Crook (music)

Around 1700 the Leichnamschneider brothers in Vienna developed a horn with a removable mouthpiece that could be connected to a short piece of tubing, called a master crook.

Charles Tully's Tutor for the French Horn, published in London, recommended this system for beginners as late as 1840.

[3] Moreover, the instrument became so long that it was sometimes difficult to reach the bell for hand-stopping, a technique for lowering the pitch of individual notes a semitone or more.

[1][4] 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.

The new horn was capable of the full range of transpositions and quickly became a regular member of the developing symphony orchestra.

The highest keys, B♭ and A, are very focused and penetrating in tone, and respond quickly, making rapid tonguing easy, but they soon become tiring to play because they are usually used for very high parts.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the low B♭ and C crooks have a rich, dark almost muddy tone, but, because of their length — B♭ has 18 feet (about 5.5m) of tubing — are slow to speak.

The addition of valves around 1815 by Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel revolutionized the playing of many brass instruments and the music that could be written for them.