Alice in Orchestralia, Chapter V

          Alice and the Violin walked at a brisk pace and soon had left behind them the village of Fiddladelphia. Their way led them through a pleasant wood of stately oaks and beeches, from which they emerged at last upon a grassy common within view of another village.
          "There is our destination," said the Violin: "the village of Panopolis."
          "What a queer name!" Alice exclaimed. "What does it mean?"
          "It means 'The City of Pan.' Pan, you know, according to the old Greek legend, was a half-god - a jolly sort of chap, with the head and body of a man and the legs and horns of a goat, and he is supposed to have invented the first wind instrument. He fell in love with a beautiful nymph named Syrinx, but she was afraid of his horns and his hoofs and would have nothing to do with him. So Pan changed her into a reed, and then from the reed he made a pipe on which he played the most exquisite music. And as all the wood-wind instruments are supposed to be descended from the pipe of Pan, they regard him as a sort of patron saint of their family, and have named their village in his honor. But here we are at the home of my friend the Oboe. He's a charming fellow, and takes pleasure in answering questions by the hour - but I ought to warn you that in some ways he's just a little - er-- queer. Nothing serious, of course - perfectly harmless and all that, but - how shall I say? - a trifle eccentric. He has strange notions about pets, and takes great pride in his ancestry, and all that sort of thing. But - well, you shall see."
          They had arrived at a high hedge enclosing a lawn, in the middle of which was a tiny rustic cottage with a thatched roof. Passing through a low lych gate they found themselves in the midst of a large flock of sheep, who stopped grazing and looked at them stupidly. Alice hesitated. The sheep looked harmless enough, but she had never encountered so many of them before, and she wasn't sure that they mightn't butt. The Violing reassured her.
          "Don't mind the sheep," he said; "they're quite gentle. My friend is so fond of them that he always has a lot of them about. I told you that he had queer notions about pets; but, you see, he comes of a pastoral family - that is, his earliest ancestors were played by shepherds as they tended their flocks - so his fondness for sheep is inherited. He says they make him feel at home. To this day, there's nothing a thoroughbred oboe lies to play so well as a simple pastoral melody, such as the shepherds of olden times used to improvise to amuse themselves during their long vigils. His voice has a plaintive, wistful quality that makes one think of vast lonely spaces, with no sound but the sighing of the wind in the grasses, and perhaps, far away, a shepherd's pipe. However, the Oboe can also be gay. He can play the merriest dance tunes and the jolliest songs; and he is also particularly good at Oriental music."
          By this time they had reached the door of the cottage upon which the Violin rapped with his bow. It was opened almost immediately by a queer little instrument about two feet tall, whom the Violin introduced to Alice as the First Oboe. His body consisted of a tube of black wood, about half-an-inch in diameter at the top, but growing gradually larger until at the bottom it flared out into a bell-shaped opening about two inches wide. Down its front, like a row of waistcoat buttons, were six round holes, and attached to it at various points was a complicated system of rods and keys and levers, all made of silver. Projecting from the top of its head, like a feather from its cap, was a slender stem which ended in a sort of wedge-shaped contrivance.
          The Oboe welcomed his visiters in a rather thin and nasal voice which reminded Alice of the sounds she herself had often produced with the aid of a comb and a piece of tissue paper. He assured Alice that he would do his best to make her visit both pleasant and instructive, whereupon the Violing left them, to return to Fiddladelphia. Alice lost no time in beginning her quest for knowledge.
          "Now, please tell me," she said, "all about yourself and the other members of your family - how you are played, and what you do in the orchestra, and everything."
          "Well," said the Oboe, "my family is a large and very ancient one. I can tell you about myself, but I think that the best way for you to learn the characteristics and peculiarities of my relatives is to meet them all personally. Would you like to do that?"
          "Oh, yes!" Alice replied with enthusiasm. "That is, if it will not be too much trouble for you."
          "It will be the easiest thing in the world," the Oboe assured her. "It happens, fortunately, that I have invited them all for tea this afternoon. They will be here shortly, so if you will be good enough to join our party you can make their acquaintance without the least inconvenience to anybody."
          Alice accepted the invitation with thanks.
