Are Saxophones Woodwind Instruments?
When I first began playing saxophone, I had assumed that it qualified as a brass instrument, since saxophones are typically made of brass. However, many of my peers quickly told me otherwise. This raised the question: are saxophones actually woodwinds? I did some research to find out whether or not this was the case.
So, are saxophones woodwinds? Saxophones are considered woodwinds. The reason for this is that instruments are classified as brass or woodwinds based on the way that they produce sound and are played, not based on the material that they are made out of. Even though saxophones are made of brass, the way that they produce sound and the way that musicians play them cause them to be classified as woodwinds. We’re going to discuss what specific features make the saxophone a woodwind instrument as opposed to brass.
Why are saxophones considered woodwinds?
As stated above, the primary facets which determine how an instrument is classified is the method by which it produces sound and the method by which it changes pitch. The actual material that an instrument is made out of has little to do with how it is classified. For instance, some trumpets nowadays are made of plastic, yet they are still considered to be “brass” instruments.
That being said, provided that an instrument is played by blowing air through it, there are several key criteria which determine whether it is a brass or woodwind instrument. I’ll go through each of these below, and explain why the saxophone strictly fits into the “woodwind” category. This key criteria is that brass instruments produce sound through the vibration of the musician’s lips (called “buzzing”), while woodwind instruments produce sound through the vibration of a part of the instrument itself.
Criteria #1: The way that the instrument produces sound
There are several different ways in which woodwind instruments can produce sound. Most commonly (with the exception of flutes), woodwind instruments have a reed which produces the sound of the instrument by vibrating as air moves past it. A reed is a small piece of cane (or sometimes plastic, due to modern developments) which is placed on the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument. Saxophones, clarinets, bassoons, and oboes all use reeds, and hence are classified as woodwinds.
The important difference here is that woodwind instruments use the air blown by the musician to produce sound in some way. Brass instruments, on the other hand, merely serve to direct and amplify the sound which has already been produced by the buzzing of the musician’s lips.
These may seem identical, but they aren’t at all. A brass musician’s buzzing will produce a tone regardless of whether or not they are even holding an instrument. Since all a woodwind musician is really doing is blowing into their instrument, however, they do not produce any sound in particular (not including the sound of blowing air) unless they are blowing into the mouthpiece of their instrument.
Given that saxophones utilize a reed (that is, vibration of a part of the instrument) to produce sound, it should be clear that saxophones fall clearly into the category of “woodwinds.” Saxophonists do not “buzz”; that is, they do not produce the sound themselves, instead using the vibration of a reed to create a tone.
Criteria #2: How the instrument changes pitch
In general, woodwind instruments have keys. Keys are buttons on the instrument which can be pressed to either open or close a hole on the body of the instrument. Pressing a key either allows or prevents air from escaping at some point on the instrument, which either raises or lowers the pitch. When the musician presses down additional keys, the flow of air can no longer escape in the same place and is forced to go through a longer portion of instrument, lowering the pitch.
Brass instruments, on the other hand, usually change pitch through the use of valves. A valve is a mechanism which, when pressed, re-routes the air to a longer length of tube. Note that in the case of brass instruments, the sound always escapes the instrument in the same place. Rather than creating an opening for the air to escape at a different point, brass instruments simply alter the length of tubing that the sound goes through before it reaches the bell.
Not all brass instruments use valves. Some, like the trombone, instead use a slide. Slides operate by a similar principle as valves. The musician simply adjusts the position of the slide to lengthen or shorten the amount of tubing that the air goes through before it reaches the bell. As is the case with all brass instruments, the air still reaches the bell before the sound is released, as opposed to woodwind instruments where the point that the air is released is altered through the use of keys.
Once again, this criteria demonstrates that saxophones fall into the category of woodwind instruments. Saxophones have keys which open or close holes, allowing the air to escape the instrument without going through its full length.
Criteria #3: Whether or not the sound of the instrument has a specific direction
Typically, the sound of a brass instrument is pointed in one specific direction, while the sound of a woodwind instrument goes in every direction. This makes intuitive sense; since all the sound of a brass instrument is released at the bell, all the sound travels in the same general direction.
In the case of woodwind instruments, the keys allow sound to escape at various points of the instrument. The sound travels in no particular direction because it is going in every direction.
Again, we can see that the saxophone fits in with other woodwind instruments, rather than brass. Since the saxophone has keys like every other woodwind instrument, the sound often escapes well before it reaches the bell, and goes in no particular direction.
Is it ever ambiguous whether an instrument is woodwind or brass?
In general, all the criteria which make an instrument woodwind tend to go together. There is no instrument, for instance, which produces sound the way that a woodwind instrument does, but changes pitch the way that a brass instrument does. The same is true vice-versa; if an instrument fits some of the above mentioned criteria of a brass instrument, it will almost certainly fit the others as well.
Some instruments that combine the characteristics of woodwind and brass instruments have been attempted in the past. However, they’ve almost always been failures. For instance, there used to be such a thing as a “keyed trumpet,” which produces sound the same way that a brass instrument does but changes pitch the way that a woodwind instrument does. However, it was not acoustically functional.
So, it is not usually ambiguous whether or not an instrument is woodwind or brass, since there is rarely ever overlap. In the case of the saxophone, it fits every criteria of a woodwind instrument even though it is technically made of brass.
Related questions
What are the types of saxophones? The most common types are the soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and baritone saxophone. There are also several other types of saxophones that are less common. The sopranino saxophone plays even higher than the soprano saxophone, and the soprillo saxophone (also known as the sopranissimo saxophone or the piccolo saxophone) plays higher still, at a full octave above the soprano saxophone.
With respect to the lower-pitched saxophones, we have the bass saxophone which plays lower than the baritone saxophone. Even lower than that is the contrabass saxophone, and the subcontrabass saxophone is both the largest and the lowest-playing saxophone in existence.
Why do they call it “woodwind”? Woodwind instruments were almost universally constructed out of wood at one point. Nowadays, that’s changed, but the name stuck. Even though flutes are largely constructed out of metal nowadays, they were at one point made of wood. Clarinets are still typically made out of wood and nearly always have been. Even the very original saxophone prototypes designed by Adolphe Sax were made of wood, but were quickly transitioned to brass.
