Acme siren

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Hudsons The ACME City Patent Whistle (13187381764).jpg

The Acme siren is a musical instrument used in concert bands for comic effect. Often used in cartoons, it produces the stylized sound of a police siren. It is one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of an orchestra.

The instrument is typically made of metal and is cylindrical. Inside the cylinder is a type of fan-blade which, when the performer blows through one end, spins and creates the sound. The faster the performer blows, the faster the fan-blade moves and the higher the pitch the instrument creates. Conversely, the slower the performer blows, the lower the pitch.[1]

Iannis Xenakis used it in the '60s in his works Oresteia, Terretektorh and Persephassa.[2]

The siren was used in Bob Dylan's classic album, Highway 61 Revisited.

Acme is the trade name of J. Hudson & Co. of Birmingham who developed and patented the Acme Siren in 1895. It was sometimes known as "the cyclist's road clearer".[3]

References

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  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

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