Membrane Reeds
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2023
- Membrane reeds are wind instruments, functioning in a manner analogous to the way other reed instruments work, but with a small membrane serving the air-gating function normally served by a cane reed. They work great, and they're wonderfully simple to make. In this video Bart Hopkin explores several variations on the idea. This video doesn't go into much depth on the acoustics and the how-to-build; you can find more of that in the accompanying article posted here: barthopkin.com/more-on-membra.... Added note from Bart: After uploading this video, I learned that Nicolas Bras had already done a video on the same topic, which you can see here: • How to build the MEMBR... . Like all his work, it's very well done; highly recommended! Meanwhile, to see many more of my own instruments, visit the instrumentarium at www.BartHopkin.com, or look for other videos in this UA-cam channel.
Bart, you’re a treasure.
I love membrane-reeded instruments. It's such a uniquely recognizable sound, yet wide and variable, but I haven't seen one played with a keyboard system like you did. It sounded super smooth!
My favorite part about them is that they're so completely unique that the Hornbostel-Sachs system (which is like a Dewey Decimal system for organizing instruments instead of books) has no idea how to classify them at all.
Hey people, when I uploaded this video I hadn't realized the Nicolas Bras had already done a video on the same topic, which you can see here: ua-cam.com/video/Jk7J4_bneZo/v-deo.html. Like all his work, it's very well done; highly recommended! He covers many of the topics covered in my video and more, with some clever additional ideas. If you're not already familiar with his youtube videos you should check them out. His specialty is presenting DIY instrument ideas with lots of good spirit and humor. He does a great job of it -- he has a good understanding of what he's doing, presents the material clearly (and amazingly concisely), and he's prolific. He calls the main instrument featured in his membrane video a membrane clarinet, which makes sense. A membrane reed over a cylindrical tube (as his are, and as are most of mine) bears a lot of acoustic resemblance to a clarinet -- both are cylindrical tubes open at one end and more or less closed at the other by an air-gating mechanism. As a result they both support similar regimes of overtones. And the sound of a cylindrical membrane reed instrument is often remarkably close to a clarinet sound.
This is wonderful. But I have a question have you ever heard about Linsey Pollak? He has also made one of these unstruments alobgvwith some wooden saxophones and blader pipes. I would recommend you to take a gander on one of his many wonderful videos. (I just thougth that you'd maybe be interested since he's somewhat similar to the chanel you just talked about.)
Hello Dundere, thanks for this note; sorry to be slow to reply. Yes, I know Linsey, and have visited with him at his southern hemisphere home. I'm a great fan of his work, which is whimsical, yet at the same time sophisticated and technically adept. Highly recommended (linseypollak.com/). @@Dundere_de_Duke
[This comment is form Bart, the maker of this video and the instruments shown.]
Several people have noted that my ‘Moe instruments, including the ‘Moe Mem shown in this video, are virtually identical in their basic design elements to the Glissotar and Glissonic instruments recently created by Dániel Váczi. To clarify the situation, let me say for the record that I first developed my design close to thirty years ago. When Dániel Váczi was designing his Glissonic, a patent search led him to my work with ’Moe. He contacted me and we have had a number of cordial exchanges since.
The most notable difference between his instrument and mine is that he has done an excellent job of making a beautiful and refined instrument for production purposes, whereas mine has always had a bit of a home-made feel about it. (Another difference is that he’s done a good job of promoting and publicizing his instruments, which I have not done.) You can see several instruments from my ’Moe family in this video. You can also find information on the various ’Moes scattered among the many instruments in my instrumentarium here, and also in this essay. I first documented the essentials of the ’Moe design in my book Musical Instrument Design published in 1996.
Nicolas Bras has been mentioned as another membrane reed player, though I've yet to see anyone here mention Linsey Pollak, who has some great stuff like this too.
Yes, thanks for mentioning these names. I did point to Nicholas Bras' work in the text and comments accompanying the video. For anyone who's interested, here again is the link to his excellent membrane clarinet video: ua-cam.com/video/Jk7J4_bneZo/v-deo.html. And Linsey Pollak -- a wonderful maker of innovative wind instruments of all sorts! I mentioned him as well recently ... was that here or somewhere else? Anyway, here's the link for his website, highly recommended: linseypollak.com/.
In the article, we read: "This tubing is available at hardware stores AND CONSTRUCTION SITES EVERYWHERE." Yep, I bet that's where the kids get it
Once again, you blow our minds, Bart. You’re the Bob Ross of weird sounds. I’d watch your tv show daily…. Thanks for uploading this
Autant de créativité avec des objets aussi simples ! Je suis admiratif !!!!!!!
