Swiss Alphorn

Title- unknown
Performers- unknown
Culture/Origin- Swiss Alps
Orchestration- Alphorns or Alpine Horns

This week I decided to go with a selection from a "Western" culture, but that may not be considered "Western" in performance/style/instrumentation etc.  This is an example of the alphorn, an instrument used through the Swiss Alps as a shepherd's instrument for calling or calming cattle and also for communication and signalling throughout a small village (or even across villages within a valley), for a variety of reasons one of which includes the absence of church bells in some communities.  It is now used mostly as a musical performance instrument, but one that still invokes the imagery of mountains and peaceful farm life.  Campbell (2004) discusses many instances where creation of music in the classroom does not need to adhere exactly to original recordings, thus actually become true recreations and not just recreations.  This particular example seems to me to be a great introductory way for students who have not had much exposure to world musics to get started with something more familiar and be relatable to the instruments many of my students in a band ensemble would be playing.  Since the alphorn is limited to only playing the notes in the natural harmonic series, it is similar to brass instruments within the band (The notes of the natural harmonic series overlap, but do not exactly correspond, to notes found in the familiar chromatic scale in standard Western equal temperament).  All melodies and even harmonies must be taken from the available notes of the instruments.  Any band director could do the same thing with just about any level of students, having them create first melodies and then harmonies (trying to emulate the slow tempos and longer held out notes as in the above example, in addition to obviously not using fingerings but ) just sticking to the partials available on the brass instruments they have at hand.  I imagine this becoming both an exercise in lip flexibility, but also a world music exploration.  The connections made to this example differ, but similar instrument/style/performance technique are but a few of the directions that can be taken, with additional elements based on level of class including simple song forms, homogeneous texture, etc.