[Dixielandjazz] Ophicleides and Serpents

[Jim O'Briant]

Tom Wiggins wrote, in two different messages:

> Now maybe somebody can explain that other strange 
> Instrument jim said he plays??? 

> Ophicleides, sounds like some sort of Greek Birth 
> Control device that we have not heard of yet :))

> Sorry John Pappas !   could Jim O 'Briant or 
> somebody explain it and tts possible usage if any :))

Etymologically speaking, "Ophicleide" is a constructed Greek word meaning
"Keyed Serpent."  

The serpent is a carved wooden wind instrument with a cup mouthpiece and six
finger holes, invented in about 1590 or 1595.  Technically, it's the bass
member of the cornetto family.  But the finger holes are far too small,
proportionally to the bore of the instrument, and they're also in the wrong
places (because nobody had invented keys yet); thus, playing a serpent is a
lot like buzzing a tune on a mouthpiece with no instrument attached.  The
fingers have very little effect, and the embouchure does virtually all the
work.

It was called the serpent because it's carved in a shape that winds back and
forth like a snake; if it were straight it would be about 8 feet long, and
nobody could reach the finger holes (as if that matters very much...).

By the late 1700's, keys had been invented, and they were being used on
early flutes and clarinets.  Some time before 1810, Joseph Haliday invented
the "Keyed Bugle," which looks sort of like a flugelhorn with the valve
cluster missing and a bunch of soprano sax keys on it.  It was pretty
versatile in the hands of a good player; the Haydn and Hummel trumpet
concerti were written for the keyed bugle.

A Frenchman named Haliday saw and heard keyed bugles in use, and decided
that a bass version, with keys, would be in improvement on the serpent.  He
had a working instrument by 1819; the principal acoustical development was
that the size of a given tone hole was proportional to the bore of the
instrument at the tone hole's location.  (Adolph Sax employed this principle
in the Saxophone, some years later.)  Since Haliday intended his new
instrument (technically a bass keyed bugle, though shaped differently) as an
improvement on the serpent, and because it had keys, he called it
"Ophicleide," or "Keyed Serpent."

> and how come you didn't play it last 
> Sunday and further confuse me :))   ha ha.

I didn't have it with me.  And I haven't played it much in the past year or
so, not since I played my arrangement of Karl King's "A Night in June" as an
Ophicleide Solo with the Pacific Brass.  I guess I'll have to get it out and
start practicing.

If you'd been at La Beau's restaurant in Martinez last Saturday night, you'd
have heard Glenn Calkins play his Ophicleide in several tunes with Ted
Shaver's Jelly Roll Jazz Band.  Pete was there, too, with his Sarrusophone
-- AND his duck call.  Ted's band plays there every Saturday, and the food
is good.  Call ahead for reservations to get a table in the same room with
the band, and perhaps you'll hear the Ophicleide and the Sarrusophone again.
(And the duck call.)

And I promise to practice the Ophicleide and bring it along to San Pablo
some time, and I'll arrange with Tony to have a jam set that I know and can
more or less play.

-- Jim O'Briant
   Ophicleide, Serpent, Double-Belled Euphonium, 
      and Tubas in BBb, CC, Eb and F
   Gilroy, CA