The Woodwind Section

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The woodwind family of instruments are no longer all made of wood - the flute and saxophone have metal bodies and all instruments except the smaller recorders now have metal or plastic keys.

Despite this they are all united by a few common principles.
* Players blow into them to produce sound - hence the "wind" in the name.
* How the sound is produced varies between the whistle resonance of flutes and recorders, the single reeds of the clarinets and saxes, and the double reeds of oboes and bassoons, but all form sounds by setting up a vibration in the air of their internal bores.
* Different notes are created by lengthening and shortening the overall body tube by the opening and closing of holes (tone holes) in the body walls.
* Extra whole series (or registers) of higher notes are obtained by opening tiny "octave" or "speaker" holes, or through the use of complicated "vented" fingerings producing higher harmonics of the fundamental notes.   

As a group of instruments within the symphony orchestra they are used primarily to add varied tonal colour to sounds and to provide characterful soloistic passages. The woodwind players are the soloists of the orchestra.