Woodwind instruments

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Woodwind instruments
There are 3 sub families within the Woodwind
Family. Can you name them?

• Flutes
• Single reeds
• Double reeds

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Woodwind instruments are tubes that are made from
wood, plastic, or metal. Players blow their
"wind," or breath, into them to make sounds.
Some woodwinds are conical, or cone-shapedthe
tube starts small and gets bigger along the way
to the end. Other woodwinds are cylindrical, or
cylinder-shapedthe size of the tube stays about
the same from one end to the other, like a
paper-towel tube.
The shape of the bore (cone or cylinder) affects
the tone of the instrument and the overtones that
it produces. The octave key on woodwinds is
really a device that allows the column of
vibrating air to move into the higher ranges of
the overtone series for that instrument, commonly
referred to as overblowing the instrument or
playing in the altissimo range.
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The length of a woodwind instruments tube is
related to the pitch produced. If a tube has a
hole halfway up, the length of resonating column
of air is only as long as the tube down to the
hole. Cover the hole, and the pitch lowersthe
longer length of tube resonates. In this way the
player can change pitches by changing the length
of the resonating part of the tube of the
instrument.
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The Flutes

• There are many types of woodwinds that dont use
  a reed. These instruments are called the Flutes.
  How many do you know?
• Flutes (of course)
• Recorders
• Ocarinas
• Flageolettes transverse flutes
• Panpipes
• Tin whistles

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The Flute

• People have enjoyed playing the flute for at
  least 5,000 years. Most modern flutes are made of
  metal because metal helps them to sound louder in
  todays big concert halls.
• Flutes come in four sizes. The smallest flute is
  the piccolo.
• The flute is next in size and is the most popular
  member of its family.
• The alto flute is bigger than the flute, so it is
  lower in pitch. It has a deep, mysterious sound
  and takes more air when played.
• The bass flute is very long. The part into which
  the player blows has to be bent into a U shape so
  that the player can hold it.

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The Recorder

• The recorder is a kind of fipple flute, an
  end-blown flute that is found in folk music of
  many different cultures all over the world. The
  top end is stopped with a block (fipple) except
  for a small, flat opening for blowing, and there
  is a notch in the top side of the pipe near the
  blowing end.
• We know for sure that recorders have been played
  in Europe since the 1300s. They were at their
  most popular in the 1600s and early 1700s.
• Composers often wrote pieces for a consort of
  recordersa group of recorders in all different
  sizes, ranging from soprano to bass.
• Recorders played an important part in the music
  of baroque composers, including Bach, Vivaldi,
  Handel, Purcell, and Telemann.

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The Ocarina

• Ocarinas are globular flutes that can be traced
  back to ancient China, ancient Egypt and the
  pre-Columbian Americas. The Incas used ocarinas
  to relay messages in the Andes. The instruments
  have 4-12 holes, the pitch being determined by
  how many holes are covered with the fingers. The
  same fingering can produce 2 to 3 notes,
  depending on the way air is blown into the
  ocarina. The larger the vessel, the lower the
  tone. These instruments are made of clay, wood,
  gourds, and todays synthetic materials.

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The Flagolettes or Transverse Flutes/Fifes

• Transverse Flutes are first seen in Chinese art
  in the 9th century BC.
• Transverse flutes in the Renaissance had six
  holes producing a range of two octaves or more.
  They were commonly seen in three or four sizes
  and fingered like recorders except that they were
  pitched one note higher, not having the bottom
  little-finger hole. The tone of the upper
  register was not refined and cross-fingerings
  were necessary for chromatic tones.
• The fife was an enormously popular instrument in
  the United States during the period from the
  1750s until shortly after the end of the Civil
  War. Because of the prominent role of fifes and
  long drums during the Revolutionary War and the
  early years of the republic, these instruments
  have become traditional symbols of our nation.

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The Panpipes

• The Greeks and Romans had several kinds of
  flutes. The panpipes, an older style, were made
  of several tubes of staggered length. Legend
  says, they were invented by the God Pan. They
  have become associated with a pastoral lifestyle.

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The Tin Whistle

• No other whistle can match its clear, flute-like
  tone quality. Many famous musicians made their
  start in music with these instruments. In fact,
  James Galway, the world renowned flautist, first
  learned to play on a Pennywhistle.
• The tin whistle is a simple metal tube, with six
  holes and a mouthpiece like a recorder, and a
  range of about two octaves.

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The Single reedsClarinets and Saxophones

• Single Reed instruments use a reed-- a thinly
  sliced piece of cane wood, (or less frequently,
  plastic) -- that is held against the aperture of
  the mouthpiece with a ligature. When air is
  forced between the reed and the mouthpiece, the
  resulting vibration of the reed creates the
  resonant wave inside the tube.

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Clarinets

• The clarinet's predecessor was the chalumeau--the
  first true single reed instrument. It appeared in
  the late 1600's and wasn't very flexible and had
  a range of about 1.5 octaves.
• Johann Christoph Denner and his son, Jacob are
  attributed to innovating the speaker key which
  gave the clarinet a larger register. The clarinet
  overblows at the 12th, the other woodwind
  instruments overblow at the octave. So, when you
  play with the thumb and first three fingers of
  the left hand without the speaker key, you sound
  the note C. When you add the speaker key, you do
  not get a C an octave higher, you sound a G,
  which is the interval of a twelfth. Because of
  his improvements of the chalumeau, J C Denner is
  said to be the inventor of the clarinet.
• The clarinet has a cylindrical bore--it doesn't
  flare, even though the bell of the clarinet gives
  that impression. This is why the clarinet
  overblows at the twelfth and is so laden with
  overtones, which contributes to its unique sound.
  
