Shawm

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The shawm was a Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family, made in Europe from the late 13th century until the 17th century. It was developed from the oriental zurna. It is the ancestor of the modern oboe. The shawm was called Schalmei in German, and this word is believed to derive from the Latin calamus, meaning reed or stalk. It is, however, also possible that the name comes from the Arabic salamiya or salameya, a traditional oboe from Egypt, as the European shawm seems to have been developed from similar instruments brought to Europe from the Near East during the time of the Crusades. This is borne out by the very similar names of many folk shawms used as traditional instruments in various European nations, such as the Spanish dulzaina, (also known as chirimita), the Catalan shawms (xirimia, dolçaina or gralla, tible, tenora), the Portuguese charamela, and the Italian ciaramella.

The shawm was a long, straight wooden instrument with a bell. It had a conical bore, was played with a double reed similar to a small bassoon reed, and produced a loud tone. Instruments very much like the medieval shawm can still be heard in many countries today, played by street musicians or sometimes by military bands. The latter use would be familiar to crusaders, who often had to face massed bands of Saracen shawms and nakers, used as a psychological weapon. It must have had a profound effect, as the shawm was quickly adopted by Europeans, for dancing as well as for military purposes. The standard outdoor dance band in the fifteenth century consisted of a slide trumpet playing popular melodies, while two shawms improvised countermelodies over it. By the early sixteenth century, the shawm had undergone considerable development. Its initially harsh tone was mellowed by almost doubling its length, the extra tubing acting to modify the harmonics. Its grand, majestic sound, particularly when played in consorts of several sizes, was much in demand by civic authorities, and the shawm was standard equipment for the town bands, or waits. The shawm became so closely associated with waits that it was also known as the wait-pipe.

The rauschpfeife, a closely related instrument, was a capped reed instrument; like the reeds of a bagpipe or crumhorn, the instrument's double reed resided within a windcap and thus the player's mouth did not contact the reed.

A full consort of shawms, although it provided a truly magnificent sound, was logistically flawed, especially for processions. The soprano shawm was about two feet long, and the lower instruments increased in proportion, the bass being a monster which had to be played with the edge of its bell resting on the floor. An ingenious unknown maker devised a way of drilling two bores down a single piece of wood and joining them at the bottom, effectively producing a folded bass shawm which was half the original length, and much easier to manage. The new instrument was called either a curtal or a dulcian in England, and it became very popular as a general purpose bass instrument, even in refined settings where the higher shawms were considered inappropriate.

The oboe developed from the shawm in the mid-17th century when the French musicians Jean Hotteterre and Michel Danican Philidor modified it, producing an instrument with a narrower bore and a reed which is held by the player's lips near the end.

[edit] See also

Catalan shawms, modernized shawms used to accompany the Catalonian Sardana circle dance.
Piffero, a similar instrument from Italy which is still used in the folk music of the quattro provincie.
Hirtenschalmei