by Jörg Becker
Text and pictures are copyrighted, all rights are reserved. The article may be distributed freely among individuals for privat use as long as it remains unedited and appears with this notice. Any commercial use or republication requires my written permission.
The Cornamuse is a quiet double reed instrument matching well with recorders and other instruments for playing chamber music. Michael Praetorius gave a good description of this instrument in his famous work "Syntagma musicum", part II "De Organographia" from 1619:
Die Corna Muse sind gleich aus/ und nicht mit doppelten/ sondern mit einer einfachen Röhre/ gleich den Bassanelli, aber von unten zugedäckt/ und auf der Seiten herumb etliche löcherlein/ dardurch der Resonanz herausser gehet. Am Klang seind sie gar den Krumbhörnern gleich/ nur daß sie stiller/ lieblicher und gar sanft klingen.
(The Cornamuse is not made from a double but from a single tube like a Basanelli, but the bottom is closed and has a couple of small holes at the sides for leaving of the sound. The sound is similiar the sound of a crumhorn but it is sounding quieter, more lovely and gentle.)
Don't be confused by the word "cornemuse", that's the French word for bagpipes. Indeed some French pipes have a chanter with an endcap like a cornamuse and it's very probable that the German word "Cornamuse" came from the French word. If you know the carving of a Cornish pipe from the church in Davidstow, Cornwall (16. cent.) you may find that the ends of these pipes could be caps too. (A picture you can find on Julian Goodacre's website.)
I made the turned parts from pearwood and the reed from a yoghurt container. The wood is sounding very well and gives the instrument a gently but sonorous sound. If you'll use another wood you should choose a hard, long fibred and not too heavy wood. There is no reason to use cane reeds because the cap at the end damps the overtones, so it's not necessary to generate them.
The function of this endcap is an acoustical low pass, the same as the function of a car's exhaust. If you compare the spectra with and without this cap (spectroscope, e.g. TuneIt! is a nice PC-tool) you'll find that there are no overtones of higher order with the endcap but many overtones without this cap. If you use a bell a part of this overtones will be amplified strongly. (The spectrum of the overtones determines the sound of an instrument.)
The shape of the cornamuse and the measurements are my choice. Because there's no picture in Praetorius' book and there are no survived instruments the field of experiments is very wide.
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x = closed, o = open
That's the baroque fingering. Notes with * may be a bit out of tune. By changing the fingering you might meet them correctly. The basic scale is Bb-major but if the additional notes are correct you have some additional scales. If you want to tune this instrument in C-major you have to tune B and e correctly.
The hole on the backside near the endcap is the F's tuning hole. It is allways open.
In the drawings I give the position of an additional a-hole. You have to add a small key, best material is yellow brass. To play this note you have to open all holes.
Examples for alternative fingerings:
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Of course you can change the pitch of each note by in- or decreasing the pressure. But it's better to try an alternative fingering first.
I'll give no list of tools because there are a lot of descriptions in the net. If you want to make a musical instrument you should have some experiences in woodworking so it shouldn't be a problem to find the best tools yourself.
There are many descriptions too. My method is very simple:
If you open the reed's mouth a bit the pitch becomes lower and the noise will be louder. If you close it the pitch becomes higher and the noise will be more silent. Adjust the reed before you tune the instrument.
The reed is not very critical. Of course you can try to change the dimensions and to substitute the material. But make sure to make a reed you can reproduce if it cracks.
When the wood is dry drill the finger holes. I use the following method for tuning:
Moving the reed in it's seat changes the ratio of the basic scale and the notes with *. You can pull out the reed a bit, tune again and check the notes with *. Maybe they are matching better now.
Here's a more detailed description of the tuning procedure:
It's possible to replace the endcap by a bell. The change of the sound is really funny and you have a new instrument. (An other instrument with parallel bore and bell is the clarinet.) If you replace the endcap by the bell the F is out of tune probably. With the bell's tuning hole you can correct the tuning.
I'm thinking about a bag and one or two drones to complete this instrument to a set of bagpipes. The drones should sound in Low Bb (octave lower than the cornamuse's Bb) and in F (lowest note of the cornamuse) or both drones should sound in Bb (one and two octaves below the cornamuse's Bb).
The black lines of the drawings show the outer shape and the blue lines the shape of the bores. In this document the drawings are scaled down. For a better view please load down the pictures and view or print them in original size.
Complete view of the instrument (with bell and endcap)
The windcap
The middle part
The middle part (bores)
A template to drill the small holes into the endcap, print it in original size and wrap it around the endcap (aligned, exactly one time around)
The reed, made from a brass tube and a yoghurt container
The bell, not a native part of a cornamuse but an interesting addition
Foto of the three wooden parts and the reed
Foto of the reed
And last but not least:
Many thanks to Gerrit for remaking the drawings and the space on his website !