Aerophone, any of a class of musical instruments in which a vibrating mass of air produces the initial

sound. The basic types include woodwind, brass, and free-reed instruments, as well as instruments that
fall into none of these groups, such as the bull-roarer and the siren. Bagpipes and organs are hybrids
with different kinds of pipes. The word aerophone replaces the term wind instrument when an
acoustically based classification is desired. This classification also includes the chordophone (in which
the initial sound is produced by vibration of a stretched string), the membranophone (produced by the
vibration of a stretched membrane), the idiophone (produced by the vibration of a resonant solid
material), and electrophone (produced or amplified by electronic means).

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This category covers everything from the piccolo to the pipe organ and is best understood by consistent
reference to the nature of the air column employed in the various types of instruments, as well as the
way this air column is set into motion. Brass instruments consist of a long tube whose cross section is
proportionately small. Coupled with a mouthpiece that, in response to vibrations of the performer’s lips,
helps to create eddies of air pressure that set an enclosed air column into motion, these instruments
produce a range of pitches corresponding to the overtone series. The bugle is a primitive kind of brass
instrument in that it is limited to only one overtone series, while the modern trumpet, cornet, French
horn, trombone, tuba, flügelhorn, and various kinds of euphoniums utilize valves or a slide to lengthen
the air column and thus provide up to seven different overtone series. Pitch on these instruments is
primarily a function of tube length, the wavelength of the instrument’s fundamental pitch equal to twice
the length of the tube, plus a so-called end correction that accommodates variations of bore. Timbre is a
product of mouthpiece shape, bore (whether cylindrical or conical), and material, aside from the
important role performed by the player himself in obtaining desired overtones.

Woodwinds prior to the 20th century were made for the most part of wood. Today the flutes and
clarinets are classified in this group only because of this heritage, while the saxophones, always built of
metal, share only the reed mouthpiece and similar fingering technique with the clarinet. All are,
nonetheless, called woodwinds, and they consist of an air column set into motion by one of two means:
(1) through high pressure eddies produced by the wind of the performer blown directly into the
instrument (as with a recorder or whistle) or over it (as with the flute and piccolo), or (2) by means of a
vibrating reed that is set into motion by air pressure from the performer. The clarinets and saxophones
utilize a single reed fixed at one end, while the oboe, English horn, and bassoon use two thin reeds that
are connected laterally and vibrate jointly. For all of these instruments, either keys or the fingers of the
performer directly open holes, with the effect of shortening the enclosed air column of the instrument
and thereby producing higher fundamental pitches. Through overblowing and various fingering
procedures, the overtone series provides the wealth of pitches available on these instruments.

Free reed instruments utilize a single, freely vibrating reed, different in nature from that of a woodwind.
The category includes the accordion, harmonica, and harmonium and their relatives. In these
instruments the reed vibrates, causing periodic vibrations in the air; but the reed’s size, rather than the
air enclosed by the instrument, determines the pitch.

Pipe organs are of the aerophone (wind) category, too, although their keyboard mechanism and
literature link them closely with the piano and harpsichord. Like a grand synthesis of woodwinds and
brasses, organs produce their tones by means of tuned air columns that are formed with pipes of varied
length, cross section, and shape (called flue pipes) or by means of a vibrating brass reed actuated by
forced air (called reed pipes). Flue pipes range in length from under an inch to 32 feet.

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Wind instrument

Trumpet-type aerophones

As regards sound generation, trumpets and horns differ from other aerophones in their use of the so-
called “lip reed,” which is formed when the player’s partially closed lips vibrate as they press against the
rim of a mouthpiece or mouth hole (although the behaviour of the lips, strictly speaking, is not exactly
comparable to the operation of a reed). When the lips vibrate, the resulting tremor in the flow of the
breath is transmitted to the air in the tube, which resonates at the frequency that most closely matches
that of the lips. The experienced player adjusts his embouchure (position of the lips in relation to the
mouthpiece) to produce the desired frequency.

