Robbie, you wrote:

> I seem to remember "der Streichbart" in a recent German book as one
> of the terms for the frein.  Translated literally it's "string-
> beard", and it possibly means "the little beard which makes the pipe
> sound like a violin."

I think this is true, not because I 'know' it, but because it is typical
of Germans to make up a German synthetic translation for any foreign term
rather than to adopt the foreign word.  (Note the difference from Dutch
in this respect; a mixture like 'onderlabium' would be unlikely in
German.)

'Beard' is one of the synonyms for 'frein', as confirmed by Jan Kijlstra
yesterday.  This is perhaps because the traditional form for it used with
metal pipes is a crossbar of folded metal, supported from below by a
curved metal piece (imagine a 'T' shape) with a decorative pointed shape
at the bottom of the support where it is soldered on.  It looks sort of
like a narrow Dutch mustache-and-goatee on the 'mouth' of the pipe.

I added the little "o" and note "B" to the picture below; it wasn't in
the original from Jan.

          |           |
          |           | <-pipe
          |           |
          |           |
  B---> o  \          |
             ---------| <-  the horizontal part is the "kern" (languid)
  A--->   /           |
          \          /      A is the "onderlabium" (lower lip)
           \        /       B is the "frein" (harmonic brake); assume
            \      /          the "o" represents a bar placed crossways,
             \    /           parallel to and just above the pipe mouth
              \  /
                            The gap between languid and lower lip
                            is the glue.

If anyone cares I even know how the damn thing works -- based on
vortex-shedding theory -- but it's a long story.  Regards,

Richard Vance