double-reed

[duhb-uhl-reed]

adjective

Music.

1. of or relating to wind instruments producing sounds through two reeds fastened and beating together, as the oboe.

double-reed

adjective

1. relating to or denoting a wind instrument in which the sounds are produced by air passing over two reeds that vibrate against each other

Word History and Origins

Origin of double-reed¹

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

If the oboe was a somewhat unusual selection for a young musician, Mr. Stacy soon made the even more unconventional choice to specialize in the English horn, a confusingly named instrument that is not in fact a horn but rather a double-reed instrument, an alto member of the oboe family.

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A blunt four-on-the-floor thump might just be the least aggressive part of “Right to Riot” from the British Armenian musician Hagop Tchaparian, which also brandishes traditional sounds — six-beat drumming and the snarl of the double-reed zurna — and zapping, woofer-rattling electronics as it builds.

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The first sounds that leap out of “Right to Riot” are traditional: an aggressive six-beat drum pattern and the nasal, biting snarl of what Armenians call the zurna, a double-reed instrument used under various names across the Balkans, the Middle East, northern Africa and western Asia.

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Both began lessons on the saxophone, then switched to more difficult double-reed instruments.

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In Mr. Focht’s apartment, his double-reed woodwind instrument transports him somewhere else.

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