Product Description

28" long. Rosewood pipe carved in three sections. Brass trim and key action on the highest notes. 8 finger holes. Reed mounts on the inside. Includes 1 reed.

The Shawm is a double reed wood instrument, the oboe being a modern example.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45610 in Musical Instruments
• Brand: Mid-East

Customer Reviews

Ignore Misguided Comments
Please ignore the first two comments. It's obvious from their comments that they know very little about early woodwinds. The first buyer should have known from a quick glance that this was no shawm - that much is obvious. It's from Pakistan and I'm sure a lot is left to be desired in translation. This is an inexpensive copy of a type of tenor Cornemuse called a Glastonbury Pipe. It's called this because it appears in a carving in Glastonbury catherdral. Like any Cornemuse, it's meant to be rather quiet. I've seen people try one of these and declare them terrible straight away. It never occurred to them that one doesn't simply push the reed staple as far in as it will go. One positions the reed up and down until the scale is in tune. And it does indeed play very well in tune. I'm more than familiar with the reputation of Pakistani pipes, but this is a wonderful exception. And why not? ...It's such a simple design, one would have to try very hard to ruin something a easy as this. I play Korber, Moeck, Monk, Wolfe, and Beekhuizen woodwinds ranging in price from $500 to $3,500... Trust me - this cornemuse is a perfectly good instrument. The fact that is affordable is all the better. I wish our other commentors had done their homework or had known what they were talking about.

Same comments as the previous reviewer
This is not a useful musical instrument, and certainly not a shawm. If you've never heard a shawm, you might get a CD by the group Piffaro as a starter, but even that won't give a sense of the thrilling timbre of a shawm band live. A real replica of a Renaissance shawm will cost $1200 or much more, depending on the maker and the size of the instrument. (There are examples in museums from soprano to great bass.) Robert Cronin, in Menlo Park CA, is the best American maker. The Spanish instruments called tiples and tenores are essentially shawms with some 19th C keywork added; the best of them are very fine instruments, but even more costly than replicas.

Interesting toy
I recently played one of these instruments (from another vendor). It has a windcap rather than a pirouette, which would make it a rauschpfiefe, but unlike either, the bore is cylindrical (or very narrowly tapered), rather than broadly conical. The sound was weak and lacked any of the strident power of a shawm (which should be loud enough to raise the dead, or at least get them to roll over in their graves...). When compared with a real shawm (like a zurna), it is apparent that this instrument was designed by someone who really knew nothing about shawms.

About the only positive things I can say about this are (1) it makes noise, and (2) it's a fairly attractive looking thing if you want it as a prop rather than as an instrument.

I'd consider this instrument to be worth about $20, not the $100+ that it's being sold for.