This semantic dodge would also allow fundamental pitches for piano (88 of them) and for a violin (4), but it makes it a distinction without a distinction. Apparently all pitches are fundamental.bloke wrote:Woodwind (AND brass) instruments have many fundamental pitches, depending on how long the players make those instruments via hand manipulation.
And not obviously useful in terms of acoustic principles, since that fingering is close to but not at the top of the register, depending on the instrument (OK, it's at the top for the recorder and flute, half step from the top on sax, maybe minor third on a clarinet I forget, way far from the top on a bassoon. Hope I remember all that right.)bloke wrote:Most woodwind instruments' fundamental pitches (sans hand manipulation) are never used.
"Open" (on many woodwind instruments) is an illegitimate hand position.
Woodwind instruments just
- have a conventional fingering pattern more or less in common,
- the flute is by convention the "C" woodwind, and
- the clarinet by convention relates to the flute in its second register. (A Bb clarinet's low register would be Eb, related to the flute.)
- The bassoon has departed enough from that conventional fingering pattern that while it's apparently "F" if you look close, no one cares.
Returning to the topic, woodwinds are not referred to with octave notation names. Contrabass clarinet is the only example I know of - I think any use of "BBb contrabass clarinet" should be be held up to ridicule but it happens here and there. No one is confused when it's usually called Bb contrabass clarinet. As no one would be confused if I called my Holton a Bb tuba.