Ophicleide You Can Actually Listen To

iiipopes · Post by **iiipopes** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 9:12 am

In googling a picture of an oph to show my son, I came across this website, with soundclips. We're all used to an oph sounding a little bit, well, just say it -- honky.

But you gotta listen to this guy. You'd think he was playing something like a brass band baritone or small bore euph in timbre, but lower in pitch. If all oph players had sounded like this, W & M probably wouldn't have felt the need to invent the tuba, and then where would we be?!

http://www.ophicleide.com/

djwesp · Post by **djwesp** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:10 am

Wow. Thanks for the post.

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 11:16 am

This is the way good ophicleides sound. You may think differently, and be surprised, but I fear you may have encountered A) inexperienced players or B) over-the-hill, no longer sealing, inactive instruments, which share a lot more in common to bad saxophones than other brasses.

Why do you think that ophicleides were used until late in the 19th century on the continent? Because they had a strong union? Hardly, but because in the hands of a good player, these instruments more than adequately held down the brass bass.

This is also why the tuba ancestry split into the French C tuba (after the C ophicleide), and the German/English F/Eb sides.

Wyvern · Post by **Wyvern** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:01 pm

That is revelation

Not like the wheezy ophicleides I have heard - it actually sounds like a musical instrument

To my ears, a small F tuba is the nearest in sound.

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:41 pm

Neptune wrote:To my ears, a small F tuba is the nearest in sound.

The range being roughly similar.

Because the ophecleide didn't use the woodwind fingering, rather, notes were ascending, the split occured due to fundimental (C, untransposed), and range (F, bass clef).

Donn · Post by **Donn** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:58 pm

The one I've heard in person, at some tuba convention in Seattle back in the 80's, was I think playing mostly more in his mid range. Very pleasant sound, which I remember thinking sounded like a cross between a bassoon and a euphonium. At the time, someone was supposedly making ophicleides in Los Angeles, but I couldn't afford to even ask how much they'd be.

questions:

What can we say about the ophicleide as a bass instrument? The clips I saw on the above mentioned site are lovely, but not only don't feature the instrument in a bass role, it doesn't seem to be at its best in the few low notes in the passages. Does anyone play contrabass ophicleide these days? I suppose that's what we're talking about, that was displaced by the tuba.

Does the ophicleide have a normal useful low end that includes its 1st partial, like woodwinds? So a 9 foot long ophicleide would have a loosely similar compass to a bass saxophone?

iiipopes · Post by **iiipopes** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:20 pm

As a side comment -- I wonder if the performer is using an oph equivalent to a "solo" mouthpiece, instead of a "bass" mouthpiece, as a rough analogy to tuba mouthpieces?

As a followup on the next post above about range:
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/ophicleide.html

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:22 pm

Donn wrote:What can we say about the ophicleide as a bass instrument? ... Does the ophicleide have a normal useful low end that includes its 1st partial, like woodwinds? So a 9 foot long ophicleide would have a loosely similar compass to a bass saxophone?

The ophecleide in C that I performed with had a useful range from B natural three spaces below the bass clef staff to about A four spaces above the bass cleff staff.

This would allow one to perform the bass voice in contemporary brass work, orchestral and band.

As band music expanded downward at the end of the 19th century the three valve F and Eb tubas added a fourth valve and the BBb tuba came into general use. For French music, the C instrument known as the tuba expanded to six valves.

The use of valves made the constant regulation and sealing problems of an ophecleide obsolete.

For demonstration purposes, I have used a barry sax with a euphonium mouthpiece adapted to the neck to produce a conical keyed sound, but remember, the ophecleide does NOT use the same kind of fingering, so that as a woodwind gets longer, more keys used on an ophecleide makes it shorter (except for the very last).

MartyNeilan · Post by **MartyNeilan** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:08 pm

WOW
Very impressive.
My take on it is more euph-ish than F tuba in sound.

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:11 pm

William Parlier wrote:I expected a much different sound from the way they look. Quite beautiful from what I hear here!

It is also easier and much more secure playing a work like Symphonie Fantastique on an ophicleide.

Using modern sax pads, playing a keyed bugle or ophicleide can be quite a wonderful and expressive experience.

I think, however, that using contemporaneous cloth, starch, and strung together leather made it much more of a challenge. I have no envy for the original performers, and every when lubricated with saliva, it's not hard to figure out why valves won in comparison...

iiipopes · Post by **iiipopes** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:06 pm

tuben wrote:Ok, very nice playing but it all seems to be around middle c range. That is not the characteristic range or color of the instrument. As with all brasses, the higher the player plays, the more 'compressed'(?) the harmonics become. Ultimately, with higher pitches the harmonics become more and more strongly supported by the long resonator of the horn.