          "Then that's settled," said the Oboe. "Now, while we are waiting for the others, I may as well pass the time by telling you something about our respective duties in the orchestra. Shall we sit out on the lawn? It's very pleasant there - and I like to keep an eye on my sheep."
          The Oboe led the way to a large maple tree in whose shade were several rustic seats, on one of which Alice sat down, while her host reclined as gracefully as his unbending physique permitted on the grass beside her.
          ”The wood-wind section of the orchestra,” he began, “is composed as a rule of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Together we form a quartet similar to the string quartet, with soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices. In our quartet the Flute is the soprano, I am the alto, the Clarinet is the tenor, and the Bassoon the bass. But our quartet differs from the string quartet in one important respect: while they have from ten to twenty instruments of each kind - first violins, second violins, violas, and so forth - we have only two or three. The reason for that is that our tone is so peculiar and so penetrating that even a single flute or oboe or clarinet can make itself heard over the whole body of strings.”
          ”But I thought you said your family was a very large one,” said Alice.
          ”So I did,” said the Oboe, “but I expressed myself inaccurately. What I meant to say was that our family was one of many branches; for while in numbers the wood-wind instruments are greatly inferior to the strings, there are more different kinds of them. In addition to the four I have named, there are several others which, although they are not regular members of our section, frequently help us out, particularly in the performance of modern compositions. There is, for instance, the Flute’s little brother, the Piccolo; and the Clarinet’s big brother, the Bass Clarinet. And I have a cousin - the English Horn - and a great-uncle - the Double Bassoon. Besides, there are the Bass Flute, the Oboe d’Amore, the Basset Horn and the Double Bass Clarinet - but we see very little of them; they lead a retired life and seldom appear in public.
          ”Now that you know the names of my relatives,” the Oboe continued, “I shall try to give you an idea of how we are played. All wind instruments, you must know, are alike in one respect: that is, their tone is caused by the vibration of a column of air in a tube, just as the tone of all stringed instruments is caused by the vibration of a string stretched over a resonant box. But wind instruments differ from one another in the means by which their column of air is made to vibrate. In my own case, it is set in motion by the vibration of a ‘reed’ which is held between the player’s lips and through which he blows his breath. A ‘reed’ is simply a narrow strip of cane, shaved down to a very thin edge at one end; but if you will look carefully at my reed” - he pointed to the “feather in his cap” - “ you will see that it consists of two strips of cane bound together so that the thin ends are left free to vibrate. For that reason, I am called a ‘double-reed’ instruments. The English horn, bassoon, double bassoon, and oboe d’amore are also double-reed instruments; but the clarinet, bass clarinet, and basset horn have only a single reed which vibrates against a wedge-shaped mouthpiece, while the flute and piccolo have no reed at all. Their air column is set in motion simply by blowing across an opening near one end of the tube.”
          The Oboe paused a moment for breath, and Alice took advantage of the opportunity to ask a question. How, she inquired, did one produce all the different tones on a wind instrument - the high ones and the low ones?
          “The pitch of our tone - that is, whether it is high or low - depends on the length of the vibrating column of air,” the Oboe replied, “just as the pitch of a tone on the violin depends on the length of the vibrating string. Now, I am about two feet long, and the lowest tone that I can play is the B-flat below Middle C. To produce that tone all these holes which you see in my body must be closed by the player’s fingers. To produce higher tones the player raises his fingers, or uncovers other holes by means of these keys and levers, which shortens the vibrating column of air, just as if the tube had been cut off at the point where the hole is uncovered. It is worth remembering, by the way, that if you double the length of a tube you lower its pitch one octave. Thus the bassoon, which is four times as long as I am, can play two octaves lower; and the double bassoon, which is eight times as long as I am, can play an octave lower than the bassoon. The double bassoon has the deepest voice of all the bass instruments; he can sing the lowest C on the piano. But I’m afraid we are wandering from our subject. What you want to know is what we do in the orchestra, is it not?”
          ”Yes,” said Alice, “but I also want to know what each of you looks like and how his voice sounds.”
          ”Well,” said the Oboe, “you will not have to wait much longer for that information, for here come the first of our guests - the Flute and his little brother, the Piccolo.”
