Ophicleide - Playing

Playing

The ophicleide, like the keyed bugle (the soprano member of its 'family') has a fingering system like no other wind instrument. All keys except one are normally closed, opening only when a finger presses the associated key lever. Just below the bell is the largest of the key-covered tone holes, which is normally open, closing only when the lever is pressed. This normally open tone hole is the acoustic bell, with the bell itself having little effect on sound or pitch. The sound produced with no key levers pressed is the nominal pitch of the instrument. If the player presses the lever for this normally open tone hole, that hole is closed and the now-longer air column extends past this hole up to the bell, lowering the pitch by one half step. In general, the player can obtain all the "partial" pitches available for a given air column length. To play a higher series of partials, he opens one of the normally closed tone holes, effectively making that hole the "bell" of the instrument, with a corresponding shorter air column and higher series of pitches. The left hand controls three such tone holes plus the normally open one below the bell. Pitches in the upper and middle range of the instrument can be obtained by using only the left hand's set of tone holes, and the right hand can hold and stabilize the instrument. At the point where the air column is shortened by opening all of the left hand tone holes, there comes a difficult couple of notes that can best be played by continuing to shorten the air column with two fingers of the right hand, before the series of partials "wraps" and the left hand is used again for another set of notes. In the lowest octave, some pitches cannot be obtained very well using the holes closer to the bell. For these notes, the other fingers of the right hand can open a few more tone holes that are relatively closer to the mouthpiece than to the bell. Some instruments were made with between one and three extra right hand keys to provide better intonation for specific notes in this register. The right hand keys may also be used in the upper registers as alternate fingerings to facilitate faster passages or to improve intonation. With the exception of these special few pitches in the low octave, the combinations of partials on various sets of opened tone holes results in the left hand fingers going through something very similar to what they would be doing to manipulate the valves on a modern brass instrument.