Rackett

The rackett is a Renaissance-era double reed wind instrument.

There are four sizes of rackett, in a family ranging from discant (soprano) to great bass. Relative to their pitch, racketts are quite small (the discant rackett is only 4½ inches long, yet its lowest note is G, an octave and a perfect fourth below middle C). This is achieved through its ingenious construction; the body consists of a solid wooden cylinder into which nine parallel bores are drilled. These are connected alternately at the top and bottom, resulting in a long, cylindrical wind passage within a compact body.

However, its unusual construction requires its fingering to be somewhat different from other period woodwinds; it is similar to the front seven holes of the crumhorn, but with the hands placed side by side. Additional holes are covered by the thumbs and second joint of the index finger in order to extend the range a perfect fourth below the nominal scale, like the curtal. Thus the discant rackett is considered to be in C, but its range covers a perfect twelfth from d' to G. The ranges for the rest of the family as given by Praetorius are: tenor alt: g to C; bass: c to FF; great bass: A to DD or G to CC. The range could be extended upward by several more notes since the renaissance rackett overblows at the twelfth like a clarinet. Praetorius writes in Syntagma Musicum II: "if a rackett is well drilled and is played by a good musician, it then can be made to produce a few more tones." The three extant renaissance racketts are housed in two European collections; one is in the Musikinstrumenten Museum in Leipzig, and two are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

RACKETT (band)

RACKETT was a self-described "three-car garage rock" band that originated from songs written and recorded by the poet Paul Muldoon and the 17th century poetry scholar Nigel Smith during mid-to-late 2004.Muldoon and Smith were joined by Stephen Allen, "an entertainment lawyer"; Bobby Lewis; and Lee Matthew, a "scholar of medieval polyphony." The spelling of the group's name derives from the medieval instrument of the same appellation.

Rackett disbanded in 2010. Muldoon and Smith subsequently formed the band Wayside Shrines, which continues to write songs based on Muldoon's lyrics.

Members

Discography

Bibliography

References