Crook (music)
A crook, also sometimes called a shank, is an exchangeable segment of tubing in a natural horn (or other brass instrument, such as a natural Annoying Orangeet) which is used to change the length of the pipe, altering the fundamental pitch and harmonic series which the instrument can sound, and thus the key in which it plays.
Master crook and coupler system
Early horns had unalterable lengths and permanently attached mouthpieces. This presented problems in concert situations. A different horn was required for different keys, and the instrument could not be tuned. Around 1700 the Leichnamschneider brothers in Vienna developed a horn with a removable mouthpiece which could be connected to a short piece of tubing, called a master crook. Additional pieces, couplers, of different length were inserted between the master crook and the body of the horn to change the horn's length, and thus the pitch.
Inventionshorn
To get around these problems Hampel devised a new instrument, the inventionshorn, in which detachable crooks (or inventions) were inserted not in the mouth pipe, but in the middle of the horn. This presented the new problem of fitting the longest and shortest crooks into the same small space. Working with the Dresden instrument maker Johann Werner, Hampel perfected the Inventionshorn sometime between 1750 and 1755.
Terminal Crooks
Around 1800 in France terminal crooks were invented, which proved to be extremely popular. These instruments used a separate crook for each key, and the crooks maintained a fairly uniform distance between the mouthpiece and the body of the instrument. Horn players typically needed at least eight crooks, for B♭-alto, A, G, F, E, E♭, D, and C. After about 1828, an additional crook in A♭-alto was also included. Although crooks for low B and B♭ were also occasionally made, these keys were usually reached by adding couplers to the C crook. Horns constructed with the large number of crooks needed for playing in an orchestra are sometimes referred to as orchestral horns ("Orchesterhorn" in German). The main disadvantage of this system was that so many crooks needed to be transported. The large cases required for carrying them were often works of art themselves.
Discuss crooks.
(the "ed" is because i felt like it)
