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The woodwinds are one of the oldest families of instruments because of the very simple way in which they work. It is possible that the first ‘wind’ sounds were made when our earliest ancestors picked up hollow pieces of wood or shells and blew into them. This section covers the instruments in the woodwind family and key examples of other non-orchestral wind instruments. The name ‘woodwind’ is given, unsurprisingly, to those instruments that were originally made of wood (and mostly still are). These instruments fall into two main categories.
Flute
The flute type can also be called an ‘edge’ instrument because the player blows towards a sharp edge, creating eddies that set the column of air vibrating the flute and the recorder are examples. The principle is rather like blowing across the top of a bottle.
Reed
All the other modern orchestral woodwind instruments employ reeds and there are two types of these: the single reed which is fixed on to the mouthpiece and made to vibrate when the player blows (e.g. a clarinet), and the double reed where the player blows to make the air vibrate between the two blades (e.g. an oboe).
In a typical modern orchestra at full size you might expect to find:
• Three flutes and a piccolo.
• Three oboes and a cor anglais.
• Three clarinets and a bass clarinet.
• Three bassoons and a double bassoon.
Somewhere, perhaps in Mesopotamia, about 7,000 years ago, a shepherd may well have looked at a goat skin and some hollow bones and had an idea for a new musical instrument: the bagpipe. In the early Christian era, the instrument spread from the Middle East eastward into India and westward to Europe. By the seventeenth century bagpipes were being played in European courts, but by the eighteenth century they were declining to become a minority folk instrument. In countries as diverse as Albania, Spain, Scotland and Ireland, the bagpipe is rightly valued as a living part of the culture.
Parts of a bagpipe:
• Bag: the skin of a lamb or goat, made airtight, is squeezed using the arm or the knees to feed air to the chanter and drones.
• Blowpipe (or bellows): the player blows air into the bag through a single- or double-reeded pipe. Some designs supply air using a bellows instead.
• Chanter: a pipe with fingerholes that are covered to vary the melody. Some versions have a second chanter.
• Drones: the air leaves the bag through these reeded pipes to make a continuous drone. Three drones are common, two or one less so.
Repertoire
Hear Scottish bagpipes swirl on the huge hit ‘Mull of Kintyre’ by Paul McCartney and Wings. Or you could buy the Mel Gibson video Braveheart to hear the sound of Uilleann piper Eric Riglersome on the soundtrack. Peter Maxwell Davies uses a piper to represent the sunrise in his entertaining Orkney Wedding and Sunrise.
Related Instruments
The bellows-blown musette was fashionable at the court of Louis XIV and was deployed by Jean-Philippe Rameau. In Brittany, the double-reed bombard is played in duet with a bagpipe.
The bassoon is known for its twin characteristics as the ‘clown’, for its comic effects, or the ‘gentleman’, for its eloquent, lyrical capacities. Its early development is thought to have followed the reconstruction of the shawm, a strident-sounding instrument often played in outdoor ceremonies during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Similarities in design and use also suggest the curtal or dulcian was the true forerunner of the bassoon.
It was used in Henry Purcell’s 1691 score The History of Dioclesian and the English musicologist James Talbot identified ‘a bassoon in four joynts’ around 1695. The four-key version made by the Denners of Nuremberg was the eighteenth-century standard, and Carl Almenräder’s 15-key bassoon met nineteenth-century demands for louder, more reliable, instruments. Two types now commonly used are made by the Heckel family and the Buffet-Crampon firm.
The bassoon has a smoother and less reedy sound than the oboe and is the true bass of the woodwind group. The size of this bass instrument poses special problems. The nine-foot-long tube has to be doubled back on itself and the finger-holes bored obliquely to be reached by the player’s fingers. Böhm’s key innovations did not work well for the bassoon, and its resultant system is exceptionally difficult to play. With a reed made by bending double a shaped strip of cane, the bassoon’s sound is one of the orchestra’s primary colours.
Repertoire
Vivaldi completed no fewer than 37 concertos for the bassoon, giving it both lyrical and jocular moods. The favourite depiction of the bassoon as a lumbering, pompous clown is surely in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas. For a contrast, listen to the instrument’s eerie opening to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
Related Instruments
The nearest instrument is the bass oboe and various attempts have been made to build a satisfactory one. The contrabassoon sounds an octave lower than the bassoon.
The clarinet’s predecessor was a small single-reeded mock trumpet called a chalumeau. It is not certain, but the invention of the clarinet is ascribed to Johann Christoph Denner of Nuremburg in the early 1700s. With its strong upper register, it quickly found a place in military bands, but was not regularly used in the orchestra until around 1800. The clarinet is usually made of African blackwood. To play it, you blow, gripping the mouthpiece, reed down, between your lips or lower lip and upper teeth.