• In the late 1700's, many improvements were made
  to the clarinet--more keys were added and the
  tone holes were experimented with--different cuts
  and such.
• Ivan Muller may be considered the father of the
  modern clarinet. Mullers 13 key system also
  allowed for extra openings, further improving
  tone and pitch. This provided a series of extra
  keys that could open and close in conjunction
  with the use of other keys and without the need
  for six extra fingers. The pads on a clarinet to
  this point had been made of felt. Mullers pads
  were made of wool and covered with gut or
  leather. They did not fall off as easily and were
  more waterproof.
• Hyacinthe Klose and Auguste Buffet adapted the
  Theobold Boehm (flute) fingering system to the
  clarinet ca. 1839-1843. This system is the one
  most common today, although there are other
  fingering systems in use such as the Albert and
  Auler (mostly in Germany.)
• The basset horn is a type of clarinet usually
  pitched in F. This was the instrument which
  Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto and
  Quintet. His friend, Anton Stadler was a
  virtuosic basset hornist and Mozart fell in love
  with the mellow, dark tone of the clarinet.

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Types of Clarinets
The E flat
Alto
Bass
Contra Alto
Contra Bass
There are 27 different types of clarinets
throughout the years.
The Basset Horn
The B flat
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Saxophones

• Adolphe Sax, the Belgian inventor, patented the
  saxophone in 1846. His invention combined the
  single reed of the clarinet with the bore and
  fingering patterns of the oboe, producing unique
  tonal qualities.
• He dreamed of an instrument with the flexibility
  of the strings, the tonal variety of the
  woodwinds, and the power of the brasses.
• He also wanted his instrument to produce the
  octave when overblowing, not the clumsy 12th as
  the clarinet. So he needed a larger conical bore.

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There are 7 types of saxophones. The E flat
Sopranino The B flat Soprano The E flat Alto The
B flat tenor The E flat Baritone The B flat
Bass And the E flat ContraBass
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The Double ReedsOboe, Oboe d'amore, English
horn, oboe da caccia Hecklephone, Double Bassoon
( contrabassoon ), Bassoon, Crumhorn, Shawm (
bass ), Shawm ( tenor )

• A double reed is two reeds bound together with a
  slight separation between them so that air
  passing through them causes them to beat against
  one another.
• Resistance refers to how easy or difficult it is
  to blow air through the reed. In general, the
  more resistant the reed, the more cane is on the
  reed, the longer the reed must be broken in, and
  the more demanding it is on the embouchure (mouth
  position).

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The Oboes, Oboe, Oboe d'amore, English horn

• The Oboe has a narrow conical bore. It was
  invented in the 17th century by the French
  musicians Jean Hotteterre and Michel Danican
  Philidor, who modified the louder shawm (the
  prevailing double-reed instrument) for indoor
  use. Their oboe, called hautbois (French for
  "high, or loud, wood"), had a narrower bore than
  the shawm's, a body in three sections instead of
  one, and a smaller reed.
• Oboe d'amore is the alto or mezzosoprano member
  of the oboe family.
• The English Horn is the alto of the family, is
  pitched a fifth lower than the oboe. It has a
  pear-shaped bell, giving it a soft, melancholy
  tone.

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The Bassoons also called Hecklephones

• The bassoons are the lowest and largest of the
  woodwinds. The bassoon itself first appeared
  about 1650, and by the end of the 1700s, it had
  from 4 to 8 keys. During the 1800s, many people
  experimented with improving the fingering of the
  bassoon. Most of the changes helped the
  fingering, but made the tone of the instrument
  suffer. The Heckel family of Germany managed to
  improve the fingering of the bassoon without
  damaging its tone.
• The reed fits onto the metal crook, or bocal,
  which is a curved metal tube about 13-1/2 inches
  long that fits into the bassoon.
• The double bassoon, or contrabassoon, sounds
  lower and is about two times longer

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Other Double Reeds
Shawms
Crumhorns
Cornamuse
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• The bagpipe is also a double reed instrument.
  Its origin was probably in Mesopotamia from
  which it was carried east and west by Celtic
  migrations. It was used in ancient Greece and
  Rome and has been long known in India. Some form
  of bagpipe was later used in nearly every
  European country it was particularly fashionable
  in 18th-century France, where it was called the
  musette. Its widest use and greatest development
  was in the British Isles, particularly
  Northumberland, Ireland, and Scotland. The
  Highland pipe of Scotland is the most well-known
  type, but at least six other types were once used
  in the British Isles. The basic construction of a
  bagpipe consists of a bag, usually leather, which
  is inflated either by mouth through a tube or by
  a bellows worked by the arm, melody pipes having
  finger holes and fitted usually with double
  reeds, and one or more drones, which produce one
  sustained tone each and usually have single
  reeds, though the musette drones have double
  reeds. Associated with folk and military music,
  it has been neglected by composers, possibly
  because of its short range.

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The Harmonica - The reeds are set in a small,
narrow case of wood or metal. For each reed there
is a hole, through which the player draws or
blows air with the mouth.
The Concertina - An improved small ACCORDION, but
without the accordion keyboard, was patented in
England in 1829. Its hexagonal end pieces are
fitted with studs for selecting the various
pitches from its reeds. Fully chromatic and
capable of various tonal effects, it has been
used in solo and chamber music. Tchaikovsky used
four concertinas in his second orchestral suite.
A popular instrument for informal occasions
during the 19th century, the concertina is still
widely used, especially in England.
The Accordian - (or the reed-organ) descended
from the Chinese SHENG, produces musical pitches
by means of thin reeds, set vibrating by air
under pressure or suction.