| - | The term '''chalumeau''' has been used to refer to many kinds of instruments, but in the context of late baroque and early classical music, a chalumeau is, essentially, a clarinet without a register key. Early chalumeaux (that's the plural) looked a lot like recorders, but with a cylindrical bore, a single-reed mouthpiece, and usually a couple of keys. Since it was not usually overblown, its range was pretty much limited to an eleventh (an octave plus a fourth). The clarinet apparently was derived from the chalumeau by modifying the size and placement of one of the key holes to serve as a register hole. Early clarinets didn't play well in their lower register so were mostly played in their second register, leaving the low register to the chalumeau. Eventually clarinets were improved to the point where they could be played well in both registers, and the chalumeau disappeared, leaving behind the term ''chalumeau register'' to refer to the clarinet's low register.
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| - | Chalumeaux were made in several sizes, like recorders. Four sizes were listed by J. F. B. C. Majer in 1732, corresponding in size to sopranino, soprano (descant), alto (treble), and tenor recorders but sounding an octave lower (due to the stopped cylindrical bore). Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of consensus on the terminology for these sizes. Colin Lawson in ''The Early Clarinet: A Practical Guide'' calls the sopranino recorder sized one a "soprano chalumeau", and the others "alto", "tenor", and "bass". Daniel Deitch appears to follow this scheme. Moeck makes instruments in these four sizes but calls them "sopranino", "soprano", "alto", and "tenor" -- the same names as the recorders of the same size. Guntram Wolf makes these four sizes, calling them chalumeaux in f1, c1, f, and C [sic], plus a bent bore chalumeau in F which he calls a "bass". Musikhandwerk advertises "soprano", "alto", "tenor", and "bass", but the web site doesn't make clear what physical sizes these are. To summarize:
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