# Range of symphonic orchestra



## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

Hello everyone and everybody!

All sources claim that the contrabassoon is the *lowest instrument in the orchestra* just because other sources do it.

The contrabassoon reaches Bb 1.5 octaves below the bass clef staff. OK, it could reach A with a rare extension.

But the grand and the upright pianos reach A a semitone lower. Sure, some orchestral scores request no piano, but a contrabassoon isn't always demanded neither.

The harp has a C#-C-Cb string, tuned on request as the pedals don't act on it. I'm confident harpists would lower it to A if the composer kindly asks.

Many contrabass clarinets reach the concert Bb too. If a Bb contrabass sarrusophone is present, it achieves Ab two semitones lower than the contrabassoon. Even the C contrabass sarrusophone has become rare, but one collector in Paris owns a Bb one and lent it to an orchestra for the sorcerer's apprentice.

And the *Bb contrabass tuba goes lower*, the tubist being the limit. Bb is only the highest pedal note, and many tubists reach lower. The theoretical limit of a four-valved instrument would be 1+2+3+5=11 semitones lower or natural B almost an octave lower, if pulling the slides, but the resonance vanishes before. Writing the tubas at sounding height is a bad convention, to my opinion.

I couldn't reach the pedal notes on my contrabass tuba after 3 months with a mouthpiece too narrow, that's normal. I could play the false note, an Eb on my instrument, and 2 semitones lower, or C#. So I suppose all orchestra tubists reach many pedal notes. What do you think?


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

I don't know, I'm not big on tonal extremes .I typically don't compose below D2 and have never gone below Cello C (C2)
I never go higher than the A above high C and that's rare for me too.I guess I'm an alto/tenor type composer don't care for extremes.
Once in a while on a big chord I may hit B or Bflat 2 on the contra base but that is usually only on the final chord of the piece.


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

I do use the contra bassoon actually but I use it in it's mid to high register ,so the regular bassoon does not sound farty,you know how winds sound in there lower register


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

bagpipers said:


> I do use the contra bassoon actually but I use it in it's mid to high register ,so the regular bassoon does not sound farty,you know how winds sound in there lower register


Contra sounds best in its lowest octave and a half...higher, it gets thin sounding, and low bassoon, to me sounds more resonant...but that low octave and a half of contra is really rich!!...


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> Contra sounds best in its lowest octave and a half...higher, it gets thin sounding, and low bassoon, to me sounds more resonant...but that low octave and a half of contra is really rich!!...


I don't go super high,I keep the contra bassoon at the bassoons lower register and I keep the bassoon at mid range maybe a little above middle C but not much


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

The open low E string (E1) on a standard bass viol is 41.2 Hz. The ultra-rare 3-string octobass goes down to A0, or 27.5 Hz.

On a concert grand piano, the lowest note is also A0, or 27.5 Hz. However a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand has an extra half octave, down to F0, 21.83 Hz.

Pipe organs are commonly built with 16' or 32' pipes, with a low C1 (32.7 Hz), A0 (27.5 Hz) or C0 (16.35 Hz). There are exactly two organs in the world with 64' pipes, C-1, 8 Hz.

However, in my experience, a big framedrum moves more air and has a lower audible fundamental than any of these.

Harry Partch built a contrabass marimba that's down around 16 Hz:


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Heck148 said:


> Contra sounds best in its lowest octave and a half...


"Geese farts on a muggy day"


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

That 64' pipe on the organ in the Sydney Town Hall - it's not audible as a pitch, of course. 
You just feel that all your molecules are vibrating a bit. It's a note you feel, instead of hearing!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The horn has an enormous range , from a very low F down in the bass clef to. a high F ( concert pitch) - four octaves ! Some players can reach a major third above this high F , and Schumann's Konzertstuck for four horns and orchestra requires it .


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

GraemeG said:


> That 64' pipe on the organ in the Sydney Town Hall - it's not audible as a pitch, of course.
> You just feel that all your molecules are vibrating a bit. It's a note you feel, instead of hearing!





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

GraemeG said:


> That 64' pipe on the organ in the Sydney Town Hall - it's not audible as a pitch, of course. [...]


I don't know what a *limit to pitch perception* should be.

Most books claim that humans hear down to 20Hz or 16Hz. But this applies to sine waves! And then, 20Hz is the limit where the minimum perceptible intensity is already painful. At reasonable sound intensity, we perceive sines down to only 60Hz very approximately.

Musical sounds are not sines. We perceive only through the partials the contrabass and the low bass sounds. With sounds containing partials, I didn't notice any low limit to the frequencies we hear. At most, a transition around 60Hz from a "sound" to a "vibration" where we discern every period, and this does depend on the phase of the harmonics - maybe on the number of peaks in a period.

About pitch perception, I must make more trials. At the same frequency, we perceive the pitch of a contrabass tuba properly, of a bowed bass more or less, but not of a contrabass clarinet. Same for the piano, where heavier hammers striking closer to the string's center produce a better heard pitch.

