Composers use it for its strong strumming rhythms and cascading glissandi (sliding up and down the scale). .
WOODWIND.
The woodwinds, although constructed similarly, make up an odd family, for not only do they differ in pitch but they have quite distinct and easily identifiable tone colours. .
The reason lies in the way they are blown: the piccolo and flute are descendants of the baroque transverse flute, and are played through a hole in the side, rather than at the end, of the tube. The oboe, clarinet, cor anglais and bassoon are played through their ends, through reeds. The single reed of the clarinet gives it its smooth and fluid sound; the bassoon's double reed its gruff timbre. .
RECORDER .
The recorder, although familiar to children, only makes rare appearances in the orchestra. .
Widely used by composers from medieval times to the 18th Century, it comes from a family of instruments that had almost dropped out of the orchestra by Mozart's time. Only in recent years, with a revival of interest in early music, has it re-emerged as an instrument of the orchestra. .
PICCOLO .
This shrill piping instrument gets its name from the Italian for small flute (flauto piccolo) even through today its Italian name, the ottavino, points to its pitch, one octave above the standard flute. .
Its bright, piercing tone colour lends itself to the depiction of song-birds in baroque music, particularly in Vivaldi and Rameau. .
FLUTE .
"The soft, complaining flute," was how the poet Dryden described the gentle melancholy and subtle timbre of the baroque transverse flute made of wood. Its modern counterpart was developed in the 1840s, and though still made of wood it had acquired a sophisticated mechanism of keys and padded plates to do the work of the fingers. Modern flutes are made of all kinds of metals from silver-plated nickel to solid gold and platinum. .
CLARINET .
A late arrival to the orchestra, the clarinet is only one of a group of woodwinds which share the unique feature of single-reed mouthpiece.
