

General considerations


Dankworth, Sir John; saxophone [Credit: Andrew Parsons/AP]Dankworth, Sir John; saxophoneAndrew Parsons/APWind instruments exhibit great diversity in structure and sonority and have been prominent in the music of all cultures since prehistoric times. A system of classification of these instruments must reflect and categorize the relationships and the differences between the many varieties. The conventional division of the symphony orchestra into sections has simplified the grouping of wind instruments into woodwinds and brasses, but this is an inaccurate classification that generally does not apply outside Western culture. The fact that some modern woodwinds, such as flutes and saxophones, are made of metal whereas several ancestors of present-day brasses, such as the cornett and the serpent, were typically made of wood illustrates the unsuitability of a classification according to material.


The Sachs-Hornbostel system further classifies aerophones as free aerophones or as wind instruments proper. The wind instruments subdivide into edge instruments, reedpipes, and trumpet-type instruments according to their manner of tone production. Free aerophones, which include a variety of folk instruments as well as such technologically sophisticated devices as reed stops in organs (see also keyboard instrument; the organ), are distinguished from the other categories because the vibrating air is not contained by a tube. The bull-roarer is the best example. A spatulate stone, bone, or board, sometimes carved in the shape of a fish or other object, is tied through a small hole to a string, which in turn is attached to a stick; when the instrument is whirled around, it produces a sound by its disturbance of the air. The mouth organ, the accordion, the reed organ, and the reed stops of the pipe organ are all considered free aerophones as well. They contain free reeds, which vibrate above or through a slot, setting the air into pulsations. The resulting pitch is determined by the thickness and length of the vibrating reed.

panpipe: girl playing a panpipe [Credit: Robert Frerck—Stone/Getty Images]panpipe: girl playing a panpipeRobert Frerck—Stone/Getty ImagesIn edge instruments (or flutes), an airstream directed against a sharp edge sets an adjoining air column within a tube into regular pulsations, producing sound. Flutes are divided into so-called true flutes and whistle flutes (also called duct flutes, fipple flutes, block flutes, or recorders). Like all aerophones, flutes may be simple or complex, depending on their construction, the transverse flute being simple and panpipes, organs, and other multiple-tube instruments being more complex.

end-blown flute [Credit: Lombroso]end-blown fluteLombrosoIn true flutes, a ribbon-shaped column of air is produced between the player’s lips and directed against the edge of an aperture. The player blows against either the sharp rim at the upper, open end of the tube (end-blown) or the rim of a hole in the side of the tube (side-blown). The Japanese shakuhachi is an end-blown flute, consisting of a wide bamboo tube with a notch at the top, four front finger holes, and one rear thumbhole. The transverse flute and piccolo of the Western orchestra are side-blown.

fipple flute [Credit: Courtesy of the Horniman Museum, London; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.]fipple fluteCourtesy of the Horniman Museum, London; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.The player of a whistle flute, by contrast, blows through a mouthpiece. The air passes through a duct, or windway, between a plug in the mouthpiece and the flute wall; the duct directs the air against the sharp edge of another hole farther down the body of the instrument. Because the airstream is shaped and directed by the duct rather than by the player’s lips, whistle flutes are simpler to play than true flutes. The recorder and the open flue stops of the organ are both whistle flutes.

ocarina [Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock]ocarinaiStockphoto/ThinkstockThe ocarina has a globular—as opposed to tubular—flute pipe. Consequently, it falls into a subcategory of whistle flutes known as vessel flutes. Such flutes, of various materials, are found in North and South America, Europe, Africa, China, and Oceania.

The second category of wind instruments comprises reed instruments, or reedpipes, which have a column of air that is activated by the vibrations between the two or more parts of a reed or between a single reed and the mouthpiece. In the Sachs-Hornbostel system, all multiple reeds are generically classified as oboes and the single reeds as clarinets. Accordingly, the bassoon is an oboe, and the saxophone is a clarinet.


With the Sachs-Hornbostel classification well in mind, the common terminology can be used with the understanding that the term woodwinds refers to flutes and reed instruments and the term brasses to lip-vibrated aerophones. Since the late 20th century, other categories have been suggested as additions to the Sachs-Hornbostel list. Notable among these is the human voice, which approximates the criteria for a double-reed aerophone. Approximating the sound—but not the structure—of reedpipes would be the so-called membranopipes, a proposed category embracing instruments that have a membrane, as opposed to a reed, to set the column of air in motion.

