Elizabethan Music

Early oboes were used for effects that were eerie, like in a play.  They were used for the supernatural and odd music.  Traveling players preferred to use trumpets.  The recorder was used at banquets in the homes of aristocracy people. (Recorders and Wind Instruments).  String instruments in the Elizabethan times were either plucked or bowed.  The modern guitar’s ancestor was called the cittern, and it was favored by street performers.  Another instrument called the lute, was more courtly.  The fiddle was the precursor of the violin in Elizabethan times (Lutes and Viols).  An instrument called a virginal was used for puns in Shakespeare’s plays.  Some plucked instruments in the keyboard family were the spinet and the harpsichord (Keyboard Instruments).