Wind instrument

A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of some wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed. Others require buzzing into a metal mouthpiece, while yet others require the player to blow into a hole at an edge, which splits the air column and creates the sound.

Types

Wind instruments are typically grouped into two families:

Brass instruments (horns, trumpets, trombones, euphoniums, and tubas)

Woodwind instruments (recorders, flutes, oboes, clarinets, saxophones, and bassoons)

Woodwind instruments were originally made of wood, just as brass instruments were made of brass, but instruments are categorized based on how the sound is produced, not by the material used to construct them. For example, saxophones are typically made of brass, but are woodwind instruments because they produce sound with a vibrating reed. On the other hand, the didgeridoo, the wooden cornett (not to be confused with the cornet), and the serpent are all made of wood (or sometimes plastic), and the olifant is made from ivory, but all of them belong to the family of brass instruments because the vibration is initiated by the player's lips.

In brass instruments, the player's lips themselves vibrate, causing the air within the instrument to vibrate.

In woodwind instruments, the player either:

causes a reed to vibrate, which agitates the column of air (as in a saxophone, clarinet, oboe or duduk)

blows over a fipple, across an open hole against an edge (as in a recorder or ocarina), or

blows across the edge of an open hole (as in a flute).

In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, wind instruments are classed as aerophones.