In 1590 French churchman Guillaume of Auxerre invented the serpent, a weird-looking wind instrument about eight feet long. Its tubing was made in a shape suggesting a squirming snake which had been struck with a stick. For about two hundred years it flourished as an important bass instrument, but now it is chiefly known for its many and varied progeny.
Among these are the ophicleides, a family of six; the saxhorns, a family of eight; the saxtrombas, a family of eight; the tubas, a family of nine; and the muchmaligned saxophones, which have now grown to a family of nine.
Too much credit cannot be given Guillaume for his invention, because the serpent is little more than a bass member of the large family of cornettos, or zinken. These instruments put in an appearance in Europe in the fourteenth century.
In England they were called cornettos and were built in three keys. The little treble cornetto in F was only about eighteen inches long and had a thin, weak tone. Another was the cornetto in C, about two feet long. The third was the great cornetto in G, approximately three feet long. In Germany these same instruments were known as […]

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