Whereas early instruments were comparatively limited in the variety and quality of sounds they could produce their modern counterparts are extremely versatile. An extremely old and very simple wind instruments, for example, is the so- called "pipes of pan" - a set of can or wooden tubes cut to different lengths, which each tube producing but mellow pitch. By comparison , our present day silver or platinum flute- a single pipes of 15 holes and 23 levers- can produce a highly colored rainbow of more then the three dozen pitches! Despite the sensuous timbre of the pipes of pan ( an instruments still played in remote village around the world), the antiuqe woodwind has bee completely swept aside by its latest desecdent. Not only can the modern flute play more pitches, but it can do so with great facilites and with exceptional control of loudness, timbre speed duration, and overall quality.
Our modern winds, brass, percussion, and the stringed instruments did not develop all at once. They evolved slowly over the centuries, adding improvements, refining their timbre, and gradually extending their range (the distance between the lowest and highest pitches of an instrument).
This evolution come from the combined efforts of the instruments makers, performers, and composer. The design of a new improvement or in, fact, of an entirely new instruments, was only the first step toward its acceptance. That new design, above all, had to be useful. For the frustrated performer, it has to solve a previously unsolved technical problem (an easier fingering system, for example). For them demanding composer, the design has to be a means of expressing something that could not have been expressing something that could not have been expressed before (an intriguing new timbre, for example, or a way to produce a special effects). Only then was the new design accepted as a new stranded of excellence- as the "state of the art"
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