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Wind machine.
Labels the wind machine (Macchina del vento; also Eolifono, from the French éoliphone) on a single line. Its sound is written as long notes or a wavy line, with hairpins showing how fast the drum is turned — faster gives a higher, stronger howl.
Also spelled: Eolifono
A slatted drum turned against stretched canvas by a crank: the friction makes a whooshing howl whose pitch and loudness rise with speed. Strauss uses it in Don Quixote and An Alpine Symphony, Ravel in Daphnis et Chloé and Vaughan Williams in Sinfonia antartica. It is a pure sound effect, so give it room in the dynamics and shape each gust with crescendo and diminuendo.
Macchina del vento is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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