The double-reed family of woodwinds consists of the oboe, English horn, bassoon, and contrabassoon. Each has a double reed made of cane that the player holds between his lips and blows air through, just as you did earlier with the paper drinking straw.

There have been many types of double-reed instruments throughout history. Imported to Europe from the Orient, they have rather strange names such as bombarde, pommer, schryari, krummhorn, and rackett. It was during the seventeenth century that these instruments began taking on the appearance and sound of our modern instruments.

The oboe is the soprano of the double-reeds, and its nasal tone gives the tuning note for the other members of the orchestra. Its body is a hollow tube made of wood, and it is sometimes confused with the clarinet because of its similar appearance. However, the tone of the two instruments is very different, and they each have their own special parts to play.

The English horn should really be called an alto oboe, since it is neither English nor technically a horn. It is simply a large oboe designed to play in the lower alto range. Its tone will remind you of a snake charmer, and it can be recognized easily because the bottom end of the wooden tube is shaped like a light bulb. The English horn alternates with the bass clarinet in playing the melody in the Arab Dance from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite—a most unusual combination of solo instruments.

The bassoon can play in either the tenor or the bass range. Its wooden body is nearly eight feet long but is folded in half to make it easier to hold. Although it has a fingering mechanism similar to the other woodwinds, the bassoon is the only wind instrument with more than two keys to be played with the thumbs. A bassoonist must manage eight different keys with his left thumb and four with his right. Although a skilled bassoonist makes it look easy, he has practised many hours in learning to manipulate all of those keys.

When played legato, the bassoon often plays the same part as the cello section. Its tone is similar enough to that of the cello to blend well with it. However, because of its ability to play wide leaps from high to low rapidly, the bassoon is often called upon to play comical-sounding melodies. It is nicknamed “the clown of the orchestra“. When Paul Dukas composed The Sorcerer’s Apprentice he wrote a funny little march to represent brooms-come-tolife fetching water from the river. The march is played, of course, by the bassoon.

The contrabassoon is the lowest-sounding instrument in the orchestra. Because its body is twice as long as the bassoon, nearly sixteen feet, it is folded into three sections. The sound of the vibrating double-reed travels down one part of the tube, makes a U turn and travels back up the middle section, makes another U turn to travel down the third section and out of the bell. The sound that comes out is so low that the floor seems to shake when it plays. Unlike the larger clarinets, the bassoon and contrabassoon are still made of wood.

The eighteen instruments of the four woodwind families, from the thirteen-inch piccolo to the sixteen-foot contrabassoon, have the widest range of sound from high to low and the greatest variety of tone-colours of any group of instruments in the band or orchestra. Whether used as solo instruments, in various combinations, or all together, they provide the listener with a great variety of rich, vibrant sounds.

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dodoMusic Equipments, Music Genres, Musical Instruments, Woodwinds1 Oct, 2008