The Perks of Being a Woodwind

As many individuals know, instruments come in many shapes and sizes, with most being classified into one of four families: brass, woodwind, strings, or percussion. With the exception of percussion, the most varied in terms of sound, range, and number of instruments are the woodwinds. The most commonly heard/played are: the bassoon, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, piccolo, flute, and the tenor, alto, and bari sax, especially the flute, oboe, clarinet, and alto sax.

So why play a woodwind? First off, there is no spit valve! It's absolutely disgusting to have to drain excess spit out of your instrument, leaving a puddle on the floor. Instead, the spit drips out gradually, unnoticed, if it drips out at all. Second, we don't have to worry about harmonics or shelves- as long as we are playing in the correct octave (via a special key or increased air), there is a fingering for every note. No fishing between notes wondering if we are playing the correct pitch, and many less cracked notes.

There are downsides to being a woodwind, though. First off, tuning. Most woodwinds spend half their time tuning and the other half playing out of tune: some woodwinds can be notoriously hard to tune (I'm looking at you, piccolo). In general they are hard to play in and keep in tune. Secondly, volume. Unless you play saxophone, you will almost always be softer than your fellow brass players. There are pros and cons to this; firstly, you can hide your mistakes easier, but you will almost always be asked to do dynamics that just don't happen on woodwinds.

The biggest complaint or bragging right, depending on how one looks at it, is the difference in music level we have to play within an ensemble. There is a major difference in the band music of an upper level band between the upper woodwinds and lower brass especially. Unless you play bassoon, English horn, Bari or tenor sax, or bass clarinet, expect to have hard, seemingly impossible to play runs at lightning speed. Some may find this to be a negative, and I myself initially complain about them, but once you can play the runs well it sounds impressive and you feel a sense of accomplishment. Also, runs can be fun and much more interesting than just playing quarter or half notes the entire time. We get to engage our minds more and learn more from the music we play.

Overall, woodwinds trump brass because our music requires more technical prowess to play and we are less obnoxious and annoying. Our instruments are smaller and lightweight, and there is no disgusting spit.

Woodwinds kick brass.