Conference thebay::joyoflex

 A ladybug is not a bug.
 A glass snake is not a snake.
 A horned toad is not a toad.
 A flying fox is not a fox.

      ...and there ain't no such thing as a "seagull."

 Neil

Re: .0

To which "fly" were you making reference:

1. An overlapping fold of cloth that hides the fastening on a garment.
2. A cloth flap that covers an entrance, as of a tent.
3. A baseball batted in a high arc.

           -OR-

1. Any of numerous winged insects, esp. one of the family that includes 
   the housefly.


The last one sure sounds like a fly to me!

Along the same vein,

"It's too bad mankind isn't, freeways aren't, and diehards don't!"

Some geographical doubles, albeit from somewhat specialized fields:

From the garden:

    New Zealand Spinach is neither spinach nor from New Zealand
    Jerusalem Artichokes are neither artichokes nor from Jerusalem

From the orchestra:

    the English horn is neither a horn nor from England


    				David Larrick

Interesting.  What is an English horn?  Is it what we English call a French
horn? :-)

Also, a ladybug sounds more appropriate to the species than our name for
it: ladybird. (assume we're talking about Cochinella).

Jeff.

 Re: .4:
 
 "Ladybugs" are more properly called ladybird beetles because they belong in
 the order Coleoptera.  There are about 100 species in North America, all
 belonging to the family Coccinellidae; a common genus here is Hippodamia.

 Neil

An English horn is an alto oboe. Its real name is the "cor angl�" or "angled
horn." It is quite easy for "cor angl�" to be heard as "cor anglais," which
is why in our language it is called the "English horn." By the bye, the French
horn isn't French, but the English horn is.

	Jon

Thanks for the explanations (bugs with horns?).  The "English horn" is
always referred to as the "Cor anglais" here - I didn't make the connection
as I've never seen it "translated" before.  I didn't realise it was a corrupted
form before, though.

Jeff.

What did one fly say to the other fly?


You man is open!

    Re .3,4,6,7: Its definitely called "Cor Anglais" here (with a capital
    A). The French Horn is of course a brass instrument, and is a true
    horn (about 13.5' long). The Cor Anglais is a relatively rare
    instrument as not much music is scored for it. In sound, it is nearest
    to an oboe, but has a harsher tone.
    
    Incidentally, there is a technical difference between a horn and
    a trumpet: the trumpet family have a linearly inbcreasing bore (apart
    from the constant bit at the beginning and the flared bit at the
    end; the horn family has an exponential bore (apart from the constant
    bit at the beginning). The shape of the French Horn is purely for
    convenience: bending it does not affect the tone, which is a function
    of the profile and the length/diameter ratio.
    
    "Coaching horns" (you can see plenty of examples in English pubs)
    are usually trumpets - but sometimes horns.
    
    [Ex-reserve French Horn player for the Liverpool Philharmonic].

    One hates to append a _new_ layer of dross atop one nearly 5 years old,
    but I couldn't find a more appropriate string to search for in a note
    subject than this...  found by dir/tit="myth".
    
    Anyhow, I write because I was struck by some radio commentary this
    morning (no, I did NOT collide with the speaker!) that made me do a
    double-take.  A commentator was speaking of the problem that Pres. Bush
    has with the economy, to wit:
    
    "At the outset of this campaign, the state of the national economy was
    merely George Bush's ''Achilles' Heel,'' but now it is beginning to
    appear that the economy may well be the reason for his political
    demise."
    
    Say WHAT??!!
    
    Now if THAT isn't a myth-buster, what is?
    
    And btw, things being so goldurn dead in here lately, may I suggest
    that others of us "adopt" some non-current old note that may not have
    been read by the current users and "resurrect" it by posting something
    at its end...?  Hopefully one more interesting than this one, which
    seems to recommend itself only by its title...  Might I recommend 788.*
    or 853.* or 731.* or ... well you get the idea ... :-)
    

    	As a bona-fide hero you naturally prefer a noble death to political
    ignominy. ;-)   He can easily fix this by attacking Fort Knox in person
    and going down fighting while trying to give the gold away to the poor.

    Well I must be a real dumbo because I don't understand what's
    wrong with calling the economy Bush's Achilles Heel.  Is the problem
    that Bush isn't comparable to Achilles?  This is doubtlessly true
    but this metaphor is commonly used this way.  I guess I don't
    get it.
    
    Also, looking back in this note reminds me of the complexity
    of musical instrument classification.  Here in the U.S., at
    least, the French Horn is usually classified as a woodwind even
    though it has all the physical characteristics of a brass, simply
    because historically the brass instruments were left out of
    symphonic music while French Horns are essentially never used
    (still) in brass bands.
    
