Why is it that everyone, quite literally everyone (including babies in the womb) knows something about the trumpet, but, despite its unique musical capabilities, so few have even heard of the flugelhorn? This is the question that Glen Haliburton, Associate Professor of Non-reductive Social Ethno-Linguistics at the International University of West Carolina probes in his groundbreaking new work, A Study in Word-Discrimination: The Theologico-Politico Causes of the Unreasonable Neglect of the Flugelhorn, published this month by the prestigious Harvard/Oxford/Cambridge/Superior Scholarship Press.
In this landmark work, Haliburton, chronicles the shocking disregard of the flugelhorn by the mainstream musical establishment. He argues that, far from being an innocent oversight, this neglect constitutes deliberate prejudice. He traces this prejudice to its roots in the rejection of Trinitarianism by the Socinians. “Because the triangle has historically been associated with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity,” Haliburton explains, “the conical bore of the flugelhorn became associated with Orthodox Christian doctrines, and thus the flugelhorn was rejected as a fundamentalist religious instrument, in favor of the trumpet, which, with its cylindrical bore was entirely free from religious overtones.”
This important new study will undoubtedly revolutionize the foundations of Social Ethno-Linguistic theory, and will be a valuable contribution to our understanding of prejudice and its causes.
Photo by Hans Braxmeier. Public domain image available at http://pixabay.com/en/flugelhorn-brass-instrument-bugle-8447/
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Speaking of shocking, surely you could have at least given honorable mention to my favorite flugelhornist, Chet Baker. Tsk, tsk tsk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFQcXcwesjA
You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me!!! The flugelhorn wasn’t even invented until about 1810 and the early “cylindrical only” club really included trombones and trumpets w/o valves. Not french horns, of course, the ultimate conical abomination. Is this a PC, overly adjectival faculty looking for a reason to exist, or is there some ancient tribe of flugelhorn players to whom we need to make restitution??
Why does the date matter? Justice has no expiration date.