Meet the Woodwinds | Omaha Symphony Virtual Instruments

Learn about the woodwinds from the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. The woodwind family includes instruments like the piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and contrabassoon. These long tubes make sound by blowing across a hole or through a reed. While traditionally made of wood, modern versions may use other materials. In this lesson, the Omaha Symphony highlights each instrument’s pitch range, where they sit in the orchestra, and their unique timbre or tone color.

Watch and listen to your Omaha Symphony play and describe the various wood-wind instruments. Students should listen for the following:

• Which instruments are higher in pitch and which instruments are lower?
• Where the instruments are seated within the orchestra?
• What differences in timbre do you notice—sound and tone color.

This resource brings together a variety of activities and examples, including:

• A 3D activity showcasing all the woodwind instruments
• An orchestra map activity showing the placement of the different instrument families in a typical orchestra setting
• Discussion questions and vocabulary