Musical instrument: Chalumo

Musical instrument: Chalumo

The name of this antique instrument comes from the French word chalumeau. It is interesting, but initially this word called different types of the simplest cane wind instruments. But the first mention of Chalumeau as a professional tool refers only to 1687.

Chalumo still causes genuine interest among researchers. The reason for this - a lot of secrets that envelop him. The first is the history of its occurrence. It is believed that shalyumo appeared "out of nowhere." Yes, that's right - official information about its predecessors and inventor has not been preserved, although it is assumed that this was the German master I. Denner. The instrument immediately appeared before the performers in its perfect form for that time - a cylindrical tube, 8 playing holes and a single cane. The second riddle is connected with the history of this instrument: to this day not a single chalumeau, created before the 18th century, has been preserved, and the surviving instances of the Enlightenment century have not evolved over the whole epoch. Did a simple pipe with a very limited scale of 1.5 octaves suit composers? And finally, is the clarinet an improved chalumeau? Historians disagree. Some believe that the clarinet was the result of experiments by Denner on Chalumeau. But others disagree, and see the clarinet as the ancestor of the clarinet. Yes, and the arguments in their favor are not weak: all 3 mentioned instruments are very similar to each other, and the time gap between the appearance of chalumeau and clarinet is so small (just over 20 years) that it is more correct to consider them brothers, rather than establishing paternity.

For unknown reasons, very few people liked the word “chalumo”, and there were always many who wished to call the instrument differently. The British especially disliked him, in whose names a note of neglect was felt: "fake pipe" or "pipe layout." The latter, translated into modern language, is read as a "sampler of a musical instrument."