Honeck / Pittburgh's Hammerschlag

[waderice]

Beware the cheaters!

http://www.fstjpercussion.com/en/products/19-wind-machine-mahler-hammer.html

Well Barry, from looking at this link of the M6 hammer box, I guessed accurately - it's on raised blocks!  But the box looks like a solid piece of wood from a big tree.

Wade

[Roffe]

I don't think it's solid; I think I detected some sort of "lid". Furthermore, if it nwas solid, it would give just a "thud" when hit. No, it's got to be hollow for the best resonance.

Roffe

[Constantin]

The instrument to produce the proper hammerschlag sound is crucial to an M6 performance, as it must convey the impression of an annihilating blow, instantly crushing out all hope of life (like a giant tree, felled in a single crash).

If this is a solid block of wood, it seems unlikely it could produce adequate resonating sound to be properly devastating in its effect, but however the sound is achieved, it is this crushing thud that is so vital (ironic to use this word?) in M6.

[barry guerrero]

Big chopping blocks are sometimes used, and rather effectively at that. But it's becoming more common to have a hallow wooden box with a sound-hole.

Before everybody gets carried away as to what a hammerstroke should or shouldn't sound like, you have to keep in mind that it's doubled by the bass drum both times. Part of what you're hearing is the bass drum. As you know from the M10 business, a solid 'whap' on a bass drum can sound quite different from drum to drum, hall to hall.

[Sturmisch Bewegt]

Before everybody gets carried away as to what a hammerstroke should or shouldn't sound like, you have to keep in mind that it's doubled by the bass drum both times. Part of what you're hearing is the bass drum. As you know from the M10 business, a solid 'whap' on a bass drum can sound quite different from drum to drum, hall to hall.

 Awesome hammerstroke just with timpani and bass drum (at 2:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQqAOKXXcsw

 

[barry guerrero]

.   .    .   then there's Maxwell's Silver Hammer

http://maxwellsc.blogspot.com/2008/12/maxwells-silver-hammer.html

Looks like a good way to remove slugs from your garden (2nd photo down).

[waderice]

.   .    .   then there's Maxwell's Silver Hammer

http://maxwellsc.blogspot.com/2008/12/maxwells-silver-hammer.html

Looks more like Donner's silver hammer from the final scene of Wagner's Das Rheingold. 

Wade

[Sturmisch Bewegt]

. . . then there is the guillotine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhb8UxMlW2Y

[Roffe]

. . . then there is the guillotine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhb8UxMlW2Y

It would, most likely, take too much time to reload for the second (and 3rd) hammer blow. This is of course remedied by using 2-3 guillotines. Hope the audience don't get too excited and lose their heads.

Roffe
 

[Constantin]

Uh, oh, Roffe,

I see the budding of a new industry--reviving the guillotines.
You're right that we mustn't lose our heads over this!

Actually, the Guillotine design for a hammerschlag-sounding instrument has merit, if exactly the right soundboard and drop-weight could be determined.  But somehow, for me at least, it loses the theatrical aspect of raising the mighty hammer, and the audience's anticipation, as they watch it fall.

[waderice]

Actually, the Guillotine design for a hammerschlag-sounding instrument has merit, if exactly the right soundboard and drop-weight could be determined.  But somehow, for me at least, it loses the theatrical aspect of raising the mighty hammer, and the audience's anticipation, as they watch it fall.

The danger in having a guillotine design for the Hammerschlag is that concert goers new to, or ignorant about Mahler might come away thinking he was a French as opposed to a composer from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Wade

[barry guerrero]

.     .     .    not if you paint a big double eagle at the top of it.   

"K u K" would work as well (Kaiserlich und Koeniglich)

[Prospero]

When I heard and saw Tennstedt conduct the Mahler 6 in April 1983 with the LPO, there was an ominous black pyramid behind the cellos and double basses on the right. It was a wooden construction about five feet high at the peak. In the last movement the two hammer strokes were performed by raising a the hinged heavy front triangle that was let fall to sound the strokes along with accompanying drum beats. I remember the foreboding this devilish instrument imposed on the whole performance, just sitting and brooding, while waiting to deliver the fatal blows.

Tom

[waderice]

When I heard and saw Tennstedt conduct the Mahler 6 in April 1983 with the LPO, there was an ominous black pyramid behind the cellos and double basses on the right. It was a wooden construction about five feet high at the peak. In the last movement the two hammer strokes were performed by raising a the hinged heavy front triangle that was let fall to sound the strokes along with accompanying drum beats. I remember the foreboding this devilish instrument imposed on the whole performance, just sitting and brooding, while waiting to deliver the fatal blows.

Tom

With that pyramid Hammerschlag device Tennstedt employed, each Hammerschlag had to have made the Pharoahs in the ancient Egyptian pyramids turn over in their graves.     But having been in Egypt only last year, they had to have settled down by then.   

[barry guerrero]

hmmmm, a hybrid Guillotine/Pyramid contraption might be frightening enough.