Talk:Aerophone

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There are two divisions: free aerophones, wind instruments, and free reed instruments. Huh? -phma

No, the free reeds are a kind of free aerophone. I'll try to make it a bit clearer.

Are you sure the free reed instrument is an aerophone? Since the reed, not the air, produces the tone, it seems to me to be a blown idiophone. -phma

Well, Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs specifically cite the harmonica (and so by extension all free reeds) as an example of a free aerophone in the original 1914 version of their scheme. The point is that in free aerophones the flow of air is broken by the instrument, and it is that "broken" air which we hear; whereas in blown idiophones the air flow causes the instrument to vibrate, and the sound we hear is as a result of this secondary vibration, rather than stemming from the same flow of air that causes the instrument to vibrate in the first place. It's a tricky point, and I will try to clarify it further later, but it's basically the difference between blowing on the edge of a sheet of paper, making a squeaking sound (your breath is interrupted by the edge which makes the sound - the paper vibrates, but only a little); and blowing on the flat surface of a piece of paper (or flapping it around in the air), thus causing the paper itself to rustle. I hope that makes at least a little sense. --Camembert

[edit] Aeoline

I came here from the Accordion page by clicking a link to Aeoline. Presumably the Aeoline page gave a little more information about the aeoline than the little given on the Accordion page. (I was hoping for a picture.) However some wan helpful person has replaced it with a redirect to this page, which says nothing at all about the aeoline, save the Redirection notice itself. Was there a point to this? Koro Neil (talk) 15:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)