I’ve been meaning to get around to making some proper old-school triangles for quite some time. Did you know that the original incarnation of this instrument was gap-free and had loose jingling rings on the bottom limb? I’ve had a few requests from possible customers. Period ensembles like to use instruments authentic to the time when the music was written – so that it sounds closer to the composer’s original aural vision. This either means using original / restored instruments or, more often than not, reproductions.
The humble triangle (albeit often the instrument that makes other instruments sound better!) has murky roots. There seem to be different origin stories and, just perhaps, it might be possible that more than one of them is true. Did the triangle evolve from the Ancient Egyptian Sistrum, a ceremonial instrument? Or did it start out as rudimentary horse stirrups which were taken off the straps and used as folk instruments? There’s even an outsider suggestion of a hand-held metal device for making sparks from flints, the fire steel.
Officially, the triangle entered the European Orchestra with the fashion for “Turkish” music in the late 1700s to early 1800s, this new section being called the “banda turca”. The triangle had existed in other musics in various places on the planet well before then. Though we only know this from paintings, drawings and wood carvings. I don’t know of any surviving instruments from those times. Today, these ancestors may be classified as early “mediaeval” triangles (closed, with rings, often quite tall and isosceles, sometimes even trapezoidal) or the later “baroque” triangles (open, with or without rings, often with scrolls fashioned into the open ends).
Of course, nobody today really knows how the originals sounded, we can only guess. Then there’s the question of whether you go the whole hog into authentic materials, construction techniques and hopefully sound or do you make a halfway house. Somewhere between the guess of what the originals sounded like and the modern, open ended, ring-free triangle we are used to hearing now. As a maker, it fascinates me to wonder if there’s some secret buried back there waiting to be re-discovered.
Last year I had a percussionist from an Austrian Orchestra after a “banda turca” triangle. He was disappointed with solutions he’d found elsewhere and wanted something with more sustaining and obvious sizzle – that you can still hear from a distance, through the texture of the orchestra. I had an idea about using cymbal rivets instead of rings and it certainly worked better than rings that pass through holes in the triangle limbs. Still not quite what was wanted though. Then, we tried a pair of tambourine jingles on a small bolt, threaded into the triangle at an angle – perfect! So, we have a triangle that sings for a short – but not too short – time, accompanied by a clear jingling sizzling sussuration. So, not remotely authentic, but it made the sound the player wanted.
This February, I had a different request. For a more authentic baroque style triangle, for Mozart. The suggestion was to have a slightly unorthodox scroll arrangement – both turning upwards. This was perfect for keeping the loose hanging rings from falling off the bottom limb though. The other alternative is to have the triangle gap small enough that the rings can’t get out unless you prise the bars apart. That has issues though, I think. Straight off the bat, this worked better than a rings-through-holes triangle. The rings are much more free to move, and thus they dampen the triangle less.
There’s still a question to be answered regarding how many rings, of what material, what size and weight, etc. The originals would have been forged from iron by a blacksmith. For the triangle itself though, my client wanted one of my brighter sounding bronze alloys. Making small rings from this was somewhat out of the question, brass ones would be easy to make, but I don’t think they’d work too well. I found some wrought iron rings (for curtain poles!) – perhaps a little large, or maybe OK. Then also some stainless steel rings which were smaller and felt to be about the right size.
After rehearsal tests at Glyndebourne in late May and early June, the stainless steel rings were found to be the sonic winners, 4 of them on a 9″ triangle. But they don’t look right, of course. The wrought iron ones look the part but are too heavy. So, I cut some down to the same weight as the stainless ones and re-forged them into a smaller ring. So, that should be perfect, right? Wrong. Still the stainless ones work better (good job I had blued some up to make them look more in keeping). My theory is that actually the natural pitch of the rings is important. If the rings resonate at a frequency which is strong in the triangle then they can more easily suck energy out of the instrument. The wrought iron rings were much lower pitched than the stainless ones, and possibly close to one of the main lower partials of the triangle. Only time and making more will tell…
As for mediaeval style triangles with all 3 corners closed (or 4 if a trapezoidal one), I’ve got to figure out some welding smarts for that one. Butted joint? Scarfed joint? Forge-welded or cheating modern methods? I think there may be some other subtle tricks too, to get an instrument that actually sings nicely. Tune in to a later blog to find out!
Update Feb 2016 – though this photo is from November 2015:
I got better at making the scrolls. Here are some more recent editions of my triangle with the “blued” stainless steel rings.
