Renaissance in French means “rebirth” and accordingly, this very important era in history was a time of revival of learning in Italy. Western Europe also profited from Renaissance, with the rise of papal patronage, new scientific discoveries and inventions, and teachings based on Greek and Latin.

Italian art was reborn and as such, Albert Durer associated it with “renaissance”. The art of painting was developed by Giorgio Vasari, Masaccio, Bruneleschi and Donatello. Leonardo da Vinci, a scientist and painter and Michelangelo, awakened their curiosity about nature through great art works.

Music instruments flourished during the Renaissance. Music at this time period comes in liturgical forms. New forms such as “madrigal” were adopted into sacred music compositions. New sacred music genres were born. These were the madrigal, spiritual, the laude, the mass and the motet. Viol was used for composing instrumental music. The famous genres were the toccata, the ricecar, the canzone and the prelude. Polyphonies, which are the fundamentals of today’s music, originate from this spectacular time period.

Musical instruments of today can be traced back to the musical instruments of the Renaissance. Examples of such are wind instruments like the flute, oboe, trombone, trumpet and guitar.  The shawm which is considered the first oboe, is made from wood, the same goes for the recorder or sackbut. The shawm is related to the English horn and bassoon. The shawn, along with the kortholt and the dulcian, make loud sounds. All Renaissance musical instruments make use of a double reed, a reed-cap and possess a two and one half octave range.

Well-known wooden instruments during the Renaissance were the cornets. They are of three kinds: curved, mute and straight. The recorder, the transverse and the flute were widely used because they were easy to play. Vibrato, a technique of vibration, was first used on the transverse flute. At present, a number of musical instruments can be played with the use of vibrato.