All the instruments of the flute family are very similar. Their sound is produced by a vibrating air column, they are all fingered the same way, and they are made from metal. Although it is a small family and the instruments can’t play very loudly, the flute family has an important place in both our musical heritage and the music of today.

Instruments of the clarinet family are perhaps the most versatile and useful of the woodwinds. Descendants of a family of seventeenth-century instruments called shawms, shalmeys, or chalumeaux, their sounds are produced by blowing air across a single reed. The reed is fastened securely to a mouthpiece, a short hollow tube tapered at the end, with a metal band called a ligature. The tip of both the reed and mouthpiece are held in the player’s mouth, and when air is blown through the mouthpiece, the reed makes a squawking sound similar to the sound you made with the blade of grass. With the mouthpiece joined to the body of the clarinet, the sound is transformed into a rich, reedy tone.

As with the instruments of the violin family, clarinets come in many sizes, and each has its own special tone quality. The most common clarinet is the B-flat soprano. Beginning clarinet students nearly always start on this instrument. It is the one most frequently used in bands and orchestras (though clarinettists playing in orchestras occasionally substitute the slightly smaller A clarinet for the B-flat soprano). There is a smaller clarinet, the E-flat soprano, which is several inches shorter than the B-flat soprano and can play very high notes. All three instruments have a beautiful singing-tone quality in their middle and upper ranges. Their lower ranges are dark and reedy, perfect for playing background music when others have the melody.

There are four larger clarinets—alto, bass, contra-alto, and contrabass. Each can play four or five notes lower than the clarinet next smallest in size. The alto and bass have a rich, deep tone that can sound very mysterious. The contra-alto and contrabass play the lowest notes of all.

Instruments of the clarinet family have three different shapes. The three smallest clarinets are hollow black tubes made from either ebonite (hard plastic) or grenadilla wood (a very hard wood that comes from the West Indies). The alto and bass clarinets have a similar black tube-shaped body but are longer and have a metal upturned bell at one end and a metal neck that the mouthpiece fits into at the other.

Instrument makers have tried making all of the clarinets with metal bodies, but only the contra-alto and contrabass are still made entirely of metal. Their bodies are long metal tubes (six to eight feet) doubled back and forth like a tight S. They are held in front of the player like all of the clarinets but have a supporting rod on the bottom that rests on the floor to help support the instrument’s weight. With all of the necessary key mechanism attached to the body, these instruments are said to resemble a plumber’s nightmare.

All of the clarinets are played the same way. A clarinet player can “double” by playing several sizes of instrument; only a little practice is needed to get used to the differences in size and sound.

The newest family of woodwind instruments are the saxophones. These instruments have changed very little during their short history. A saxophone player of today could play the original saxophone with no trouble at all. Invented in 1842 by Adolphe Sax, the saxophone is a single-reed instrument like the clarinets. The bodies of these instruments have always been made of metal, and their shape and fingering mechanism are much the same today as they^. were in 1842.

After their invention, saxophones were quickly adopted in European military bands because of their strong sound, which blends well with both the other woodwinds and the brasses. Composers sometimes give the saxophone important solos with the orchestra because of its unique sound. In Ravel’s orchestration of Modeste Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a haunting melody on the saxophone depicts the Old Castle. The saxophone’s most important position, however, is in the fields of jazz and popular music. Although used sparingly in the orchestra, it has become a leading instrument in jazz, dance, concert, and marching bands.

Adolphe Sax built a complete family of saxophones with a total of fourteen different-sized instruments. Of the original fourteen sizes, three are in common use today: the E-flat alto, B-flat tenor, and E-flat baritone. Two others, the B-flat soprano and B-flat bass, are occasionally used to complete a saxophone choir. Since all saxophones are played the same way and are similar to the clarinet, players often double on the clarinet and one of the saxophones.

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dodoJazz, Popular Music, Saxophone, Violin, Woodwinds1 Oct, 2008