The Woodwind family

Wood – because that’s what they were made of.

Wind – because players use their breath in the instruments to create sound.

There are 4 regular members of the woodwind family in the orchestra:

Flute: Though there still are wooden flutes around, most are made of metal now, because metal flutes are louder and match the volume of the rest of the orchestra better.

Flute players make sound by blowing over the top of a hole at one end of the instrument – just like when you blow over the top of a pop bottle.

Clarinet: They’re made of a very hard and black wood called grenadilla.

The Clarinet is a single reed instrument, which means the player attaches a reed (piece of shaped cane – like bamboo) to a plastic mouth piece to play it.  When they blow air through the mouthpiece, the thin reed flutters very fast which creates the sound.

Oboe: Oboes are usually made of the same grenadilla wood that clarinets are made from.

The oboe is a double reed instrument.  It also uses pieces of cane to make sound, but instead of vibrating against a mouthpiece, the double reed instruments have two pieces of cane which vibrate together.

You can see that the flute, clarinet and oboe are all of a similar size.

Bassoon: The bassoon is another double reed, but bigger and lower.  They’re generally made from maple wood.

Though the tube of the bassoon is bent around to make it easier to play, the full length of the tube is almost 3 metres!

Since these instruments use different techniques to make sound, they all have distinct characters, but they sound great together.  Check out this video to hear the double reeds together.  Can you tell which instrument is which?

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