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The woodwind section as a group.
Names the woodwind section as a whole in English-language scores, abbreviated Ww., in cue indications, rehearsal remarks and instrumentation lists rather than as a staff label. Saxophones, and in chamber music the horn of a wind quintet, are often grouped with the woodwinds.
Abbreviations: Ww.
Use the word for instructions aimed at the whole section — a balance note, a cue, a tacet — and name individual instruments wherever a part is concerned. When planning a woodwind section, think in pairs or threes of each family (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons) with doublings on piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet and contrabassoon, and list those doublings clearly in the instrumentation.
Woodwinds is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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