This is the content I usually look for on youtube but rarely find. Just brilliant, thank you so much.
Always amazed at what I learn from you videos Bart, Thanks!
Bart you're the best. Thanks for all of your brilliant work.
Simple, beautiful.
Awesome, thanks. I think I'll have a go making one. My neighbours are sure to love it!
no idea why this was recommended to me, but i'm here to stay
Looks fun - brilliant!
Hooray! another gem!
Another question, could a membrane "clarinet" like this be made to work with an octave key? It would be awesome to make one of these where you could have 2 octaves of range, being able to play chromatically by half and false fingerings
Hello Ladomifi, thanks for this question. I wondered myself about the question of register holes, and I spent just a few minutes exploring. One thing to mention from the start: we're mostly talking about cylindrical tubes here (not conical), and you'd expect that, like a normal clarinet (which is likewise cylindrical), it would overblow the 12th, not the octave. That complicates things, because to fill in scalewise all the notes for that 12th prior to jumping to the upper register, you'd need a quite lot of toneholes. Not impossible, but more challenging. For an instrument that would overblow the octave, you'd need to go to a conical tube, creating a more sax-like instrument. But there's also another challenge. The tonehole placements in membrane reeds are not what you'd expect in a typical reed instrument or flute, probably due to the fact that the membrane, where the standing waves in the tube reflect, is comparatively soft. This is discussed more fully in the article I posted to accompany this video. The issue of irregular tonehole placement applies to a register hole as well, tending to push the expected location of the register hole much closer to the mouthpiece. When I fiddled around with register holes, I found that the cylindrical tubes did indeed overblow something close to a 12th. But everything seemed kind of iffy and undependable. I guess it would take more time than I spent working through the issues to try to make it work dependably. Perhaps someone will do that and let us know how it goes!
@@bhpkn thank you for the thorough answer.
How about a membrane reed organ, where you have one reed and tube for each note on the keyboard? Doable?
for sure! but regulating the tension on all those pipes sounds like a hassle
Yes, it this could be a good candidate for an organ-like instrument. For intonation you'd need a good system for keeping the air pressure constant -- that's an important part of pipe organs of all sorts, and it would be especially important in this case given the pressure-sensitivity and pitch-bendability of membrane reeds. On the other hand, you could decide not to worry about pressure regulation and instead to make something more wacky and fun, not worrying about pitch accuracy.
I guess im gonna breed this with kathleenn schleainger's Greek aulos. Thanks for the gold mine
The moe mem likes a glissotar
Hello! is there by any chance that the instrument in 8:53 is an actual instrument? I'd love to know more about the "Momem" ! (If that's correct, i don't know)
It strongly resembles an Otamatone's ribbon controller, and this one seems to be an "acoustic" version of it.
Hello Dave, thanks for this comment. Sure, 'Moe Mem is an actual instrument! I don't do fakes! (But I admit that to get a good recording of that instrument, I typically have to do multiple takes and careful editing.) You're quite correct, the flexible strip you press down on resembles a ribbon controller, although it's acoustic, not electronic; also, it's a little less easy to use. I've done a series of wind instruments using this pitch-control method, which you can see in this video: ua-cam.com/video/bsiKxaxiqcw/v-deo.html and also on this page: barthopkin.com/instrumentarium/moe/ , and on other pages linked from there. And if you're really interested, you can get more detail in this article: barthopkin.com/more-moe/.
I believe they generally fall under the category of membranophone, but so do drums so it's not a super useful category
Thanks for this comment, nigeladams. The question of instrument categorization is one that has held a lot of interest for academics, and lots of less-academic types as well. I wrote about it here: barthopkin.com/musical-instrument-categorization-systems/. In the widely-used Hornbostel-Sachs categorization system, air-gate instruments (which would include the membrane-reeds as well as more conventional reeds like clarinets and oboes) are categorized as aerophones, because the enclosed air is seen as the initial vibrating body. As I note in the essay linked above, the situation's kind of ambiguous though -- couldn't you make a case that the reed (or membrane) is the primary vibrator? ... which is in keeping with your suggestion that, although we'd naturally think of them as wind instruments (aerophones), a contrarian could argue that they should be seen as membranophones.
@@bhpknI had a project once where I went through all the hornbostel-sachs sub-categories, and there's a few that are close but not exact. It could be considered a membranophone or an aerophone