I’ve struggled a little with what to call myself as a player of several woodwind instruments. “Woodwind doubler” seems like the most accepted nomenclature, but “doubler” seems a little inapt for someone who plays more than two instruments (my flute teacher calls me a “five-aler”). And besides, “doubler” sometimes carries a certain connotation of playing several instruments poorly. “Pete” on The Woodwind Forum referred to this in a recent post. In the same post, he attempts to define “doubling” like this:
Being asked to play multiple instruments that you normally don’t, but have a bit of facility on them that doesn’t quite match your main instruments.
That doesn’t sit very well for someone like me, whose goal is to play all their instruments equally well.
Today I clicked through some of the links on my list of “doublers” on the web to see what they call themselves. Here are some of the titles I found:
- woodwind doubler
- woodwind player
- multi-reed specialist
- woodwind artist
- multi-woodwind artist
- multi-instrumentalist
- woodwind performer
- reed player
- woodwind recording artist
- multi-instrumental performer
- woodwinds soloist
- multi-woodwind instrument performer
- multi-woodwind performer
- woodwind specialist
- woodwind instrumentalist
- woodwind-er
- woodwind performing artist
- multi-reed instrumentalist
- mulitple woodwind specialist
- multi-woodwind player
- multi-reedist
- woodwind man
- multi-reedsman
In my bio, I am currently calling myself a “woodwind artist.”
In a future post, I’ll comment on some of these titles, and why I like some better than others.
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