This book had its origins in a series of ten lectures, The Development of the Orchestra, which were prepared and delivered to the service men and women who frequented the music room of the Fifth Avenue USO Club in San Diego, California, during my war-time stay in that important training area as National USO music advisor. In expanding those informal essays into this little book, which is concerned with the development of wind instruments and their use, it has been my desire to afford both the casual reader and the serious student of the orchestra and band with a single volume which might prove of interest. --Preface.