Single-reed instrument

The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire.

The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus.

[4][page needed] Due to their fragility, no instruments from antiquity were preserved but iconographic evidence is prevalent.

[7][page needed] The entire reed entered the mouth, meaning that the player could not easily articulate so melodies were defined by quick movement of the fingers on the tone holes.

The standard embouchures for single reed woodwinds like the clarinet and saxophone are variants of the single lip embouchure, formed by resting the reed upon the bottom lip, which rests on the teeth and is supported by the chin muscles and the buccinator muscles on the sides of the mouth.

In both instances, the position of the tongue in the mouth plays a vital role in focusing and accelerating the air stream blown by the player.

The reeds of alto (left) and tenor saxophones (right) . 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 arghul . Also used in bagpipes, and reedpipes or clarinet family: bülban , diplica , dili tuiduk , dozaleh , early chalumeaus , cifte , launeddas , mijwiz , pilili , reclam de xeremies , sipsi , and zummara .
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