Horn (instrument)

A horn is a broad category of musical instruments. Most are made from a long tube. These tubes are usually crafted from metal. They are often curved in various ways. One end of the tube is narrow. This is where the musician blows. The other end is wide. This wide part is called the bell. The bell allows the sound to emerge.

Unlike the trumpet, the horn has a conical bore. This means the inside width increases gradually. A trumpet is mostly cylindrical for three-fourths of its length. This difference in shape changes how the instrument sounds. In jazz or popular music, the term is used loosely. It can refer to any wind instrument. A group of such instruments is a horn section.

To produce sound, a musician blows into a mouthpiece. In early metal horns, players used their lips to change pitch. These instruments did not have valves until the 19th century. Without valves, a player can only play notes from the harmonic series. This limits the ability to play in different keys. To solve this, musicians used crooks. A crook is a section of tubing with a different length. It is inserted between the mouthpiece and the lead pipe. This increases the total length of the instrument. It also lowers the pitch.

Using crooks was difficult for the player. They had to hold the instrument carefully. They had to ensure the crooks did not fall out. In 1753, Anton Joseph Hampel helped solve this. He worked on the Inventionshorn to improve how they were held.

There are many distinct types of horns. Some are made from animal parts. The shofar is a ram's horn used in Jewish rituals. In the Middle Ages, people used the olifant. This was an ivory horn made from elephant tusks. These reached Europe from Byzantium in the 10th or 11th century. They became symbols of royalty.

Other horns are made of wood. The alphorn is a famous wooden instrument. In the 16th century, Conrad Gessner described it. He said it was nearly eleven feet long. It was made of two curved pieces of wood. These were bound together with osiers. In Romania, shepherds use wooden horns called bucium. These can be straight, hooked, or S-shaped. They range from 1.5 to 3 meters in length.

Metal horns have a very long history. Archaeologists found bronze lurer horns in Scandinavia. These date back to the 10th century BC. Many were found in pairs. These pairs often curved in opposite directions.

The Romans also used metal horns. They used instruments called the buccina and the cornu. The name cornu is the Latin word for horn. This name influenced many Romance languages. For example, it became "cor" in French. In Italy, it became "corno."

On the Indian subcontinent, ancient metal horns exist too. These include the ramsinga and the sringa. The sringa is a Sanskrit word for war-horn.

By the 17th century, hunting horns became more complex. Hunters needed to play while on horseback. They needed long tubes for high notes. But they also needed the instrument to be portable. Two main styles emerged. One was the trompe, which had a crescent shape. The other was the cor à plusieurs tours. This was a tightly coiled spiral instrument.

The earliest surviving spiral horn dates to about 1570. In the 1600s, makers began making brass tubes wound into a single hoop. These had a flared bell. They were called Waldhörner in Germany. In France, they were called trompe de chasse.

In the 18th century, horns became part of orchestras. Johann Mattheson noted their popularity in 1713. He said they were fashionable in church and theater music. He felt they were more poetic than trumpets. He also noted they were less deafening. The horns had a pitch a perfect fifth lower than trumpets. By the 1700s, the crooked horn appeared in England. It was often called the "German horn." This was because many German musicians played it.

This period saw the horn move from the hunt to the concert hall.

Today, the horn family includes many specialized instruments. There are saxhorns, such as the alto horn and baritone horn. There are also large instruments like the tuba and the sousaphone. Some horns use rotary valves.

These valves allow for much more complex music. The horn remains a vital part of many musical traditions. It connects ancient signaling tools to modern orchestral masterpieces.