piccolo

She holds her head high whether playing piccolo or the 6-foot contrabass flute, as if her instrument were a magic wand used to activate her voice in the highest registers and the deepest.

Band members received new uniforms, new drums and, most recently, new flutes and piccolos, all of it paid for by the district’s budget for the arts.

A tuba is also much harder for a thief to pilfer than, say, a piccolo, or even a trumpet.

In the Lento e deserto, the work’s only slow movement, the lonely yowlings of piccolo, bassoon and slide whistle formed a tender yet humorous trio.

And its finish: that long drawn-out sigh of clarinet, the delayed relief of its puff of piccolo — just perfect.