What a rackett! While bassoons have been happily honking away since the mid-1600s, their ancestors predate them by at least 100 years. Both the dulcian and the rackett were conical-bored bass instruments played with double reeds, just like the bassoon, and both instruments likely influenced the development of the baroque bassoon. Both came in a wide variety of sizes and ranges and had a relatively soft, reedy sound. If you were to look at a dulcian today you’d probably say “Wow, that looks like a bassoon.” (Or, “wow, that looks like an oboe” if you’re one of my friends.) If you saw a rackett today you’d probably say “Wow, that looks like someone hammered nails into a piece of polished firewood.”