Carnyx

The carnyx is a member of the brass (Hornbostel–Sachs 423.121.12). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the carnyx makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the carnyx belongs to the brass (lip-vibrated aerophones): the player's buzzing lips set the air column vibrating – trumpets, horns, trombones, tubas and the didgeridoo.

More broadly it is one of the aerophones (wind instruments), where sound comes from vibrating air.

Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.

From Wikipedia

The carnyx (pl.: carnyces;, KAR-nicks) is a wind instrument that was common in Celtic cultures during the Iron Age, between c. 200 BC and c. 200 AD. It is a type of trumpet made of bronze with an elongated S shape, held so that the long straight central portion was vertical and the short mouthpiece end section and the much wider bell were horizontal in opposed directions. The bell was styled in the shape of the head of an open-mouthed boar or other animal.

The Celts used the carnyx in warfare, probably to incite troops to battle and to intimidate opponents, as Polybius recounts. The instrument's significant height—typically around 1.8 metres (6 feet), standing as tall as its player—allowed it to be heard over the heads of the participants in battles or ceremonies. The carnyx was not only used by the Celts but also by the Dacians in modern Romania, and depictions have even been found on a Buddhist sculpture in India, attesting to the far-flung connections of the Iron Age world.