The production of sound










Trumpet-type aerophones






Given this awkward beginning, it is easy to imagine bending the slide back upon itself, a less-cumbersome alternative that appears to have been adopted in the mid-15th century. On so-called double-slide instruments, such as the Renaissance sackbut and its successor, the modern trombone, two parallel inner tubes of the slide mechanism are attached at their upper ends to the body of the instrument by a cross stay. The mouthpiece is fit into the top of one tube, and the bell section fits on the other. The U-shaped slide moves along the two stationary tubes, lowering the fundamental by a half step with each lower slide position and making available the notes of seven harmonic series.


valveless horn [Credit: (bottom) photograph, A.C. Baines]valveless horn(bottom) photograph, A.C. BainesIn the early 18th century, horn players in Bohemia discovered that the gaps in the instrument’s harmonic series could be filled by using the hand to partially stop the bell. When the hand was cupped to form an extension of the air column, the pitch of the note being played was lowered one-half step. Hand stopping, which became known throughout Europe in the 1750s thanks to the Bohemian hornist Anton Hampel, was later applied to the trumpet.


Perhaps because the natural horn had more notes available than 19th-century natural trumpets did and also because the valve system, particularly on the early horns, affected the purity of tone, valved horns were accepted slowly. At first, valves were considered a convenient substitute for crooks—in effect, a means to modulate (change key) quickly—but band musicians were quick to develop virtuoso techniques of rapid chromatic playing.


Flutes and reeds


Essential to sound production in reedpipes is the reed itself. Those used on most Western instruments are typically made from the stems of the large semitropical grass Arundo donax, commonly referred to by wind players as cane, grown on the Mediterranean coasts of France, Spain, and Italy. (Substitutes for cane—wood, whalebone, silver, and plastic—also have been tried.) Seasoned over a period of years, cane reeds may be purchased finished or be made by the players themselves.


clarinet reeds [Credit: Michael Scott Cuthbert (B-flat_e-flat_a-flat_reeds.jpg: CC BY-SA 3.0)]clarinet reedsMichael Scott Cuthbert (B-flat_e-flat_a-flat_reeds.jpg: CC BY-SA 3.0)The single reed for the clarinet is made from a slip cut from the stem of A. donax. After being trimmed, the reed is flattened on the inner side, while the end of the rounded outer side is scraped down to a feather edge. The thick end of the reed is attached, flat side down, to the mouthpiece by a metal ligature or length of twine. In playing, the thin end of the reed vibrates, alternately closing and opening the space between the reed and the mouthpiece. The vibration carries through the wedged-shaped tone chamber in the mouthpiece and into the air column in the tube.



In overblowing, the player tightens his lips on the reed. Increasing lip pressure is not always sufficient by itself, however, and a variety of techniques and mechanisms have been developed to assist the player in making the notes of the upper register emerge clearly and instantaneously. For example, on flutes and bassoons, the first finger hole is positioned so that, when it is opened on certain high pitches, low partials are prevented from forming; opening a special key on the clarinet, the saxophone, and the modern oboe serves the same purpose. Overblowing is not a universal practice: the double and single reeds of some non-Western and early European reedpipes are inserted directly into the oral cavity or are covered by a reed cap and hence, being uncontrolled by the lips, do not overblow.



In the late 18th century, additional keys were introduced to ease various difficulties of fingering and intonation. At first, open and closed keys were fitted to instruments through slots cut in rings or knobs of wood left after the body of the instrument was turned on a lathe; the key was secured in the slot with a metal pin. In the first quarter of the 19th century, as the number of keys increased, this type of mounting became increasingly inconvenient for builders. Brass saddles, which included the key mount, came to replace wooden knobs, first on bassoons and later on other woodwinds. Both these methods of affixing keys were eventually superseded by the use of metal pillars screwed directly into the wood, to which were attached the key and the axle. In addition, 19th-century reformers such as Theobald Boehm made other, more radical changes in instrument construction that, most notably, allowed the simultaneous closure of holes that lay at some distance from each other. (For a more extensive discussion of Boehm’s landmark modifications to the flute and other woodwind instruments, see The history of Western wind instruments: The Romantic period.) Changes of the type Boehm championed, along with the constantly expanding key system, brought with them a transformation in tone quality, as the valves did to the brass instruments. Although some connoisseurs consider these changes regrettable, they have made possible technical dexterity in all keys.

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