chalumeau, single-reed wind instrument, forerunner of the clarinet. Chalumeau referred to various folk reed pipes and bagpipes, especially reed pipes of cylindrical bore sounded by a single reed, which was either tied on or cut in the pipe wall. Soon after this type of chalumeau became fashionable in urban society, about 1700, Johann Christoph Denner of Nürnberg added an extra finger hole and two keys; his further experimentation led to the clarinet.
The chalumeau was a stopped pipe (an octave lower in pitch than a comparable open pipe) and, unlike the clarinet, did not overblow to a register above the fundamental (the clarinet’s low range is still termed its chalumeau range).