    Doug.

    I assumed that .10's point was that "Achilles' Heel" and "reason for
    ...demise" are synonomous, not two separate things, which is what the
    commentator seems to imply.
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    First, for convenience, the quote from .10:
    
       "At the outset of this campaign, the state of the national economy was
        merely George Bush's ''Achilles' Heel,'' but now it is beginning to
        appear that the economy may well be the reason for his political
        demise."
    
    As I recall the Greek myth, Achilles was dipped in the river Styx by
    one of his parents.  The waters of the sacred river were supposed to
    render him invulnerable, but the catch was that on the heel where he
    was held, the waters didn't touch.  Hence his "Achilles' heel" was his
    weak spot, as Bush's point of vulnerability is the state of the
    national economy.  But you knew that, of course.
    
    But then the analogy in the commentator's phraseology breaks down,
    because as I further recall the legend, another mythological figure
    called Paris shot Achilles in his (undipped) heel, and Achilles died
    from the wound.  So when the commentator said that the economy started
    out as MERELY Bush's "Achilles' heel" at the outset, but that Bush
    could Actually Be POLITICALLY KILLED because of this weakness, my mind
    boggled.  Methought that's what Achilles' heels were FOR...
    
    'Tain't much, but I guess when you're commuting, you need all the laffs
    you can get.
    
    Perhaps this is simply another example of Linguistic Nerd Humor.  :-)
    

    Re: .-1
    
    Not nerd humor.  Just another example of the DRD at work.

    re: .13,.14
    	Absolutely!   As a non-hero type I would definitely prefer a cause
    of political infamy to a cause of death. One can recover from
    political infamy.

    The question is, how did ...diane explain it so much more succinctly
    than I managed to?????
    
         (-: Perhaps because I just used 5 ?s where 1 would do :-)
    
    Dan
    

    
    
    I was noting from a notebook-PC.  The inlaid keypad is a pain in the
    butt - I tend to be succinct when using to avoid having to switch
    between typing keys and function keys to often.
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    Ok, I see.

    Re .18
    
    >I was noting from a notebook-PC.
    
    Nice to see it live up to its name.  Will this spawn a new myth?

    Re .12
    
    Sorry, but as a former French horn player (both orchestral and in a
    brass band) I believe you are mistaken.  The French horn was, is, and
    always has been classified as a brass.  (Vide Erich Sachs' monumental
    treatise on musical instruments.)
    
    Perhaps you are thinking of the English horn, which is in fact a
    double-reed woodwind?
    
    -dick

The confusion arises, I believe, due to the fact that the ensemble referred to 
as a "woodwind quartet" typically includes a French horn.  

\dave

    Actually, \dave, it's a woodwind quintet:  clarinet, oboe, flute,
    bassoon, and French horn.
    
    -dick

    Nevertheless, a french horn (small f) is a brass instrument. Woodwind
    instruments have a reed (hence wood-), but now I'm even more confused,
    because I think a flute is also woodwind (?)
    
    Jon

    hmm...I always thought of woodwinds and reeds as separate classes of
    instruments.  Or, at any rate, of "reeds" as a sub-class of
    "woodwinds". And that "wood" came from the fact that these instruments
    were made of wood, rather than brass - tho' nowadays, the most common
    woodwinds - flutes & piccolos, are metal (steel?).
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    Re .24
    
    Jon, I don't know what dictionary you're using to place a lowercase f
    at the beginning of French horn - Webster's 9th, the OAD, and the
    multivolume Norton Grove Encyclopedia of Music all use an uppercase F.
    
    Re .25
    
    Woodwinds are of three types:
    
    o	Whistles, including the usual transverse flute and the recorder,
    	which latter is technically a fipple (or block) flute, in which the
    	sound is produced by splitting the air stream against a sharp edge.
    	The Tonette, the Flutophone, and all those other kids' instruments
    	are fipple flutes, as are the flageolet, pennywhistle, and ocarina.
    
    o	Single reeds, including clarinets and saxophones, in which the
    	sound is produced by the vibration of one reed against an aperture
    	to interrupt the air flow.
    
    o	Double reeds, including the oboe, English horn, and bassoon, in
    	which the sound is produced by the vibration of two reeds against
    	each other to interrupt the air flow.  A whole raft of Medi�val,
    	Renaissance, and Baroque instruments are double reeds, including the
    	shawm, cornamuse, dulcian, kortholt, crumhorn, and rackett.  The
    	bagpipe is also a double reed instrument.
    
