Our Instruments

 

Winds

Recorders

Baroque - the regular ones

We have Baroque recorders in sizes from garklein (really tiny) to great-bass, Some of these match (same maker) and some don't. These can vary widely in sound quality, as well as in which notes/range they sound best.

Tabor drum and tenor Renaissance recorder
Tabor drum and tenor Renaissance recorder

Renaissance - the different-looking ones

We have soprano, alto and tenor Renaissance recorders. Renaissance recorders have a larger bore (the hole through the middle that the air goes down) and are a bit louder. They have a slightly hootier tone than the Baroque recorders, take a bit more air to play, and are more difficult to play in the higher registers.

Crummhorns (also spelled crumhorns or krumhorns or krummhorns)

We have a set of these made by Moeck; soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

Meghan, Kris and Sara playing crumhorns
Meghan, Kris and Sara playing crumhorns

These are double-reed instruments, like oboes and bassoons. The sound they produce is made by two thin bits of cane (or plastic) reed vibrating against each other.

Unlike oboes and bassoons, the reeds have a cap over them, so the player blows into the hole at the top of the cap rather than touching the reeds with the lips. Capping the reed:

  • enables playing while moving around (even, apparently, on horseback)
  • restricts the range to about an octave and two extra notes (oboe/bassoon players, for example, can use their lip muscles to modify the reed vibration and get an extra octave or two in range - the cap prevents this)
  • removes any ability to play softer or louder - there is only one dynamic for a given note, because the tuning of a given note depends on how hard you blow into the cap
closeup of crummhorn reed and cap
Crummhorn reed, uncapped

Crummhorns sound "buzzy," a quality that was appreciated more in earlier times than it is now (King Henry VIII owned many crumhorns). They are audible outside and can be obnoxious inside.

They have similar fingering to a recorder, so if you can play a recorder and have enough lung power to blow up large balloons, you can play a crummhorn.

Trombones and rauschpfeifen played on horseback
Trombones and rauschpfeifen (capped-reed instruments similar to crummhorns) played on horseback

Much more at The Recorder Homepage.

Tabor-pipes

Kris playing two tabor-pipes

Tabor-pipes are flutes/whistles with only three finger holes, that can be played with one hand. The idea is usually to play the pipe with one hand and beat on a small tabor drum with the other hand. Kris likes to play two tabor-pipes at the same time.

While recorders have a conical bore the tabor-pipe has a cylindrical bore. This makes it much easier to make one; in fact, decent reproductions can be made out of PVC (do try this at home!)

Bagpipes

Early bagpipes were smaller than the Scottish highland pipes you may have heard - some early bagpipes were even quiet enough to play well indoors with other instruments! The Hummelchen ("little bee") pipes made their first appearance with us at the beginning of our 2010 Christmas concert.

15th-century harp reproduction

Strings

Harp

Otter's Court is phenomenally lucky enough to include a harp-builder and historical harp restorer, Howard Bryan (H. Bryan & Co. Harpmakers).

Thanks to him, we have two reproductions of a 15th-century Gothic bray harp. Kris plays the one shown at right.

Our harps are diatonic (as in, the white notes on a keyboard but not the black "accidentals"). The bray pins at the bottoms of the strings (not shown in this picture) give an unusual (for today) buzzing/twanging quality to the sound. This was the expected sound of a gut-strung harp throughout the Renaissance.

We also use a modern folk harp on some pieces.

Amy with viola da gamba

Viola da gamba

Also called viols, these came in all different sizes, from bass (pictured here) to treble (violin-sized). The bass viol looks like a cello, but it has six strings and has frets (the frets are gut, tied around the neck). Amy is our gamba player.

Lute

The lute became popular in Europe in the early Renaissance; its cousin the oud was used as early as 800 in Arabic countries. Lutes can be compared with classical guitars, with the following differences:

  • The back of the lute is a rounded pear-shape (instead of flat) which allows it to be much lighter while retaining structural strength (think of an eggshell)
  • There are more strings: lutes are strung in pairs (except for the top which is single) called "courses." Thus an 8-course lute has 15 strings, one top one and 7 pairs. The bottom three or four pairs are strung in octaves. Doubling up the strings was an adaption for greater volume (remember, no amps in the middle ages)

lute

We have a recently-renovated lute which Kris is practicing (not ready for prime time yet).

Percussion

Drums and tabors

The typical European drum at this time was a wood cylinder with hide stretched over both sides, tautened and tuned with rope (like the one at the top of this page). These come in varying shapes and sizes.

Tambourines

The tambourine has hide on one or both sides, and little cymbal-shaped metal pieces that jingle set into the sides. You know about these.

doumbek

Zills

We haven't run into historical justification for these in Northern European music, but these little finger cymbals add a wonderful zing.

Doumbek

We use this with a grain of salt; it's probable that Spanish and Arabic music used some type of goblet drum. We have a doumbek so we use that. Ours is aluminum, which is definitely not period-accurate but doesn't break easily.

Haut and Bas

There was no amplification in the time period we are dealing with. This resulted in two types of instruments being produced; some which were meant specifically for playing outside or in noisy locations, and some for smaller, more intimate settings.

Haut, pronounced "oh" (those silly French), means loud . "Oboe" comes from hautbois which means "loud wood", and descends from the shawm (which is indeed loud).

Bas means "low" or "down" and refers to the quieter instruments, like recorders.