          Alice looked in the direction of the gate, and saw two instruments advancing across the lawn. The larger one was about as tall as Oboe, but his body, instead of tapering, was the same size from top to bottom, and no reed projected from the top of his head; but on the right side of his face was a hole which looked like a single eye. Like the Oboe, however, he was provided with six finger-holes and a number of keys. His companion was exactly like him in every respect except that he was not quite half as tall. Altogether, they were an interesting pair, but the most striking thing about them, to Alice, was the fact that they appeared to be made entirely of silver.
          ”Why,” she whispered to the Oboe, “I thought they were wood-wind instruments.”
          ”So they are,” said the Oboe. “You see, they used to be made of wood, until it was found that silver gave a better tone and truer pitch; so we still consider them members of our family. Don’t you think them handsome?”
          Alice had no chance to reply, for by this time the Flute was greeting the Oboe cordially in a soft, velvety voice that sounded like rippling water. His manner was gentle and polite, though a trifle reserved. Alice thought him charming, and gave him one of her very best curtsies when the Oboe presented him to her. The Piccolo was then introduced - and proved to be quite a different sort of person. His manners were not of the best, and his voice was the highest that Alice had ever heard. It resembled that of the Flute, but lacked its softness and gentleness. It was piercing and impudent, and when he laughed, as he often did, it was shrill and unpleasant. Altogether, he seemed the sort of instrument who would delight in practical jokes, such as slipping up behind people and shrieking in their ears.
          ”Pleased to meet you,” he said, seizing Alice’s hand and giving it a violent squeeze. “What do you think of our town and all my jolly family? I think they’re a gloomy, low-toned lot, if you want my opinion” - and he laughed so shrilly that Alice involuntarily put her hands over her ears. The Piccolo appeared not to notice her action, however; nor did he seem to expect an answer to his rather embarrassing question. At all events, Alice was spared the necessity of replying, for at that moment two more guests arrived. One of these Alice at first took to be another oboe, but as he drew nearer she saw that, though he was of about the same height as his host, there were several important differences between them. His bell, she noticed, was larger than the Oboe’s, and his body, like the Flute’s, did not taper, but was of equal thickness from end to end. He had finger-holes and keys like the Oboe, but his mouthpiece was quite different, for it was nearly as thick as his body, and was beveled off at the end into a wedge, against one side of which a single reed was fixed by means of a silver band adjusted with thumb-screws.
          ”This,” said the Oboe to Alice, ‘is my kinsman the Clarinet. We are supposed - by people who don’t know us very well - to look somewhat alike; but I’m sure you would never mistake one of us for the other, would you?”
          ”I hope not,” said Alice. “Now that I have seen you together I think I shall always be able to tell you apart; but at first I almost thought you were twin brothers.”
          ”Such bright eyes could not long be deceived,” said the Clarinet, gallantly. His voice was rich and full and his manner gracious. He reminded Alice somewhat of the First Violin, though he was less brilliant and rather more romantic.
          The Clarinet’s companion, the Bass Clarinet, was then presented. He was the strangest looking instrument Alice had yet seen. His body was similar to the Clarinet’s, but longer, and his bell, which was made of silver, curved upward and outward, so that Lice could look down into it. His mouthpiece, instead of being attached directly to the top of his tube, was connected with it by a neck of silver about a foot long, curved so that it projected backward at right angles to his body. Alice estimated that if he were stretched out in a straight line, instead of being bent up at the bottom and down at the top, he would be just twice as long as the Clarinet.
          ”That means,” she said to herself, recalling what the Oboe had said about the length of tubes, “that his voice is an octave lower than the Clarinet’s.” That soon proved to be the case, for when the Bass Clarinet spoke it was in a low, rich voice, deeper and more resonant than the Clarinet’s and with more of the ‘reedy’ comb-and-tissue-paper quality peculiar to reed instruments. He was rather grave and solemn, and Alice decided that he belonged, like the Viola, to the company of sad instruments.
