Instruments
Shawm
The shawm was the ancestor of the modern oboe, flourishing from the medieval era up to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Like the oboe, the shawm has a long, straight, wooden body flared at the end, and a double-reed assembly attached to a small brass tube (the "staple") protruding from the inner hole or bore. The staple is enclosed in a lip rest known as the pirouette, so the player can hold the entire reed in the mouth rather than manipulating only its free end with the lips. The result is that the shawm is a much louder instrument than the oboe, and one that can be played a high volume for a fairly long time. It was primarily intended for outdoor use; the oboe arose from French efforts to create an indoor equivalent. The word "shawm" also refers generically to any world instrument with the reed-pirouette combination; such instruments, often called by a name resembling "shawm" in their original languages, are widely distributed throughout the world.