reed
A thin strip of cane or synthetic material that vibrates to produce sound in woodwind instruments.
In Depth
Professional oboists spend more time making reeds than practising — a single oboe reed takes up to an hour to make and may last only a few days of playing.
Related Terms
More in Instruments
Browse allA portable reed instrument with a bellows, keys, and buttons.
The accordion family includes the piano accordion, button accordion, concertina, and bandoneon — all free-reed instruments powered by hand-operated bellows.
A guitar that produces sound naturally through its hollow wooden body without electronic amplification.
A Javanese and Sundanese instrument made of bamboo tubes mounted in a frame, shaken to produce notes.
A small, hexagonal free-reed instrument with buttons on both sides, producing different notes on push and pull of the bellows, central to Irish and English traditional music.
A chorded zither with damper bars that mute unwanted strings, allowing the player to strum full chords with one hand while pressing chord buttons with the other.
A wind instrument using enclosed reeds fed by a constant air supply from a bag.
A West African wooden xylophone with gourd resonators, central to the music of the Mandinka people.