The clarinet has an acoustical feature that sets it apart: if you blow harder, or ‘overblow’, on other woodwinds the pitch goes up an octave, but on a clarinet it goes up an octave and a fifth. The clarinet’s separate registers produce a range of characteristic timbres (sounds) rich and oily in the lowest register, slightly pale in the middle, clear and singing in the higher and rather shrill at the top.
There are two distinct key systems:
• Albert system: developed by Eugène Albert of Brussels, this is a modernisation of Iwan Müller’s 13-key system of around 1812. Used in German-speaking countries.
• Böhm system: patented by Klosé and Buffet (Paris, 1844), it incorporates much of Böhm’s 1832 flute fingering system. It brings many technical advantages and is standard in most countries.
Repertoire
Mozart’s marvellous music for the clarinet then a new instrument includes his Quintet in A K581 and Concerto K622. The virtuosity of Benny Goodman, the undisputed ‘King of Swing’, can be heard on his ‘Clarinet à la King’. And who can forget the insoucient ascending opening to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue?
Related Instruments
As well as today’s standard clarinet, the soprano in B flat, the instrument has taken varied forms, including: clarinetto sestino, sopranino clarinet, basset horn and clarinette d’amour.
This is probably the best-known instrument of Australia and is played by the Aboriginals of that country. At least 40 aboriginal names for it are known, from the north of Western Australia through the Arnhem Land peninsula to northern Queensland. Aboriginals trace the birth of the didgeridoo (also spelt didjeridu) to their ancestral Dreamtime, although some research suggests its origin might have been as recent as 1,000 years ago.
A type of drone pipe or straight wooden trumpet, the didgeridoo is an unstopped hollowed piece of bamboo or wood about four or five feet long, with a bore of two inches or more and a mouth-piece made of wax or hardened gum. Bamboo didgeridoos are traditionally hollowed out with a fire stick or hot coals. The yidaki is a hardwood version particular to Arnhem Land. Although traditional instrument-making techniques continue, they have also been made out of salvaged materials such as exhaust pipes.
The player blows into the instrument trumpet-fashion; the sound can vary from a continuous fundamental drone to a sharp ‘toot’. Using a process of circular breathing, with the cheeks being used much like bellows, players can set up remarkable continuous drones. Traditionally, the didgeridoo accompanies clicking sticks, singing and dancing, primarily in more ‘open’ ceremonies such as clan songs. Boys learn to play from an early age and talented players are recognised and held in high esteem by their community.
Repertoire
Rolf Harris popularised the didgeridoo on his hit ‘Sun Arise’, but for authentic experience try ‘Freedom’ by Australia’s leading aboriginal group, Yothu Yindi. Listen out for it in the jazz of McCoy Tyner’s ‘Uptown/Downtown’, or combined with the Celtic sounds of The Chieftains on ‘The Long Black Veil’.
Related Instruments
Similar, but found in a completely different setting, is the Alpine alphorn.
To have heard some of the earliest flute music, you would have had to be sitting in a cave 45,000 years ago, where a Neanderthal musician in Slovenia is thought to have fashioned such an instrument from the leg bone of a bear. The flute was known in ancient Greece by the second century BC, but it was not until around 1100 that it began to be used in Europe. King Henry VIII, a keen musician, had a good collection of them.
The sound is made when the flautist blows a stream of air against the edge of a hole in the side of the flute, causing the air enclosed in the instrument to vibrate. It was Theobald Böhm, a Munich flute player and inventor, who made the modern instrument possible. His definitive 1847 design incorporated an ingenious system of keys and levers. Before keys, fingerholes had to be placed where the player could reach them; with keys they could be positioned to achieve the best possible note. A modern flute is made of wood, or more commonly (since the twentieth century) of metal such as silver; and it is 67 cm (26 1Ž2 in) long.
Repertoire
When gently played, the flute can be cool, even sensual think of the languorous phrases in Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Two of Vivaldi’s popular flute concertos have evocative titles: ‘The Goldfinch’ and ‘The Stormy Sea’. Despite his supposed dislike of the instrument, Mozart’s two flute concertos are among the most popular in his repertory.
Related Instruments
In addition to the concert flute in C, there are the piccolo (an octave higher), the treble flute in G (a fifth higher), the alto flute in G (a 4th lower) and the bass flute in C (an octave lower).
A kazoo is one of a family of instruments called mirlitons. They have in common a membrane which is vibrated by sound waves produced either by the player’s voice or by an instrument. The distinctive sound produced has a buzzing quality, and the kazoo is the best-known member of the mirliton family. This has a membrane set into the wall of a short tube into which the player makes vocal noises. Many pop and jazz musicians have used kazoos in their music.
An even simpler homemade version has probably been tried by every child using tissue paper and a comb. Less well-known is the fact that certain flutes contain mirlitons, for example the Chinese ti, and that some African xylophones have mirliton resonators to give a slight rasping, rattling tone to the notes. Using the same principle, African mirlitons can even be found with a vibrating membrane made from spiders’ webs.
Repertoire
For sheer zany fun it would be hard to beat the kazoo antics of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on The History of the Bonzos. David Bedford wrote a piece called With 101 Kazoos for audience participation. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite includes a ‘Dance of the Mirlitons’, but this is usually interpreted as ‘Reed-pipe Dance’ and played on the flute.
Related Instruments
Other related membrane instruments include every kind of drum, but unlike them, the sound of a mirliton is not made by being struck.
The arrival of the Chinese sheng in Europe in the eighteenth century encouraged a great deal of experimentation with free-reed instruments in the early nineteenth century. One of the most popular was produced by Friedrich Buschmann of Berlin in 1821; this was the Mundäoline, now known as the mouth organ or harmonica.
From the early twentieth century, the instrument was adopted by folk and blues musicians, particularly in the US. Blues players gave it the name ‘harp’ and could create powerful effects by altering the shape of the mouth, making the instrument shriek and moan or even imitate a rhythmic train.
Inside the mouth organ, free metal reeds are set in slots in a small, metal-enclosed wooden frame. The notes are sounded by alternately blowing and sucking through two parallel rows of wind channels. The reeds are positioned so that they respond to alternate directions of wind flow. The tongue covers channels not required. In chromatic (12-note scale) models, a finger-operated stop alternates between two sets of reeds tuned a semitone apart. They can range from two to four octaves in compass, and bass models are also played.
Repertoire
There is no mistaking the exuberant brilliance of Stevie Wonder’s harmonica on Songs in the Key of Life. The jazz player Toots Thielemans performs his elegant quicksilver magic on Ella Fitzgerald’s Ella Abraca Jobim. Sample the raw blues energy of Howlin’ Wolf on his ‘Smokestack Lightnin’’.
Related Instruments
The sheng inspired a range of other free-reed instruments including the harmonium, the concertina and the accordion.
The word ‘oboe’ comes from the French hautbois, meaning ‘high (or loud) wood’. Its origins can be found in the shawm.
The orchestral oboe proper really came about during the mid-seventeenth century with the refinements of the French court musician, Jean Hotteterre, and others (it is worth noting that today, all orchestral instruments tune to the oboe). Having lost its former coarseness, it could be played indoors with stringed instruments and by the middle of the eighteenth century it was firmly established. Further improvements based on Theobald Böhm’s key technologies have given the modern oboe one of the most complex key systems. The main types of oboe are:
• Treble or soprano oboe: the principal member of the family, pitched in C.
• Oboe d’amore : the alto oboe, pitched in A. So called for the warmth of its sound and much used in J. S. Bach’s time.
• Cor anglais or English horn: neither English nor a horn, it is a tenor oboe pitched in F with a richer, more throaty tone.
• Baritone oboe: possibly originating in the seventeenth century, this is pitched in C an octave below the soprano.
If you’re an oboe player, your life revolves around your reeds, made from the bamboo-like plant Arundo donax. Most serious players make their own, although ready made reeds can be bought.
Repertoire
Bach used the oboe d’amore in 60 works, notably the St John Passion. The oboe also makes an impression in Debussy’s Images and is stirring in Ravel’s Boléro. One of the most poignant solos for cor anglais is in Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9.
Related Instruments
Double-reed instruments related to the oboe occur in many cultures around the world, for example the North African zurna and the Indian shahnai. Wilhelm Heckel’s heckelphone (1904) is a low-register combination of oboe and alphorn.
According to Greek legend, when Pan pursued the mountain-nymph Syrinx to the river’s edge, she was transformed into reeds which he then fashioned into the Pan’s pipes or Syrinx. The panpipes was also known in many other parts of the world, including China, Egypt and Oceania. In parts of Europe, for example the Pyrénées, it has been mainly a shepherd’s instrument. In Romania, by contrast, the 15- to 29-pipe instrument called a nai is played in virtuoso professional folk groups. Panpipes are at their most haunting when heard in South American folk ensembles, whose melodies evoke the mystery and atmosphere of snow-capped mountains. They are still popular in many parts of that continent, such as Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru.
The panpipes is a wind instrument consisting of cane pipes of different lengths, tied in a row or held together by other means and generally closed at the bottom. Metal, clay or wood versions are also made. The sound is produced when the player holds the pipe end to their mouth, blowing across the hole. Each pipe gives a different note. Although usually hand-held, the largest of the South American siku can exceed 2 m (6.5 ft) and has to be rested on the ground.