The mouthpiece, an important accessory to sound production in trumpet-type aerophones, is an

adapter used to widen the starting diameter of a bore otherwise too small to allow the lips to vibrate
effectively. It has three internal elements—the cup; the throat, an opening at the base of the cup; and
the backbore, which leads to the main tubing—the shape and relationship of which strongly influence an
instrument’s tone and technical capacity. Mouthpieces on Western orchestral trumpets have a
hemispheric cup with shallow walls that meet the throat at a sharp angle; these effect a bright tone.
Mouthpieces used with cornets and trombones are deeper, with rounded-off throats, and those for
orchestral horns are virtually funnel-shaped; these all produce a more mellow tone.

An instrument’s bore also influences its tone, as reflected in the subtypes trumpet and horn in the
Sachs-Hornbostel classification. Trumpets normally have narrow cylindrical bores that expand in the
final third of the tube’s length and terminate in a small bell, which helps to radiate the sound and to
bring the harmonics into tune. This bore configuration, in conjunction with a mouthpiece with a shallow
cup, favours the production of high partials. Horns, on the other hand, have expanding bores through all
or part of the tube’s length and normally end in a large bell. Aided by a deep-cupped or funnel-shaped
mouthpiece, they favour low partials and function most efficiently in a low range.
Ways of filling in the missing tones of the harmonic series on trumpet-type aerophones were known in
the West as early as the 10th century, when finger holes, which shorten the sounding length of the tube,
were cut into instruments made from animal horns. The cornett, which was made from two halves of a
hollowed-out block of wood that had been glued together and bound with leather, was similarly fitted
with finger holes and was widely used in Europe from the end of the 15th through the 17th century. In
the late 18th and 19th centuries, makers covered the holes of trumpets and horns with keys to enable
them to play a complete chromatic scale; the keyed horn was invented in Bohemia about 1770, and keys
were thereafter added to the trumpet and the bugle.

Another solution to providing the missing tones was to increase the sounding length of the tube,
thereby making the partials of different harmonic series available separately and producing a chromatic
scale. As early as the 14th century, the term sacabuche (Spanish: “drawpipe,” or “pull push”) was used
to refer to a lip-vibrated instrument, presumably with a single telescoping slide. Fifteenth-century
Flemish paintings depict what appear to be slide trumpets, in which the player slid the entire instrument
up and down along the long shank of the mouthpiece with one hand, steadying the mouth pipe with the
other.

Given this awkward beginning, it is easy to imagine bending the slide back upon itself, a less-
cumbersome alternative that appears to have been adopted in the mid-15th century. On so-called
double-slide instruments, such as the Renaissance sackbut and its successor, the modern trombone, two
parallel inner tubes of the slide mechanism are attached at their upper ends to the body of the
instrument by a cross stay. The mouthpiece is fit into the top of one tube, and the bell section fits on the
other. The U-shaped slide moves along the two stationary tubes, lowering the fundamental by a half
step with each lower slide position and making available the notes of seven harmonic series.
Crooks, detachable lengths of tubing, also were used to increase the sounding length and lower the
pitch of trumpets, trombones, and horns. They are of two types: “terminal” crooks, which attach to the
mouthpiece receiver, and “medial” crooks, which are inserted in a wider portion of an instrument’s
tubing. First mentioned in the mid-16th century, both types of crooks are clearly depicted in Michael
Praetorius’s Syntagma musicum (1619). Praetorius’s illustration of trombones, for example, features
crooks inserted between the slide and bell sections. Terminal crooks were common on trumpets from
the 17th through the 19th century. They were also used, singly and in combination, on the horn until the
mid-18th century, when sliding medial crooks were added to the tubing inside the hoop of the German
horn known as the Inventionshorn.

In the early 18th century, horn players in Bohemia discovered that the gaps in the instrument’s
harmonic series could be filled by using the hand to partially stop the bell. When the hand was cupped
to form an extension of the air column, the pitch of the note being played was lowered one-half step.
Hand stopping, which became known throughout Europe in the 1750s thanks to the Bohemian hornist
Anton Hampel, was later applied to the trumpet.

