CHAPTER V
THE WOODWIND FAMILY
The Woodwind; the reed; the flute; the piccolo; the oboe; the cor anglais; the bassoon; the double-bassoon; the clarinet; the basset-horn; the bass-clarinet.
The Woodwind Family consists of instruments that may be described as wooden tubes, or pipes, through which the performer blows, stopping the holes in these pipes with his fingers in order to get various notes. Some of these are furnished with reeds and some are without. It is easy for us to tell the difference when we look at the Orchestra. The flutes are held horizontally and have no reeds. All the reed instruments are held by the player in a straight line, perpendicularly. The Reed Family is divided into two groups: the oboe group, furnished with a double reed; and the clarinet group, furnished with a single reed. This reed, single or double, placed in the mouthpiece of the instrument, is the “speaking” part. Without it, the instrument could not be played. The reed corresponds to the sound-post of the violin.
The reed is made of the outer layer of a certain kind of grass that grows in the south of Europe. Most of it is obtained from Fréjus on the Mediterranean. The reed is very difficult to fit and the player is very particular about it. If anything goes wrong with the reed, the instrument makes a dreadful noise that is called the couac, or quack. It is even worse than the wolf[19] on a stringed instrument.
In all woodwind instruments the embouchure is important. The embouchure is a certain arrangement of the lips by which the performer throws into the instrument all the breath that comes through the mouth without losing any of it and without giving the slightest hissing sound.
THE FLUTE
If we listen attentively to any piece of orchestral music, we will notice that the voice of the flute is rarely silent. Very often it doubles the first violins in the melody, running along with them smoothly and sweetly. Sometimes it plays an unobtrusive part of its own and every now and then bursts out into a lovely and elaborate solo, when its clear, silvery, liquid notes sound deliciously cool against the warm, vibrant strings. The flute is one of the most agile and flexible instruments in the whole Orchestra. The flute is the nightingale, the thrush, the lark, the oriole, the mocking-bird of the Orchestra. It warbles.
The voice of the flute is gentle; it is ethereal; it is heavenly; it is pure; it is sweet; and it is soothing. Therefore, composers make use of it for poetic and tender sentiment; for scenes of a religious nature; and to suggest beautiful dreams. It is both graceful and poetic and it induces reverie.
“To most persons,” Lavignac writes, “as to myself, the ethereal, suave, transparent timbre of the flute, with its placidity and its poetic charm, produces an auditive sensation similar to the visual impression of the color blue, a fine blue, pure and luminous as the azure of the sky.”
The flute is a long tube made in three pieces, or joints, as they are called. The head is one-third the length of the tube; the body carries the keys that produce the scale of D major; and, lastly, comes the foot joint, or tail-joint. The flute is cylindrical and is made of wood or silver. In the silver flute the head-joint alone is slightly conical. In the side of the head there is a large opening, less than an inch below the cork, and across this opening the performer blows his breath. On the lower part of the flute are six holes to be stopped at will by the first three fingers of each hand; and three or four levers on the lowest joint furnish additional notes below the regular scale of the instrument.