If you have ever heard the mellow tones of a jazz or classical clarinet solo, you have been listening to the natural sound of an instrument made of mpingo. In the last century, cocuswood from the Caribbean region was the wood of choice for woodwinds, but the species was driven into economic extinction by that demand.
African blackwood is now the wood used exclusively for fine quality woodwind instruments.
Their manufacture demands a perfect piece of wood free of all defects to allow the intricate machining necessary to create such a complex instrument. Since blackwood is a tree that grows twisted and full of flaws, extracting high quality timber is extremely difficult. It is thought that this may be due to the exposure of mpingo to fires in excess of what would occur naturally during its growth. This may create hairline cracks and invisible defects in the wood that cause it to explode apart on the lathe during manufacture. Such large amounts of wastage put an added demand on the remaining stands of timber.