English horn vs. oboe

[Carnac_the_Magnificent]

@AskNott

Indeed. Our babysitter, when I was a wee Nott, told us a joke about, “But, mama, how can we have mo’ lasses, when we ain’t had no 'lasses yet?” She was from Mississippi. This is a surprisingly diverse town, for central Indiana. I know folks born in Kyoto, Talledega, Chattanooga, New Orleans, Kashmir, Montreal, Amarillo, Cairo (Egypt,) East Los Angeles, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Funny, but have you an answer to the question?

[MikeS]

@Carnac the Magnificent!

I don’t understand what a “4th or 5th below the oboe” means. How would that compare to, say, an octave?

Perfect fourths and fifths are intervals that are smaller than octaves, The first two notes of the theme from “Star Wars”, for example, are a perfect fifth. (This compares to the first two notes of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, which are an octave apart.)

Anybody got a good mnemonic for a perfect fourth?

[Largo62]

@MikeS

Anybody got a good mnemonic for a perfect fourth?

I don’t know about a mnemonic, but if you had Tiger Woods for a fourth I’ll bet you wouldn’t forget it.

“Oboe” is an Anglicized form of the French “haut bois” which means “high wood.” It takes a pretty good ear to tell an oboe from an English horn playing in the same register (which it certainly can be). The English horn has a slightly huskier sound than the oboe, but you really have to listen hard.

[AwSnappity]

@MikeS

Anybody got a good mnemonic for a perfect fourth?

The first two notes from “Here Comes the Bride”

[Kegg]

The english horn isn’t English, it’s french, and the french horn isn’t french, It’s German.

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Spelling and grammer subject to change without notice

[Largo62]

@AwSnappity

The first two notes from “Here Comes the Bride”

Or the first two notes of the “anvil chorus.” Oh, wait! That’s the same thing.

[Musicat]

If you would like to hear an oboe and english horn, easily recognizable over the rest of the “orchestra,” download this 3-minute, 3.6MB MP3 song: 200 Years.

The first solo instrument is an oboe. The next time you hear it, is joined by an english horn, first in unison, then harmony. The EH takes the lower part from then on. Except for range, they have nearly identical sounds. Even tho they are not mixed loudly, the cutting edge sound of the double reeds makes them stand out even with a “Mormon Tabernacle Choir”-style background.

This is a song Greg Williams and I wrote for the 1976 US Bicentennial, performed by Charlyn Mabey and the Chateau Klump Volunteers. It is only a demo, which explains the cheesy drum machine. (I own the copyright, publishing and performance rights, so the mods need not get nervous about a download.)

[Aeschines]

The difference
As others have pointed out, the English horn can play lower notes than the oboe, and it can’t play notes as high as the oboe. It is somewhat like comparing a soprano sax (oboe) to a tenor sax (English horn). Just somewhat, though. A bassoon would be like a baritone sax, etc. etc.

The two horns are played quite similarly–that is the fingerings are similar or not identical. I never played the E.H. myself, but my oboe teacher doubled as EH player in the local orchestra.

That said, there is no mistaking the sound of the one for the other. EH sounds lower and a little throatier.

Another thing: there is a lot more music written for the oboe than the EH. In almost every classical symphony (and orchestral piece for that matter), you will have parts for two oboes, but EH usually only gets a little solo at best. I think it’s hardly used at all until the 19th century.

Difficulty
Playing the oboe requires lots of practice and discipline. The mouth technique is very difficult–essentially, you get lips of iron after a while. You have to apply a lot of breath pressure to get a good tone, and the small opening doesn’t allow you to push out a lot of air. For this reason, you can’t breathe all that much. You get used to this.

Also, all double-reed players make their own reeds from cane and parts. This is very difficult.

I would say, however, that the oboe is a great instrument.

[Musicat]

@Aeschines

Also, all double-reed players make their own reeds from cane and parts. This is very difficult.

