Contrabass oboe Baroque composers. This apparently was an oboe-type instrument in the bassoon range. It had, nonetheless, a distinct tonal quality of its own. Richard Strauss states, in his edition of Hector Berlioz's "Treatise on Instrumentation", that its tone "...had not the slightest similarity with the low tones of the bassoon." Despite this distinction, the contrabass oboe never became popular or widely used, and few remain today. Contrabass oboe The contrabass oboe is a double reed woodwind instrument in the key of C or F, sounding two octaves or an octave and a fourth (respectively) lower than the standard oboe. Current research,
Oboe most songs. In America, the band Hoboe defines itself as a rock band showcasing amplified oboe since 2000, fronted by oboist Zen Ben. Indie singer-songwriter and composer Sufjan Stevens, having studied the instrument in school, often includes the instrument in his arrangements and compositions, most frequently in his geographic tone-poems "Illinois", "Michigan", and his orchestral suite "The BQE". The oboe is frequently featured in film music, often to underscore a particularly poignant or sad scene, for example in the motion picture "Born on the Fourth of July", where an oboe delicately takes the theme with a romantic and harmonic touch