So the pitch perception isn't just altered by the frequency. The Railsback thingy is just wrong.

My trials about contrabass sounds, with hearing samples:
 scienceforums - scienceforums - scienceforums - talkclassical


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

Musical sounds aren't sine waves, but you can decompose them into sine waves using a Fourier transform. If you can hear the partials, then you are admittedly still hearing the instrument, and there might be an auditory illusion involved which makes you think you can hear the fundamental, but if the fundamental is below the threshhold of hearing, then what you're hearing are all the _other_ sine waves (higher harmonics/partials), right?


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

Yes, decompose in a sum of sines by Fourier transform. Admitting that this mathematical operation is meaningful about our ears, yes again, we perceive low sounds through their partials high enough rather than their fundamental.

What is the difference between illusion and perception? Oops, sorry, I was having a minute of philosophy.

Anyway, with some low sounds we perceive the height properly, with other sounds we don't. Supposedly we need some information in the partials which isn't always available. Partials strong enough in some frequency domain? Partials close enough to an other? I need more trials to make my opinion.

Or maybe the Fourier analysis isn't pertinent here. At contrabass notes we do perceive the shape of the waveform, while for baritone upwards we're deaf to the phase.

What reinforces the validity of the Fourier analysis applied to our perception: if suppressing the fundamental and optionally the lowest partials of a contrabass note, in the range we hear badly, you hear exactly the same sound at the same height.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Enthalpy said:


> Most books claim that humans hear down to 20Hz or 16Hz. But this applies to sine waves! Musical sounds are not sines. We perceive only through the partials the contrabass and the low bass sounds. With sounds containing partials


You're using the term "partials" here but I believe what you mean are overtones and harmonics. It's true that most low notes (with the notable exception of pipe organs) are filled with overtones, especially anything that vibrates (i.e. strings or skins). In fact it is the characteristic combination of overtones, harmonics and inharmonics ("partials") that give each instrument their unique timbre. Contrabassoons are particularly rich in overtones. Pipe organs, not so much.

Tests with tone generators (that issue pure sine waves) prove that people can indeed perceive 20Hz pretty reliably with their ears (wearing headphones). Much more reliably than being able to perceive tones above 10,000 Hz. Below twenty cycles, the perception of sub-sonic tones is done not with the ears but with the viscera (your guts). You will be VERY aware of a loud 15Hz sine wave, but you'll FEEL it rather than hear it. The sensation you get from a big kettledrum is like a punch in the gut -- except all over your body.


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

I tried to use "partials" when they are not necessarily harmonics, and harmonics when their frequency is a multiple of the fundamental.

We do hear sine waves down to approximately 20Hz but it needs to increase the power a lot, up to being painful - this being the definition for the 20Hz limit. At reasonable power (and music instruments are limited) we are already deaf at much higher frequencies.

Low instrument are varyingly poor in low sound components. For wind instruments it relates with the bore width. The atmosphere shows for "small" sources (as compared with a quarter wavelength) a radiation resistance that depends only on F^2, so the pulsating air throughput defines the radiated power, which depends on the pressure and the bore width. Accordingly, the contrabassoon and the contrabass clarinet radiate little power on the low sound components while the tuba is more generous.


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

Same game: all sources allege that the piccolo is the *highest instrument in the orchestra* just because other sources do it.

The piccolo reaches C two octaves and two ledgers above the treble clef staff. This limit is rather hard, and the A would be more reasonable.










But so does the piano. Perhaps just less convincingly, as the piano gets less loud and its height isn't so clearly defined, while the piccolo's high end is extremely loud.

I tried on my instrument: the violin reaches B on the fingerboard, and some pieces demand higher notes, exceeding the piccolo. That same B is a reliable natural harmonic of the E string, and I could reach the F# natural harmonic less reliably, well exceeding the piccolo, while artificial harmonics didn't reach higher. But all these high notes got fainter and the harmonics less stable. This can result from the string, the bow hairs, the soundbox: many violins are louder than mine at the upper end.

Some celestas reach F, others only C. Its high notes have good strength, duration, and a well defined height.
schiedmayer.de

Some Glockenspiels reach E, others only C. Again good strength, duration, and a well defined height.
yamaha.com

Some crotales reach F, others only C. Best strength, duration, defined height.
paiste.com


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

Yes reading the first part of your post I was going to suggest that the violin probably could reach super high notes, just not without difficulty of execution and intonation. Also the pipe organ; depending on the compass of the instrument and the available pipes, a high C at 1' (which sounds four octaves above middle C) is doable, or maybe even _five_ octaves above middle C if the instrument has a larger compass. The pipes start to get very very small though as one might imagine. The organ isn't really a symphonic instrument, though; it can be used with an orchestra but it's really in its own category so I don't know if you would count it as part of this thread.


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