534a8: Single reed

The single reed flute has one reed, or tongue, attached to, or cut out of a tube.

The instrument itself may be made of hollowed out wood, millet stalk, horn or animal bone.

It can be single pitch or have finger holes for multiple pitches.

An example is the clarinet. Clarinets being played by one person in pairs or in threes or fours are found. As in the case of the multiple flutes (534a5), one clarinet may be unfingered and serve as a drone or it may be fingered the same as the other(s). Each clarinet may have its own blow hole or the flutes may share a common windway.

• Ocm module: Single reed
• In ocm module: Aerophones
• In ocm module: Musical instruments
• In modular book: Expanded ethnomusicology categories for the Outline of Cultural Materials, by Kenneth R. Hollingsworth
• In bookshelf: Anthropology

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 3.5, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 21 March 1999

© 1999 SIL International