The term used by Mersenne in Harmonie universelle for the turned wooden component mounted on a conical brass tube which is inserted into the upper end of a shawm and receives the double reed (see Shawm, §1). It functions as a support for the lips, allowing the reed to vibrate freely inside the player's mouth, facilitating embouchure technique. It was also used on the earlier type of Racket and on the 18th-century bason d'amour (see Hautbois d'église. The French term, which Mersenne claimed was used by makers, became universally adopted by modern historians before a 17th-century English term ‘fliew’ (flue) came to notice in James Talbot’s MS treatise of c1695 (GB-Och). In modern Catalonia, where shawms are still played, the corresponding term is tudél, also meaning a bassoon crook.
ANTHONY C. BAINES