Okuzeka
Music vocabulary · Instruments and Voice

Woodwind

Meaning in music, with examples

/ˈwʊdwɪnd/nounCommon term

In music, woodwind means: The family of wind instruments that make sound by blowing across an edge or through a reed, such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and saxophone.

In Turkish: tahta üflemeliler, tahta üflemeli çalgılar

How it is used

Orchestras have a woodwind section, often called 'the woodwinds' or 'the winds'. Players talk about 'single reeds' (clarinet, saxophone) and 'double reeds' (oboe, bassoon). Turkish ney and zurna are also often described in English as woodwind instruments.

Example sentences

  1. The woodwind section has two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons.

  2. He plays several woodwind instruments, including clarinet, flute and soprano sax.

Common collocations

  • woodwind section
  • woodwind instrument
  • woodwind player
  • the woodwinds
  • woodwind quintet
  • brassThe family of wind instruments, usually made of metal, in which the player makes the sound by buzzing the lips into a cup-shaped mouthpiece, such as the trumpet, trombone, horn and tuba.
  • stringsThe section of instruments played with a bow, mainly violins, violas, cellos and double basses. It also means the actual strings on an instrument such as a guitar.
  • orchestraA large group of musicians playing string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments together, usually led by a conductor.
  • instrumentAn object made or used to produce musical sounds, such as a piano, violin, guitar, drum or ney.
  • transposeTo move a whole piece or passage up or down by the same interval into a different key, keeping all the notes in the same relationship.

More terms: Instruments and Voice

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