G'day Gurney,

No! The woodwind (beating) reed was well known all over Europe ... and most other places ... right through the middle ages. It could be as simple as a section of the same 'reed' that constituted the body of a simple reed pipe - loosened to vibrate enough to set up waves that could be tuned by the finger holes.

The metal "free reed" is a totally different principal - the metal tongue vibrates freely at a frequency determined by its length / weight / other subtle 'tuning' factors. Its great point was that each free reed was free to join in with others ... producing the world's first powerful, yet portable, harmony instruments (that's really before they redesigned the fiddle ... and classical types rarely play "double stopping" - or harmony styles on 'violin').

Regards,

Bob Bolton