alphorn

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Related to alpenhorns: Alphorn, Alpine horn

alphorn

alphorn or alpenhorn [Ger.,=Alps horn], wooden horn from 3 ft to 12 ft (91 cm–3.7 m) long, sometimes curved slightly, with conical bore and a cup-shaped mouthpiece. It produces only the natural harmonics of the tube, slightly modified, however, by the material of the horn and its somewhat irregular shape. In Switzerland it is used to call cattle and to entertain tourists. The ranz des vaches is played upon it.

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As much as this episode can be read as a "subversive carnivalesque mocking of masculinity," (12) it seems equally critical of the kind of nationalistic pageantry that had earlier been associated with the Berlin Games of 1936 and was thought to have been absent from the supposedly more "restrained" Munich Games, despite the fact that the latter's opening ceremony was announced by a blast of alpenhorns and brought to a close with a Bollerschutzen ("a traditional Bavarian gun salute of three rounds from 20 guns").

An olympic omnibus: international competition, cooperation, and politics in Visions of Eight

(We tend to favour guitars over Alpenhorns and Mongolian nose flutes.) And none of us really gives a monkey's.

Sue Carroll: VISION OF DIVISION

On board, the people were handed glasses of white wine and entertained by music from accordians and alpenhorns. The boats were headed for Rutli, which lies at the northern end of Lake Uri, the eastern extension of Lake Lucerne.

The Future Is a Distant Shore - National Refugee Day

There are gardens at one end and, as we arrived, the sound of two alpenhorns playing in duo came across.