    With the sole exception of the saxophone (which is of modern
    provenance), all woodwinds were once generally made of wood, although
    clay, bone, and ivory were also used, especially by "primitive"
    societies.  Until recently, the most common wood used by commercial
    instrument makers was boxwood.  Ebony and grenadilla were less favored
    woods; the latter has become the standard for clarinets and wood
    piccolos, and the former is occasionally used by makers of fine
    recorders.
    
    Inexpensive modern flutes are usually made of "German" (nickel) silver,
    which actually contains no silver; it's a copper/nickel alloy.  Some
    expensive instruments are solid silver or gold alloy to exploit the
    more wood-like character these softer metals impart to the instrument's
    timbre.  Why not use wood?  It's too subject to problems of temperature
    and humidity; it swells and cracks if not treated very nicely.
    
    -dick

    re. 26
    
    Thank you. whodathunk you could learn so much about musical instruments
    in a conference about words.
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

>             <<< Note 139.21 by SMURF::BINDER "Ut aperies opera" >>>
>    
>    The French horn was, is, and
>    always has been classified as a brass.  (Vide Erich Sachs' monumental
>    treatise on musical instruments.)

    I defer to your professional opinion and weighty reference.
    
    (But as a baritone player will continue to insist that the
    trumpet be considered a soprano tuba.)
    
    Doug.

    Re .27
    
    The harmonica is a free-reed instrument, which class defines any reed
    instrument (woodwind or otherwise) whose reed (or reeds) is not under
    the direct control of the player (touched by the player's mouth).  This
    class also includes many of the Mediaeval/Renaissance instruments I
    listed in .26, such as the cornamuse, crumhorn, and bagpipe.
    
    Obviously, free-reeds and woodwinds are intersecting sets.
    
    -dick

>             <<< Note 139.29 by SMURF::BINDER "Ut aperies opera" >>>
>    
>    Obviously, free-reeds and woodwinds are intersecting sets.

    Which summarizes the whole problem of classifying musical instruments.

    Re .30
    
    Which explains why Sachs classifies things as aerophones (all winds),
    membranophones (skin drums), ideophones (gongs, cymbals, rattles, block
    drums, and so on), and chordophones (strings).  Rather than describing
    the specific characteristics, he goes for the general.  But it's too
    general for most common usage - sorta like Arthropoda, Coelenterata,
    Chordata, and so on are for animals.
    
    -dick

While we're happily confounding categories of instruments, let it be noted
that the Saxophone (named for its inventor, Adolph Sax) has a cousin, the
Sarusophone (sp?) (M. Sarus, inventor) a family of keyed, BRASS-bodied double
reeds.

One should probably also note the Ophicliede, a keyed, brass-bodied instrument
with a cupped mouthpiece.

There was also a largish family of cupped mouthpiece instruments with leather-
covered wooden bodies and holes like a recorder's for controling pitch:  the
cornetto and the serpent are 2 whose names come to mind.

Looks like a major disconnect between the builders and the classifiers, n'est-ce
pas?

\dave

    The ophicleide is a perfectly acceptable brass.  It is/was a member of
    an entire family of keyed brasses; keyed bugles of various principal
    pitches were in common use well into the decade of the American Civil
    War.
    
    The cornett, zink (a straight cornett whose mouthpiece is integral with
    the instrument's body and which is not leather covered), and serpent do
    not fit into any classification of modern instruments.  But the serpent
    was in use by military "brass" bands as late as the American Civil War.
    
    -dick

	Another way of classifying wind instruments is by how the pitch is 
changed.  In the typical "woodwind," the pitch is changed by opening and 
closing holes in the instrument.  With the typical "brass," the pitch is 
changed either by vibrating the lips faster or slower, or (except in the 
case of a bugle) by changing the length of the tubing.
	Under this classification, once again the presence of a French horn in 
a "woodwind" quintet is anomalous.

Clay 

    To belabor the point, there are lots of other things about the
    French horn that make it unique.
    
    The horn is the only "brass" instrument that has a conical mouthpiece,
    and is played at higher harmonics than the other brasses.
    Because they are higher they're closer together, so you
    have to move your right hand around in the bell to dampen the ones
    you don't want.  Also, the keys are controlled by the left hand,
    and most horns are double horns with two separate almost-complete
    instruments selectable by the thumb key.  The valves are rotary,
    but that's not totally unique because some tubas have rotary valves,
    but it's pretty rare.  Or if you're a masochistic
    "early instrument" player, you get to change crooks (replaceable
    sections of tubing) to choose the key your (valveless, but that's
    ok because there are tons of harmonics to choose from) horn is in for the
    next passage of music.  And the bell (impedance matching transformer)
    is proportionally much bigger than on other brasses, probably
    because the instrument is fundamentally not as loud.
    
