Wind Machine

As Printed on a Score

Labels the wind machine line (Wind Machine), usually written as a held note or line shaped with hairpins, since the pitch and loudness of the howl rise with the speed of cranking; some composers draw a rising and falling line to show the gusts.

How Composers Use It

Cloth stretched over a turning slatted drum: slow cranking gives a distant moan, fast cranking a howling gale. Strauss used it in Don Quixote and An Alpine Symphony, Ravel in Daphnis et Chloé, Vaughan Williams in his Sinfonia antartica. It is pure scene-painting, so give it a dramatic reason and shape every gust with dynamics.

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