A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the clarinet is only including the odd harmonics due to air column modes canceling out the even harmonics. This may be compared to the timbre of a square wave.
The reeds of alto (left) and tenor saxophones. They are of comparable dimensions to alto and bass clarinet reeds, respectively.
Drawings of idioglot reeds: tubular single reeds in which the reed is still part of the reed stem. Reeds can be split from middle upward (kataglott, the reed hangs down) and from top downward (anaglott, the reed stands up). These particular reeds are drawn from those used in an from an arghul. Also used in bagpipes, and reedpipes or clarinet family: bülban, diplica, dili tuiduk, dozaleh, early chalumeaus, cifte, launeddas, mijwiz, pilili, reclam de xeremies,
The ligature, mouthpiece, and reed of a clarinet. These three components are present in many modern European Classical single-reed instruments and tend to be aesthetically and mechanically similar.
Chalumeau
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments. The main distinction between these instruments and other wind instruments is the way in which they produce sound. All woodwinds produce sound by splitting the air blown into them on a sharp edge, such as a reed or a fipple. Despite the name, a woodwind may be made of any material, not just wood. Common examples of other materials include brass, silver, cane, and other metals such as gold and platinum. The saxophone, for example, though made of brass, is considered a woodwind because it requires a reed to produce sound. Occasionally, woodwinds are made of earthen materials, especially ocarinas.
Woodwind instruments at the Museu de la Música de Barcelona.
Tenor and soprano saxophones
Alto and tenor saxophone reeds
A piper playing the bagpipes in Newport, Rhode Island