bout Reed Instruments Used in Early Music
There are a wide variety of reed instruments used in early music. It is useful to consider their features to gain a better understanding of them, and their relation to one another.
Some of these features are common to modern reeds, such as having a double reed, or single reed. Others are no longer used, such as gedackt bells, or capped reeds.
For the present discussion I have selected 5 pairs of features, as this is a number that is still somewhat easy to graphically illustrate. They are:
- Single/ Double Reed
- Gedackt/ Open bell
- Straight/ Curved bore
- Cylindrical/ Conical bore
- Uncapped/ Capped reed
The first pair are the number of reeds. There are single reeds, such as the modern clarinet and its ancestor the chalumeau. There are double reeds, such as the bassoon and its ancestor the dulcian. Single reed instruments only produce odd numbered harmonics and thus sound very different from double reeds. There are many more types of early double reed instruments, and they also seemed to be more prevalent than single reeds.
The second pair pertain to the bell of the instrument. Modern reeds and brass have open bells that are not obstructed. However, in the past, a few of the instruments had closed or partially closed bells. One can think of these as a partial mute. Such instruments were called gedackt, meaning closed. There are gedackt stops on the organ.
The third pair relate to the curvature of the bore. For the purposes of our discussion if the bore was not wound back upon itself, it is labeled straight. Curved bore instruments were used to make instruments that were lower in pitch ergonomically feasible, such as to have reasonable spans between finger holes. They also make such instruments more portable, and require fewer keys.
The fourth pair pertain to the taper of the bore. Some wind instruments have a cylindrical bore. This was probably derived from the shape of the reeds or other materials used to build them. Other instruments used conical bores. Again, this may have been on account of materials used, such as horns. On account of the different acoustical properties of these bore types, the different types of bores continued to be used in instruments that were crafted from blocks of wood.
The fifth pair involve chambers that cover the reed. In most modern reed instruments the reed is held between the lips. However, there are some exceptions such as the harmonica and melodica. In the past, reeds were sometimes covered in a chamber called a windcap. One would blow into the windcap, raising the air pressure inside. It would then flow out into the instrument through a tube covered with a reed. The reed would vibrate freely on account of the airflow.
The following radar charts illustrate the combinations of these features in early reed instruments. Each 'spoke' represents a pair of features. A value of 1 represents the first feature of the pair and a value of 2 represents the second feature.
- Aulos
1. 
- Bagpipe
- Bladderpipe
- Crumhorn
2. 
- Cornamuse
3. 
- Hornpipe
4. 
- Chalumeau
5. 
- Kortholt
- Sordune
- Renaissance Rackett
6. 
- Rauschpfeife
7. 
- Dulcian with gedackt bell
8. 
- Baroque Rackett
- Baroque Bassoon
9. 
- Taille de Oboe
- Baroque Oboe
- Oboe d’Amore
- Oboe da Caccia
- English horn
- Shawm/ Pommer/ Bombard
Some instruments have the same properties as others. If one further compares these charts, one can see that some instruments only differ by a single property and are thus very closely related. An example is the crumhorn and cornamuse, that only differ in that the cornamuse has a gedackt bell. Another example are rauschpfeife and shawms. Rauschpfeife have a capped reed, but otherwise have similar properties to shawms.
|
1.
|
2.
|
3.
|
|
4.
|
5.
|
6.
|
|
7.
|
8.
|
9.
|
Page Design Copyright 2010 Michael Berger
Clip Art Copyright 2002 Dover Publications
