Talk:Wind instrument

Please explain scientifically how the sound is "amplified" by a passive piece of wood or passive metal bell on a horn or phonograph. I don't understand how this works. Does it just increase the surface area of the vibrating object, allowing it to move more air with the same amount of energy, increasing the efficiency of vibrational energy to acoustic energy transfer, not actually "amplifying" the sound by adding energy into the system? - Omegatron 02:15, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

How about something like the ocarina ("sweet potato")? They are usually made of plastic today, I guess, but they probably were fired clay of some kind in the beginning, no? There are terra-cotta whistles, so it seems likely that there may be more complicated musical instruments made this way.P0M 23:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I see little applicability for the tacked on reference to 'circular breathing' in reference to brass instruments. It creates a run-on sentence, and doesn't really make sense in context. Even out of context, most brass players never use circular breathing. -- Kysh

• Opposition: I would argue that this topic should not be merged with wind instrument, for two reasons:
  • Some percussion instruments are aerophones. It would make as much (or as little) sense to merge this topic with percussion instruments as it would to merge it with wind instruments.
  • And Wikipedia currently has pages devoted to the other object types (idiophones, chordophones, etc.) so it would therefore appear logical to keep the topic of "aerophones" distinct.

--Regards. 00:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we need separate pages for the parts of a wind instrument, at least until we have a general discussion of them here, and we don't. This article doesn't even mention the bell yet. —Keenan Pepper 05:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think that we should merge it anyway with the wind instruments article. We could make a new section/title for the bell article

"For example, the saxophone, flute, and metal clarinet are all typically made of brass." Flutes are not typically made of brass. They are sometimes made of brass, but also silver, gold, and other metals.

The article header contains a section mentioning a bell (a percussion instrument) and some anecdotal narrative, neither of which seem related to wind instruments. The mentioned section reads: <<In addition to the theoretical value mentioned above, historically, the bell--as a resonating instrument--has had a great deal of practical value. Quite famously, Paul Revere alerted his comrades during the American Revolution, by ringing a bell and yelling "The British are coming, the British are coming!" Revere used the vibrating noise to call his countrymen's attention to his message and save American lives. jogo lala. Sorry about what I have said just then. I got kinda crazy.">> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.124.65.6 (talk • contribs) 12:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

That's just uncaught vandalism. I'll remove it. tedder (talk) 14:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

diff An editor has now twice replaced the lead image of a cow horn single-reed instrument, undeniably a wind instrument, with a picture of a harmonium, which is a free-reed aerophone whose air supply comes from a hand-pumped bellows.

The player's breath is central to this article's definition of "wind instrument". That seems unlikely to change. With that in mind, images of accordions, concertinas, harmoniums, and pipe organs do not belong in the article. Just plain Bill (talk) 12:27, 23 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Seems like it should be the other way around, since Woodwinds are a subset of wind instruments. Special-T (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

I've gone ahead and changed it to Aerophones. - Special-T (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply