Bass Rackett in F by J. Wood

Handmade in our EMS workshop by our expert technician Barry Holder, this Bass Racket in F is made from Castello Boxwood with imitation ivory tetines.

The Rackett is loosely based on an original ivory instrument in the Leipzig Museum. The wood is oiled inside and out, and the exterior finished with a hard wax. It uses the same fingerings as the old EMS racketts but has a more compact body due to the slightly narrower bore, repositioned finger holes and longer pirouette. The instrument is supplied with plastic and canes reeds, a fingering chart and a hard case.

The Rackett is a Renaissance-period double-reed instrument comprising a small column drilled with nine parallel passages from top to bottom, which are connected in series by recesses in the cap at each end of the column. By this means a relatively short height can contain a much longer narrow cylindrical tube. Eleven holes around the column are fingered by both hands, thumbs included, the eleventh hole being covered by the middle joint of one of the fingers.