WIND INSTRUMENT

any musical instrument that uses air as the primary vibrating medium for the production of sound. musical instrument that uses air as a primary vibrating medium for the production of sound. In the West, wind instruments help make up the second section of the orchestra and have been traditionally divided into woodwinds (clarinet, oboe, flute, and saxophone) and brass (trumpet, trombone, French horn, and tuba). This system, however, is not consistent (saxophones are made of brass, and flutes can be made of silver or gold) and does not take into account the method of sound production. According to the classification of Hornbostel and Sachs (1914), now widely accepted by organologists, winds, or aerophones, may be divided into free aerophones (bull-roarer, ribbon reed, orchestral whip, mouth organ, accordion, and a reed stop on an organ), which do not contain the vibrating air, and wind instruments proper, which contain the air. Wind instruments proper are subdivided into edge instruments (flute and open flue organ stop), trumpets (lip-vibrated instruments), and reedpipes (single- or double-reeds). The category of free aerophones includes some of the oldest musical instruments. The bull-roarer may date back about 25,000 years and in most cultures is associated with the supernatural. It consists of a thin piece of wood, bone, or ivory attached to a long cord. The instrument is swung around the player's head, causing the disk to rotate on its axis and produce tone. The mouth organ is classified as a free aerophone with sets of free reeds. This family includes modern harmonicas and melodicas as well as the ancient Oriental types, the Chinese sheng, the Japanese sho, and the southeast Asian khaen. These Asian instruments consist of a gourd or wooden wind-chest from which a clustered set of long bamboo tubes extend, each enclosing a reed. The most common edge instrument is the flute. The Western orchestral version is side-blown (transversely), but many folk and non-Western types are end-blown (extending outward from the face)for example, the Middle Eastern nay and the Swazi umtshingo. Sets of end-blown flutes are known as panpipes. These may be arranged in the form of a bundle or a raft (with one or two rows of pipes) or fashioned from a single block of pottery. Panpipes are common in Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Fipple flutes (also called whistle flutes, or duct flutes) have an internal plug that focuses a thin stream of air against a hard edge. Some, like the European recorder, have a beak-shaped mouthpiece. Double and triple fipple flutes are common in Latin America and eastern Europe. One pipe is usually unfingered and serves as a drone, while the melody is played on the remaining pipe (or pipes). Ocarinas and vessel flutes are globular rather than tubular and may have fingerholes and a mouthpiece. Trumpets are one of the most diverse types of wind instrument; they range from the sophisticated orchestral valve trumpet, French horn, tuba, and slide trombone to simple conch-shell trumpets of Asia and the Pacific and natural ivory and horn trumpets of Africa. For all of these instruments the sound is produced by an airstream passing through the player's vibrating lips, and for this reason some organologists refer to this family as lip reeds. Long trumpets such as the Swiss alphorn, the Tibetan Buddhist dung-chen, and the South American bark trumpet are traditionally used for signaling across long distances. Reed pipes that have a single beating reed, usually made of dried and scraped bamboo cane, are collectively known as clarinets. They include the orchestral clarinet, saxophone, and basset horn. Clarinets are found in Europe, northern and western Africa, and South America. Double-reed instruments are generically referred to as shawms or oboes. Shawms are found throughout the world, for example, the Middle Eastern zurna, the Indian shahnai, the Chinese so-na, and the Thai pi-nai, the last unusual because it has a quadruple reed made of dried palm leaf. Western types include the Renaissance cornemuse, crumhorn, and racket and the modern oboe, English horn, and bassoon. Additional reading Anthony Baines, Woodwind Instruments and Their History, 3rd ed. (1967, reprinted 1977), remains an authoritative work in its field; Arthur H. Benade, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics (1976, reissued 1990), addresses the questions of sound production; and Adam Carse, Musical Wind Instruments: A History of the Wind Instruments Used in European Orchestras and Wind-Bands from the Later Middle Ages Up to the Present Time (1939, reprinted 1975), surveys the instruments by type. Good illustrations are presented in Phillip T. Young, Twenty-Five Hundred Historical Woodwind Instruments: An Inventory of the Major Collections (1982); and James M. Borders, European and American Wind and Percussion Instruments: Catalogue of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, University of Michigan (1988). See also Jean Jenkins (ed.), International Directory of Musical Instrument Collections (1977); and Lyndesay G. Langwill, An Index of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers, 6th rev. ed. (1980).Individual instruments are studied in F. Geoffrey Rendall, The Clarinet: Some Notes Upon Its History and Construction, 3rd ed., rev. by Philip Bate (1971); William H. Stubbins, The Art of Clarinetistry: The Acoustical Mechanics of the Clarinet as a Basis for the Art of Music Performance, 3rd rev. ed. (1974); Philip Bate, The Oboe: An Outline of Its History, Development, and Construction, 3rd ed. (1975); Gunther Joppig, The Oboe and the Bassoon (1988; originally published in German, 1981); Lyndesay G. Langwill, The Bassoon and Contrabassoon (1965, reprinted 1975); William Waterhouse, The Proud Bassoon (1983); Will Jansen, The Bassoon: Its History, Construction, Makers, Players, and Music, 5 vol. (1978); Barra Boydell, The Crumhorn and Other Renaissance Windcap Instruments: A Contribution to Renaissance Organology (1982); Theobald Boehm, The Flute and Flute-Playing in Acoustical, Technical, and Artistic Aspects, 2nd ed. (1922, reissued 1964; originally published in German, 1871); Philip Bate, The Flute: A Study of Its History, Development, and Construction, 2nd ed. (1979); Nancy Toff, The Development of the Modern Flute (1979, reprinted 1986); Raymond Meylan, The Flute (1988; originally published in French, 1974); Michael Seyfrit (comp.), Recorders, Fifes, and Simple System Transverse Flutes of One Key (1982); Edgar Hunt, The Recorder and Its Music, rev. ed. (1977); R. Morley-Pegge, The French Horn: Some Notes on the Evolution of the Instrument and of Its Technique, 2nd ed. (1973); G.B. Lane, The Trombone in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1982); Robin Gregory, The Trombone: The Instrument and Its Music (1973); Philip Bate, The Trumpet and Trombone: An Outline of Their History, Development, and Construction, new ed. (1978); and Werner Menke, History of the Trumpet of Bach and Handel: A New Point of View and New Instruments, trans. from German (1934, reissued 1985). Eugene J. Enrico James M. Borders