    Nevertheless, it is, I admit, a brass instrument.
    
    Doug.

Most Germam orchestras employ rotary-valve trumpets.  Under the influence of
Maestro Kurt Mazur, the New York Philharmonic has just made the transition 
from piston to rotary trumpets.

Anyone have any info on the double-bell euphonium (as mentioned in "76 Trombones"
from "The Music Man")?

\dave

P.S.  Rat-hole it may be, but it's a FUN one!

    One assumes that Mazda is the manufacturer of said newer instruments?
    
    (probably been said thousands of times in music conferences, so pardon
     me if I belabor the obvious -- this has been a fascinating thread!)
    
   :-)
    

    Re .31: I observe that you neglected to mention another subclass of
    membranophones: the mirlitons, instruments that disguise or modify
    sounds (produced vocally or via other instruments) through the medium
    of vibrating membranes. 
    
    Mirlitons may be further sub-grouped into free mirlitons and tube or
    vessel mirlitons. Examples of the former include the comb-and-tissue-
    paper or the turkey call; examples of the latter include the zobo, the
    eunuch flute, and the kazoo.
    
    And no, I have no idea what a "eunuch flute" is. ;-)
    
    [This random piece of knowledge has been brought to you courtesy of the
    "How to Kazoo" book by Barbara Stewart.]
    
    -b

    The there are the musical instruments that don't have any vowels, like
    the crwth.

    .39 is not consonant with the discussion heretofore.
    
    -dick

    
    How would you classify;
    
    1) A pipe organ
    
    2) An accordian
    
    ?
    
    My guess is that they are both woodwind.
    
    Jon

    Woodwind?  accordian to YOU, maybe...
    

    >>> Note 139.42 by RDVAX::KALIKOW
    
    Yes, based on the fact that it has "reeds" which are caused to vibrate
    by the pressure of air in the squeezebox!
    
    Jon

    A pipe organ is a woodwind; its various stops comprise flutes and both
    single and double reeds, and it has cylindrical or conical pipes.  (Even
    the trompette stop is a woodwind stop despite its name and sound.)
    
    An accordion is not a woodwind because it doesn't have the pipes or
    tubes that characterize woodwinds.  It is, however, a free-reed in the
    same class as the harmonica.  Likewise the reed organ (harmonium,
    American parlor organ, et al.).
    
    -dick

    Misc.
    
    Doubled belled euphonium is just that. There are (yes they still exist)
    two bells and you can chose the narrow one (to get a tenor horn kind of 
    sound) or the wide one to get a barritone kind of sound.
    
    There are acually four kinds of common bore tapers in brass
    instruments. The most cylindrical is used for trumpets and trombone
    (also tenor horn and valve trombone). The most like a cone is the 
    euphonium, tuba and flugel horn - note the cornet and baritone horn
    fall in between. The fourth is bore of the french horn which starts very
    narrow and takes a long time to flare out. This physical form is what
    gives this instrument its unique sound. By the way there is another
    brass instrumnent, the Wagnerian tuba (Wagner used them), with this
    bore.
    
    Many brass instruments today are double or triple like the Bb/F horn.
    especially trombones with Bb, F, and Eb triggers in some cases although
    because it a trombone you don't notice that it is two instrument. The
    player notices because the slide positions are slightly wider.
    
    And don't forget the Alphorn which is a "brass" but is always made of
    wood, and the basset horn which is really a woodwind (an extended
    clarinet).
    
    At one time, several flute makers experimented with glass flutes. As
    far as I know, no one ever made a glass brass.
    
    A bagpipe is actually both a single and double reed. All drones 
    (three tenors, one base) use essentially a single reed(they kind of
    look like double reeds but only one piece vibrates) approach while
    the chanter is a double reed.
    
    And while we are talking about reeds, remember that the music box and
    certain early electric pianos, used reeds that are struck or plucked
    making them reed instruments that are in the percussion family not
    woodwinds.
    
    

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has an extensive
    collection of musical instruments, both traditional European typesa as
    well as instruments from many other musical cultures.
    
    One portion of the collection features instruments made of strange
    materials.  FLutes and valeless horns in Delft and Limoge pocelain come
    to mind as well a an extensive collection of stone guitars and viols. 
    No, the latter can't be played.  They were made as garden ornaments.
    
    \dave