Woodwind instrument: list of all the most popular musical instruments in this family. Any well-known instrument in the Woodwind instrument instruments family is included along with photos when available. Examples include Mouth organ and Recorder. The woodwind family, by definition, There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments. What differentiates these instruments from other wind instruments is the way in which they produce their sound. While that may sound complicated, it really isn't. Certain types of woodwinds, open flutes in particular, use required to blow a stream of air across a sharp edge that then splits the airstream. Contrarily, to produce a sound with a closed flute, the player is required to blow air into a duct. Sounds complication, but in the end, the noises the instrument make are beautiful and soothing. On this list of all of the instruments in the woodwind family, you're likely to see a bunch of instruments you've never heard of. Who knows, you may discover something you never heard of, you may want to pick it up and learn how to play it. {#nodes}
The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range. It is a transposing instrument in G and, like the piccolo and bass flute, uses the same fingerings as the C flute.
The tube of the alto flute is considerably thicker and longer than a C flute and requires more breath from the player. This gives it a greater dynamic presence in the bottom octave and a half of its range.
It was the favourite flute variety of Theobald Boehm, who perfected its design, and is pitched in the key of G.
Its range is from G3 to G6 plus an altissimo register stretching to D♭7. The headjoint may be straight or curved.
British music that uses this instrument often refers to it as a bass flute, which can be confusing since there is a distinct instrument known by that name. This naming confusion originated in the fact that the modern flute in C is pitched in the same range as the Renaissance tenor flute, therefore a lower pitched instrument would be called a bass.
The bass oboe or baritone oboe is a double reed instrument in the woodwind family. It is about twice the size of a regular oboe and sounds an octave lower; it has a deep, full tone somewhat akin to that of its higher-pitched cousin, the English horn. The bass oboe is notated in the treble clef, sounding one octave lower than written. Its lowest note is B₂, one octave and a semitone below middle C, although an extension may be inserted between the lower joint and bell of the instrument in order to produce a low B♭₂. The instrument's bocal or crook first curves away from and then toward the player, looking rather like a flattened metal question mark; another crook design resembles the shape of a bass clarinet neckpiece. The bass oboe uses its own double reed, similar to but larger than that of the English horn.
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor clefs, and occasionally the treble. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature. The bassoon is a non-transposing instrument known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, variety of character and agility. Listeners often compare its warm, dark, reedy timbre to that of a male baritone voice. Someone who plays the bassoon is called a bassoonist.
The bombard, also known as talabard or ar vombard in the Breton language or bombarde in French, is a contemporary conical-bore double-reed instrument widely used to play traditional Breton music. The bombard is a woodwind instrument, and a member of the oboe family. Describing it as an oboe, however, can be misleading since it has a broader and very powerful sound, vaguely resembling a trumpet. It is played as other oboes are played, with the double reed placed between the lips. The second octave is 'over-blown'; achieved via increased lip and air pressure or through the use of an octave key. It plays a diatonic scale of up to two octaves, although contemporary instruments frequently have added keywork permitting some degree of chromaticism. A bombard player is known as a talabarder after 'talabard', the older Breton name for the bombard.
The term is also used to describe a very powerful bass reed stop on a pipe organ, usually at 16 feet or 32 feet or—rarely—even 64 feet.
A “strange bamboo flute with a saxophone mouthpiece attached to it called a claghorn—a dreadful instrument that I invented,” according to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and made by Jeffrey Hammond for the recording of This Was.
The clarinet is a family of woodwind instruments that have a single-reed mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an approximately cylindrical bore, and a flaring bell. A person who plays any type of clarinet is called a clarinetist or clarinettist.
The word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette, or from Provençal clarin, "oboe". It "is plainly a diminutive of clarino, the Italian for trumpet", and the Italian clarinetto is the source of the name in many other languages. According to Johann Gottfried Walther, writing in 1732, the reason for the name is that "it sounded from far off not unlike a trumpet". The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, and the now-archaic clarionet appears from 1784 until the early years of the 20th century.
There are some different types of clarinets of differing sizes and pitches. The unmodified word clarinet usually refers to the B♭ soprano clarinet, by far the most common type, which has a large range of nearly four octaves. The clarinet family is the largest woodwind family, with more than a dozen types, ranging from the BBB♭ octo-contrabass to the A♭ piccolo clarinet.