About 1815, either Heinrich Stölzel or Friedrich Blühmel, both of Berlin, invented the valved orchestral
horn. When the valve was opened by depressing a key, it deflected the airstream into extra tubing,
changing the effective length of the tube and lowering its pitch. The two valves of the original valved
horns were used in combination: the first lowered the pitch one step and the second a half step;
together they lowered the pitch one and a half steps. Later, a third valve, which lowered the pitch yet
another step and a half, became a standard feature of such instruments. Used singly and in
combination, these valves made the instrument completely chromatic above the second partial. The
illustration below shows the harmonic series made available by the depression of different valves and
combinations of valves; notes shown in black are slightly out of tune with the equally tempered scale.
Perhaps because the natural horn had more notes available than 19th-century natural trumpets did and
also because the valve system, particularly on the early horns, affected the purity of tone, valved horns
were accepted slowly. At first, valves were considered a convenient substitute for crooks—in effect, a
means to modulate (change key) quickly—but band musicians were quick to develop virtuoso
techniques of rapid chromatic playing.

Despite their convenience, valves are inherently defective in that they open a fixed amount of tubing. If
the first valve on an instrument in C is depressed, lowering the pitch a whole step, the fundamental
pitch of the instrument is changed from C to B♭. Using the second valve and its corresponding length of
tubing (intended for a C instrument) to lower the instrument, now in B♭, a half step requires slightly
more tubing than needed to lower a C instrument a half step. In many cases, the player can correct such
discrepancies by adjusting his embouchure, decreasing slightly the speed of lip vibration to flatten the
pitch without destroying its tone quality. The greater the amount of tubing, however, the worse the
discrepancies in tuning. Most trumpets now have compensating slides that operate either manually or
automatically to add length to the tubing on the first and third valves. For some large instruments, such
as tubas, this device is impractical, and extra valves are added.

Flutes and reeds

Sound is generated by different methods in the aerophones designated as flutes and reeds in the Sachs-
Hornbostel system. In flutes, the airstream is directed against a sharp edge; in reeds, the air column in
the tube is caused to vibrate between beating parts of a multiple reed or between a beating single reed
and a mouthpiece.

Essential to sound production in reedpipes is the reed itself. Those used on most Western instruments
are typically made from the stems of the large semitropical grass Arundo donax, commonly referred to
by wind players as cane, grown on the Mediterranean coasts of France, Spain, and Italy. (Substitutes for
cane—wood, whalebone, silver, and plastic—also have been tried.) Seasoned over a period of years,
cane reeds may be purchased finished or be made by the players themselves.

The double reed for an oboe or a bassoon is made from a strip of cane about twice the length of the
finished reed. The inner surface is gouged thin, shaped to be narrower at the ends, and notched in the
middle. The reed is then soaked in water and folded in half at the notch. The free ends are bound with
thread and, for oboes and English horns, mounted on a short tapered metal tube called a staple. A
bassoon reed is bound with thread and wire over a steel mandrel, which is later removed to leave a
hollow rounded stem. To finish the reed, the halves are separated at the notch and the tips scraped to a
feather edge on the outside. The form and degree of “scrape” applied to the tip of the reed have a
profound influence on its behaviour and may vary a great deal from player to player. In playing, the
double reed of the oboe and the bassoon is held by the tension of the lips drawn in over the teeth. The
opening between the two blades of the reed alternately opens and closes with the pressure of the
breath to generate the pulsations in the tube.

The single reed for the clarinet is made from a slip cut from the stem of A. donax. After being trimmed,
the reed is flattened on the inner side, while the end of the rounded outer side is scraped down to a
feather edge. The thick end of the reed is attached, flat side down, to the mouthpiece by a metal
ligature or length of twine. In playing, the thin end of the reed vibrates, alternately closing and opening
the space between the reed and the mouthpiece. The vibration carries through the wedged-shaped tone
chamber in the mouthpiece and into the air column in the tube.
The body of some folk instruments is itself a length of reed, made into an instrument by cutting and
raising a rectangular tongue from the tube below a natural knot. The tongue is sometimes kept from
closing down completely by inserting a hair at the base of the cut.

