Prev Next. What happens when you cry, exactly? A salty fluid chock full of protein, water, mucus and oil is released from the lacrimal gland in the upper, outer region of your eye. This fluid, better known as tears, then flows down the surface of your eye, across your face and smears your mascara.
INSTRUMENTS IN DEPTH. THE OBOE. The oboe, a double reed instrument in the woodwind family, is one of the most beautiful, important, and unique musical instruments. With a long history dating back as far as ancient Greece, it has developed through the centuries into one of the most challenging and distinct instruments in the modern orchestra.
Since I first played oboe in a woodwind quintet at about age 13, I've been a fan. I love the richness of five distinct, heterogeneous voices that blend in innumerable ways, so unlike the insistent unity of the string quartet. (Only two of the quintet instruments share the same sound-producing mechanism, and even those two don't sound much alike. The oboe and bassoon are both double reeds; the clarinet is a single reed; the flute has a sound-hole; the horn isn't even a woodwind, but just wandered in from sheer curiosity, and stayed for 200 years.)