          The next guests to arrive were even more remarkable in appearance than the Bass Clarinet. There were three of them, the smallest being evidently the Oboe’s cousin of whom Alice had heard, for he resembled the Oboe closely in several features. His body tapered toward the top, like the Oboe’s, but he was about half as tall again, and his bell was bulb-shaped. His double reed was connected with his body by a slender metal stem about five inches long, which was bent slightly backward.
          The Oboe presented him:
          ”Permit me - my cousin, the English Horn.”
          ”How do you do?” Alice inquired politely.
          The English Horn bowed ceremoniously but said nothing. Alice thought he must be bashful and tried to put him at ease.
          ”Do you come from London?” she asked. “My father’s been there. It must be a wonderful city.”
          The English Horn looked extremely uncomfortable and murmured something in a foreign tongue, whereupon all the other instruments burst out laughing. Alice looked at them in astonishment.
          ”Why, he’s never been in England in his life,” the Oboe explained. “He can’t even speak a word of English.”
          ”But I thought you said he was an English horn.” Alice was completely puzzled.
          ”It is rather confusing, I admit,” said the Oboe. “Why he should be known as an ‘English horn’ when he’s neither English nor a horn is a bit of a mystery. He’s really a tenor oboe and comes from the same country as myself - whatever that may be. Some say it is Arabia, others claim that we hail from ancient Egypt. In any case, we certainly are not of English origin. But somehow or other, many years ago, my cousin acquired the name of cor anglais, which is French for ‘English horn,’ and it has stuck to him ever since. He’s really very nice, although he’s always dejected; and though he can’t speak English he can sing in any language.”
          Again the English Horn murmured something which Alice did not understand, so she simply smiled and nodded in a friendly way. He was certainly the saddest of all the instruments. His voice was low and vibrant, full of pathos, and with a kind of veiled quality, as if it came from far away. Like the Oboe, it suggested the lonely shepherd’s pipe, but such a very lonely, plaintive shepherd’s pipe that Alice could think of nothing but a shepherd who, like little Bo-peep, had lost his sheep.
          ”Now,” said the Oboe, “let me make you acquainted with the last - but not the least - of my relatives: my uncle, the Bassoon, and my great-uncle, the Double Bassoon.”
          The two instruments acknowledged the introduction with much dignity. The Bassoon was a gentleman of rather pompous demeanor. His body consisted of a tube eight feet long, which, however, was doubled up so that he stood only about four feet high. His bell, which did not flare out like those of the Oboe and Clarinet, was at the top instead of the bottom of his body, and his reed was attached to the smaller end of his tube by a curved metal shank similar to that of the Bass Clarinet, but much slenderer. His voice was very low and rather gruff, and he seemed to be a person of variable mood, for at times he was as solemn as a judge, while at others he was quite comical.
          The Double Bassoon resembled the Bassoon in most respects, except that he was much larger and even more solemn. He seldom tried to be funny, and his voice was a mere rumble - which was no wonder, for he was sixteen feet long. In spite of the fact that his tube had been bent into four folds in order to make him less cumbersome, he towered over Alice to a height of nearly six feet. He had a bell of metal like that of the Bass Clarinet, but it was attached to the upper end of his tube and curved downward.
          All the guests having now arrived, the Oboe invited them into his little thatched cottage, where a delicious tea was served. Alice was quite hungry, and in a remarkably short time had consumed a large quantity of tea and cake. The instruments, however, in spite of the fact that each held a teacup solemnly in his hand, neither drank nor ate. This strange conduct perplexed Alice, and presently she sought an explanation of it.
          ”Don’t you like tea?” she inquired of the Piccolo, who was standing beside her.
          ”I love it,” he replied. “We all do.”
          ”Then why don’t you drink it?” Alice demanded.
          ”Drink it!” shrieked the Piccolo. “who ever heard of such a thing? Why, it’s wet - it would be the ruin of us!”
          ”Then why do you bother to have it?” Alice was completely mystified.
          ”Oh, it’s quite the thing to do,” said the Piccolo. Then he added confidentially: “You know, there’s nothing that gives one as much assurance as being able to handle a teacup in a drawing-room; besides, tea is soothing to the nerves” - and with a shrill giggle he walked away, leaving Alice to wonder what on earth he meant.