Because the tubes of flutes and reed instruments (in contrast to those of trumpet-type aerophones) are
short in relation to their diameter, they are generally capable of sounding the fundamental and respond
best to pitches low in the overtone series. To play in the upper register, the player must overblow,
breaking the air column into parts, each of which vibrates at a frequency that is in direct proportion to
the fundamental. Oboes, bassoons, and saxophones—all open tubes with conical bores—overblow at
the octave; clarinets, whose cylindrical bore acts as a closed pipe, overblow at the 12th.

In overblowing, the player tightens his lips on the reed. Increasing lip pressure is not always sufficient by
itself, however, and a variety of techniques and mechanisms have been developed to assist the player in
making the notes of the upper register emerge clearly and instantaneously. For example, on flutes and
bassoons, the first finger hole is positioned so that, when it is opened on certain high pitches, low
partials are prevented from forming; opening a special key on the clarinet, the saxophone, and the
modern oboe serves the same purpose. Overblowing is not a universal practice: the double and single
reeds of some non-Western and early European reedpipes are inserted directly into the oral cavity or
are covered by a reed cap and hence, being uncontrolled by the lips, do not overblow.

Because of the acoustic characteristics of flutes and reeds, only a few pitches are available on
instruments lacking finger holes. Thus, instruments with finger holes are known in most cultures, as are
fingering systems. Typical of such systems in the West is the six-hole system, so named because the six
finger holes of the Baroque transverse flute and oboe—there were no thumbholes—were controlled by
the first, second, and third fingers of both hands. (The left hand normally took the higher position on the
pipe, but this did not become standard until the mid-18th century.) Both instruments were pitched in D
and sounded d (the D below middle C) when all six finger holes were covered. Lifting the fingers one by
one, beginning with the lowest, shortened the sounding length of the instruments and produced e, f♯, g,
a, b, and c♯—the remaining notes of the D-major scale; the octave (d′) was overblown.

On six-hole transverse flutes and oboes, chromatic pitches were obtained by closing one or more holes
below an open one, a technique known as cross-fingering. For example, to produce f rather than f♯, the
player uncovered the fifth hole with the second finger of his right hand while keeping the sixth hole (and
the first through fourth holes) covered. (Because this arrangement of the fingers looked vaguely like the
tines of a fork, some musicians call it a fork fingering.) With the six-hole configuration, however, no
cross-fingering could produce e♭/d♯, because there was no hole to cover below the fundamental, d.
Consequently, a seventh hole was bored between the sixth and the end of the transverse flute and
oboe; it was covered by a closed key controlled by the fourth finger of the right hand. (A closed key
covers the hole when at rest.)

In the late 18th century, additional keys were introduced to ease various difficulties of fingering and
intonation. At first, open and closed keys were fitted to instruments through slots cut in rings or knobs
of wood left after the body of the instrument was turned on a lathe; the key was secured in the slot with
a metal pin. In the first quarter of the 19th century, as the number of keys increased, this type of
mounting became increasingly inconvenient for builders. Brass saddles, which included the key mount,
came to replace wooden knobs, first on bassoons and later on other woodwinds. Both these methods of
affixing keys were eventually superseded by the use of metal pillars screwed directly into the wood, to
which were attached the key and the axle. In addition, 19th-century reformers such as Theobald Boehm
made other, more radical changes in instrument construction that, most notably, allowed the
simultaneous closure of holes that lay at some distance from each other. (For a more extensive
discussion of Boehm’s landmark modifications to the flute and other woodwind instruments, see The
history of Western wind instruments: The Romantic period.) Changes of the type Boehm championed,
along with the constantly expanding key system, brought with them a transformation in tone quality, as
the valves did to the brass instruments. Although some connoisseurs consider these changes
regrettable, they have made possible technical dexterity in all keys.