Acoustical and musical properties of the Deskford carnyx reconstruction

Murray Campbell , John Kenny

In 1992 a multidisciplinary team including the musicologist John Purser, the archaeologist Fraser Hunter, the silversmith John Creed and the musician John Kenny undertook a reconstruction of the carnyx, a Celtic lip-excited instrument characterised by a bell in the form of a boar's head. The reconstruction was based on a fragment of a carnyx which was discovered in the early nineteenth century buried on farm land near Deskford in north-east Scotland. Since only the head of the Deskford carnyx has survived, decisions on the length and bore profile of the tube and the nature and orientation of the mouthpiece were guided by images of the carnyx on vessels and coins from the early part of the Christian era, and by acoustical considerations based on calculations and measurements on a prototype. In 2004, excavations at Tintignac in France revealed a collection of bronze tubing including parts of several carnyxes. The present paper reviews the acoustical and musical behaviour of the Deskford reconstruction, and reconsiders the decisions taken in 1992 in the light of the new information from Tintignac and the extensive performing experience of John Kenny over the last eighteen years.

Mots clés: carnyx; brass instrument

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Murray Campbell, John Kenny. Acoustical and musical properties of the Deskford carnyx reconstruction. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811340⟩