Editors note: I'm tired, stick with me....

Basically, I believe the most characteristic sound of any brass instrument is in the range between 1-3 octaves above the fundamental.

RC

Generally true, until you get to the highest harmonics, say above, say, somewhere between the 12th and 20th partials, depending on the bore of the instrument, how the antinodes react through the valve block, and the relationship of the terminal node to the bell geometry, when the harmonics get so short in relation to the horn the body of the instrument decreases its effectiveness as a resonator and starts functioning more like a megaphone. That's one of the physical characteristics that gives a "screamer" trumpet its sonic character.

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:31 pm

tuben wrote:Basically, I believe the most characteristic sound of any brass instrument is in the range between 1-3 octaves above the fundamental.

Wouldn't middle C be within 3 octaves of the fundamental of a C ophicleide? It's fundamental is an octave above a C contrabass tuba, isn't it? That would make middle C two octaves above the fundamental.

Rick "thinking F horns are an exception to this expectation as well" Denney

Donn · Post by **Donn** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:22 pm

Rick Denney wrote:
tuben wrote:Basically, I believe the most characteristic sound of any brass instrument is in the range between 1-3 octaves above the fundamental.
Wouldn't middle C be within 3 octaves of the fundamental of a C ophicleide? It's fundamental is an octave above a C contrabass tuba, isn't it? That would make middle C two octaves above the fundamental.

If "C ophicleide" is like the one he's sitting on the steps with on the site we've been looking at, it looks around 8 feet, so I'd think the 2nd partial is from middle C down to C in the bass staff. So yes, but ...

But an ophicleide shouldn't really be expected to even play 3 octaves above the fundamental. Like a woodwind, I expect it would get the most mileage out of those keys in the 1st & 2nd partials, and then you might get another octave out of it depending on how well the fingerings work out.

Furthermore, in the saxophone family, if there's such a thing as a characteristic range, it depends on which member of the family we're talking about. An alto sax is arguably more about its 2nd partial, where a bari is all about its 1st. I'd expect the same to be true of ophicleides, that the larger ones would be optimized for their low end.

Theoretical rules aside, though, in my scant opportunities to listen to ophicleides, I think I've heard them sound more distinctive than this (and still sound pretty good), and indeed I think the more distinctive version was running a little lower in the range. Though it was a long time ago.

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:52 pm

Donn wrote:Furthermore, in the saxophone family, if there's such a thing as a characteristic range, it depends on which member of the family we're talking about. An alto sax is arguably more about its 2nd partial, where a bari is all about its 1st. I'd expect the same to be true of ophicleides, that the larger ones would be optimized for their low end.

Contrast how quickly a barry sax gets to IT'S first keys to the distance an ophicleide takes. As I say, they are both conical, but a sax is mostly covering open keys, while an ophicleide is all about uncovering closed ones.

What DOES have the same type of finger system as woodwinds, and what people seem to imagine the sound of more readily, is the serpent...

OldsRecording · Post by **OldsRecording** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:49 pm

windshieldbug wrote: What DOES have the same type of finger system as woodwinds, and what people seem to imagine the sound of more readily, is the serpent...

As G.F. Handel is rumored to have said: "Aye, obviously not the serpent that seduced Eve!"

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:05 pm

OldsRecording wrote:As G.F. Handel is rumored to have said: "Aye, obviously not the serpent that seduced Eve!"

Or, as Jack Nicholson is rumored to have exclaimed, "You can't Handel the truth!!"

OldsRecording · Post by **OldsRecording** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:32 pm

windshieldbug wrote:
OldsRecording wrote:As G.F. Handel is rumored to have said: "Aye, obviously not the serpent that seduced Eve!"
Or, as Jack Nicholson is rumored to have exclaimed, "You can't Handel the truth!!"

"You want me on that wall! You NEED me on that wall!"

OldsRecording · Post by **OldsRecording** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:49 pm

Found this on Youtube. Actually a very pretty sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUS-NJ8nSnI

tubaguy9 · Post by **tubaguy9** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 9:51 pm

It was the tuba that replaced the ophicleide? I thought that the Baritone/Euphonium was supposed to do that, and somehow, it just got left out?

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:09 pm

tubaguy9 wrote:It was the tuba that replaced the ophicleide? I thought that the Baritone/Euphonium was supposed to do that, and somehow, it just got left out?

Geography joke.

You just had to be there.

Keyed Bugle = Trumpet = Cornet = Flugelhorn = Soprano
Horn = Altohorn = Mellophone = Alto
Trombone = Tenor Horn = Baritone Horn = Euphonium = Tenor
Ophicleide = Bass Tuba = Contrabass Tuba = Bass