eb bass and Bb bass (conical and fat. Hmm - sounds
like
the players!)

4. Trombones - i.e. primitive instruments with no buttons to push ;-)
(parallel)

The horns are a mixture of saxhorns and flugelhorns (which, apparently, are
distinct groups, but no-one can define the difference to my satisfaction!)

Bill Walker wrote... "Would it be correct to say that the tonal ranges we
describe as bass, baritone, tenor and alto relate in part to the original
instruments i.e. the various human voices?"

Yes and no (of course!) - we can split roughly them into human voice ranges,
but the
names we use commonly don't always tie up. For instance, the baritone as we
know it is also called

Tenor saxhorn
Baritone saxhorn
Althorn
Tenorhorn
Bassflugelhorn (now there's a thought!!)

Splitting the instruments into soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices is going
to be approximate, and depending on the part being played there will be
overlaps, but here goes:

Soprano - soprano cornet Eb, cornet Bb, flugel horn (but tending towards
alto)
Alto - tenor horn Eb (alto saxhorn)
Tenor - baritone Bb (tenor saxhorn), euphonium (tenor tuba), tenor trombones
Bass - Eb and Bb tubas, bass trombone.

Mike also wrote. "If you want to know more about the messy details, let me
know."

I think you missed out too many messy details and ended up getting it a bit
wrong.

All clear now?!

Jud - pedantic flugel

P.S. How do you wind up a flugel horn player?
1 - spell it "flugal"
2 - spell it "fugel"
3 - spell it "large-bore cornet"


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