What’s That Sound?: 8 Intriguing Early Musical Instruments

One of the greatest charms of the sackbut is its name—from Middle French saquer, bouter ‘pull, push’. Let’s see now. Which modern instrument is played in a push-pull manner? Yes, of course, the trombone.

It’s the only Western musical instrument with a movable slide. The 17th-century sackbut, which looks remarkably like the 21st-century trombone, was mainly used in sacred and court music settings. It was made in alto, tenor, bass, and double bass sizes.

No one can deny that the serpent, a bass wind instrument, is aptly named. Its wooden—well—serpentine body produces a rich tone and a wide dynamic range. It is considered the bass member of the trumpet family. Its probable inventor, Edme Guillaume, is believed to have designed it to improve on the leather-covered wooden cornett (or German Zink), which was a leading wind instrument from 1500 to 1670. (Incidentally, in an odd herpetological twist, the tenor cornett, which has a flattened-S shape, is known as a lizard [lysarden].) Composer Hector Berlioz, however, did not find the serpent an improvement over anything.

He described its timbre as “essentially barbaric” and said that only in a mass for the dead was its “cold and abominable howling” appropriate.

The double-reed bass woodwind instrument that English speakers call a bassoon was preceded by the dulcian, or curtal. It was carved from a single block of wood. The dulcian flourished during the Renaissance, though its use continued into the 20th century in Spain. It was made in soprano, alto, tenor, bass, greatbass (quarter bass), and contrabass sizes.

The rackett is another forerunner of the bassoon. Although the dulcian and the rackett are remarkably similar in sound quality, they are not at all similar in appearance. Because the rackett can be as small as 4½ inches (about 11 cm) tall, it is sometimes called a pocket bassoon. It consisted of a short wooden or ivory cylinder that in the Renaissance had nine parallel cylindrical bores that were connected in a series, whereas the Baroque instrument had 10 bores. In the earlier forms, the bores were at the side or the bottom of the instrument; the Baroque instrument had a modified conical bore, and the channels were at the top of the instrument.

Another double-reed instrument, known as a crumhorn (from Middle English crump ‘crooked’), is a wind-cap instrument—that is, the players’ lips are never in contact with the reed; rather, they blow into a small hole in a rigid cap that covers the double reed. The instrument is shaped like the letter J.

Its appearance is quaint, though its sound is anything but. It is loud and has a buzzy quality, and it is most often compared to a bagpipe. The comparison is not surprising, really, because the chanter on a bagpipe also uses the wind-cap principle.

The theorbo, or chitarrone, is an extremely long-necked bass lute, having two peg boxes—one halfway up the neck (as far as the frets go) and the other too far away to adjust while playing. The almost absurd appearance of the instrument was necessary in the era of natural (that is, not wire-wrapped) strings in order to achieve clear and sustained low notes. On historical instruments, the fretted double strings running to the first peg box are generally between about 27 to 35 inches (about 70 to 90 cm) long, and the extended single bass strings may be from 59 to almost 70 inches (about 150 to 180 cm) in length.

The shawm was a significant precursor to the hautboy (oboe). It is another of the redoubtable double-reed instruments of the era, sounding loud and reedy. It is believed that the instrument, a version of which was an integral part of Saracen bands, entered Europe from the Middle East sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries, and Europeans embraced it during the 12th through 17th century.

Shakespeare himself mentions hautboys in Antony and Cleopatra and in Macbeth, where they signal that something bad is about to happen.

Another odd-looking instrument, the glass armonica (or glass harmonica), is known for its beautiful and ethereal sound. It was created by that inveterate inventor Ben Franklin and consists of a set of graduated tuned glass bowls that are sounded by the friction of wetted fingers on their rims. Franklin suspended hemispherical glasses overlapping so that only their rims were visible on a treadle-operated spindle set over a trough of water. Its sound inspired both Mozart and Beethoven to write music for it.