Repertoire
Georg Philipp Telemann wrote a short piece called Flauto Pastorale for syrinx in 1721. The many compositions of the Romanian virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir include a Concerto and a Rhapsody. The group Waykis evoke the sound of the Andes on their ‘Inca Gold’.
Related Instruments
In South America, panpipes are often played in conjunction with a large drum called a bomba.
This instrument’s full name Flauto Piccolo, Italian for ‘small flute’ says it all. It is the highest-pitched woodwind instrument to be found in orchestras and military bands, and its orchestral use dates from around the end of the eighteenth century, when it replaced the flageolet (also called at that time ‘flauto piccolo’). As with the flute, the player holds the instrument sideways and blows across the edge of a hole in the side of the instrument, finding just the right angle to make the sound. The sound has a high-pitched and shrill quality and can be heard above the range of other orchestral instruments.
Half the size of the standard flute, the piccolo has a conical or cylindrical bore and is a transverse (horizontally played) instrument. As with the ordinary concert flute, it is fitted with a key system developed by Theobald Böhm and the fingering is exactly the same. To make it easier for players of both instruments, piccolo music is written so that it looks the same, but the notes produced by a piccolo are actually an octave higher than as written on the page.
Repertoire
Beethoven was one of the first composers to use the piccolo, and you won’t hear a finer example of its orchestral effect than the high answering flourishes above the combined might of a full orchestra near the thrilling climax of his Fifth Symphony. Over a century later, the piccolo’s shrill coldness contributed much to the chilly symphonic domain of Dmitri Shostakovich.
Related Instruments
A six-keyed version in the key of D was formerly used in military bands so that it could play in flat keys. The piccolo is also closely linked to the shrill-toned fife, which dates from twelfth-century Europe and has been played with drums to accompany marching infantry since the time of the Crusades.
The recorder has a long history in Western music, probably dating back to the fourteenth century, when it appears to have been a development from an earlier kindred instrument. In 1619 Michael Praetorius listed seven members of the recorder family in his Syntagmatis Musici Tomus Secundus. Its chief repertory comes from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when it was very popular. Many composers, including J. S. Bach and George Frideric Handel, included recorder parts in their works, but its clear piping sound fell out of favour during the late eighteenth century.
The recorder was revived in 1919 by the English instrument maker Arnold Dolmetsch. Since this time the design of recorders has followed the early eighteenth-century Baroque style. They are made in four main sizes: descant (or soprano), treble (or alto), tenor and bass, although great bass, double bass and sporanino instruments are also made. They are traditionally made of wood, occasionally of ivory, although thousands are now made for schools using plastic.
The recorder has a beak-like mouthpiece at the top end of the instrument with a whistle-like aperture that provides the edge that makes the air vibrate when blown. The cylindrical body has holes that can be covered by seven fingers at the front and one thumb at the back to make different notes.
Repertoire
You may be able to pick out the recorder parts in some medieval compositions, but perhaps the most engaging recorder music can be found at the next local school concert, especially if someone you know is playing.
Related Instruments
The recorder is closely related to the flageolet. It is also linked to the flute; in Vivaldi’s day, the treble recorder was known as the ‘common flute’.
People have probably been blowing into things to make sounds since the beginning of time. Here is a selection of some of the perhaps less well-known ‘blown’ instruments around the world
• Alphorn: first made from a hollowed tree trunk, this long horn is famous for its cow-like signalling sound that carries for miles over the Alps.
• Aulos: Mediterranean folk players need strong cheeks and lungs to play this double-reed instrument with one to three pipes.
• Conch shell: originally blown to frighten enemies; the ancient conch shell trumpet is still played in ceremonies from Polynesia to Mexico.
• Ocarina: this elongated egg-shaped instrument was originally made from baked mud and, later, terracotta.
• Ophicleide: invented in France in 1821 as an improvement on the serpent, it was itself replaced by the bass tuba in orchestras.
• Palawta: variations on this six-hole flute are played in the Philippines. It is played transverse as is the modern Western flute.
• Putu (or Pututu): the indigenous people of the Atacamá desert region of Chile play this natural horn to accompany ancient rituals.
• Serpent: invented in sixteenth-century France, this is a long wooden tube shaped in a double ‘S’.
• Shahnai: a two-reed oboe or shawm with a small flared bell and a very piercing sound. It is played in northern India, Bangladesh and Persia.
• Shofar: a ram’s-horn trumpet, mainly used at important Jewish public and religious occasions.
• Trutruka: a strange-looking combination of vegetable-stem trumpet with an animal horn sticking out at a right angle, found in Chile and Argentina.