I’ve always heard this. But why? Why can’t modern automated reed-making equipment do an adequate job? I don’t know of any sax or clarinet players that make their own single-reeds. Could it be just part of the mystique or ritual associated with the instrument?

[Fish]

Perhaps to make the discussion clearer, here are the notes which the cor anglais and the oboe can play, side by side. The compass (or total range) of the instrument is underlined; middle C will be in red. Information drawn from Wikipedia.

**English Horn**
C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C
**Oboe**
C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C  Db D  Eb E  F  F# G Ab A  Bb B  C

As you can see, the English horn begins about a fifth below the oboe and has a range of two and a half octaves. The oboe begins a fifth above the English horn and has a range of nearly three octaves.

(Musical intervals are a bit tricky to figure out without a musical background, but in case you were curious: the scale in C major is CDEFGABC, and starts over at C, of course. From C up to D is a 2nd; C up to E is a 3rd; C up to F is a fourth, et cetera. However, from C down to D is a seventh; C down to E is a sixth; C down to F is a fifth.

You could also say that from D up to A is a fifth, or E up to B, or B up to F. However, B up to F is not a perfect fifth. B-F is a diminished fifth.

Similarly, while C to E is a third, so is D to F. However, C-E is a major third and D-F is a minor third. A major third would be D to F sharp. See? Told you it was complicated. If you compare the intervals precisely, including all the sharps and flats in the scale I provided above, you’ll see that C-E and D-F aren’t the same distance apart.)

Incidentally, I hope I got the oboe correct. Wikipedia explicitly gave the compass of the cor anglais: from the Eb below middle C to the A a 13th above middle C. The oboe’s range was listed in MIDI terminology, from Bb3 to A6, which varies depending on how the MIDI instrument is scaled and if middle C = note #60.

[barbitu8]

@Aeschines

Another thing: there is a lot more music written for the oboe than the EH. In almost every classical symphony (and orchestral piece for that matter), you will have parts for two oboes, but EH usually only gets a little solo at best. I think it’s hardly used at all until the 19th century.

The cor anglais was never a regular member of the classical orchestra, particularly the small orchestra. Gluck scored for it occasionally, Beethoven and Weber never. In one symphony only, his 22d Symphony, “The Philospher” (1764), Haydn used two cor anglais instead of oboes. He also used the instrument in chamber and vocal music, however. Incidentally, Haydn authority H. C. Robbins Landon believes that for Haydn it was indeed cor angle - “bent horn.”

By the end of the nineteenth century its distinctive timbre was heard in the works of Cesar Franck (1822-1890) and Dvorak (1841-1904); indeed, one of the most famous cor anglais melodies is the tune in the slow movement of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony, which is based on an American spiritual. Berlioz was very pleased with his use of it to express “sorrowful loneliness” in his * Symphonie fantastique*. The best known passage of all is not in a symphonic work but in the opening of the third act of wagner’s * Tristan and Isolde*, where it performs the role of a lamenting shepher’d pipe.

Source:*The Music Lover’s Guide to the Instruments of the Orchestra *, Madeau Stewart (1980).

[Musicat]

Here’s a page from Range & Transposition Guide to 250 Musical Instruments, by Bob Bornstein, long the standard reference in Hollywood. It uses the standard music staff.

Double Reeds

The square note shows the note that is written to sound middle C. It is not related to the instrument’s range. To the right of each staff are the clefs used for normal notation for that instrument. “T.C” means Treble Clef, “B.C.” is Bass Clef, “Ten. C.” is Tenor (movable C) clef.

[GorillaMan]

@Musicat

I’ve always heard this. But why? Why can’t modern automated reed-making equipment do an adequate job? I don’t know of any sax or clarinet players that make their own single-reeds. Could it be just part of the mystique or ritual associated with the instrument?

With double reeds far more than single reeds, the properties of the individual raw reed in question have a crucial effect on the functioning of the end result, making automation impossible. And in any case, I know plenty of clarinetists who make their own reeds, or at least heavily-modify the bulk produced ones.