the pathetic lips are a set of double reed tube instruments that are directionally reversed, as in the double lamell reed is forced closed like other doubled reeds but the act of closing it is from air flowing though the body of the read that flows out the tips rather then air flowing in the tips and out the back of the reed. (on a side note I have not found a good terminology for this phenomena just yet). This type of reed can be described as two individual parallel lamells, placed a short distance apart that when air flows between them are forced to draw inward be negative air pressure and smack into one another, at which point the air flow is cut off and the reeds return to their original position and the cycle repeats.

Pitch is determined by the length and tension of the two lamells. I have determined that this set should be considered one piece, because of the dependency of both parts in the system to oscillate, if there was one free floating reed it would not response to airflow in the manner that these do and if there was one damped side the system flows more like that of a single lamell reed, and also does not respond to the reversed duration of the air in the same manner.

I have began to call these instruments pathetic lips, in reference to what is developing as a set of unrelated instruments all called pathetic. In this context the word pathetic is being used to mean weak-sounding, quite, congested, timid, uncharismatic, and inharmonic. The instruments in this set all operate under different mechanics but have a similar voice like quality to their sound and all are fairly quite in sound. Often these instruments require quite a lot of effort to generate sound and produce sound in a weak manner.