Post #5, Woodwind Instruments

 There are quiet a few woodwind instruments to discuss so I will be breaking this article into two posts.  Along with all of the popular brass and string instruments that we have discussed, woodwind instruments were also used.  Among the woodwind family six of them were influential or extremely popular at the time.  Recorders, flutes, bassoons, and three types of oboes were popular.  

Recorders belong to the iinternal duct flutes family.  This means that recorders have a whistle mouthpiece.  It has a thumb hole for the left hand and seven finger holes.  This was a popular instrument during the Medieval and Baroque period but has since waned out of popularity.  Recorders are generally split into bass, tenor, alto, and soprano voicings.  Curiously each instrument plays one octave higher than the voice it is named after.  For example a soprano usually sings from C4-C6 while the recorder plays C5-C7 although recorders were often not standardized and varied greatly in pitch potential.  The recorder was regarded as having a sweet sound (try to convince an elementary music teacher this) so Bach, Purcell, and Telemon among others used it to conjure images of miracles, shepherds, fields, birds, and anything to do with serene nature.  

The flute is an instrument with lasting popularity and found its way into the symphony from chamber music during the Baroque era.  During the Baroque period it was broken into three sections, instead of one or two during earlier times.  Often it was not a musician's primary instrument but by 1707 Jaques Martin Hotteterre wrote the first method book for flute.  

Below is a slideshow of these instruments plus a preview of the ones coming up next week!

And so you can hear a recorder sounding lovely as opposed to music class in elementary school...