Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of this research has been that of attaching a name to an ensemble. The heraldic trumpet ensemble was regularly referred to as the trombetti in the sources I consulted. The names of the other two groups, the shawm and lower bombarde or trombone ensemble, and the cornett and trombone band, were not as easy to identify. Some sources refer to the two ensembles as pifarri, while another source would identify a pifarro specifically as a shawm player or a piper, and identify the ensemble as alta, alta instrumenta, or alta capella. Some sources might even, for instance, call the shawm and bombarde band alta and call the cornett and trombone group by a different name. Many sources avoided naming the ensembles at all, simply referring to them as 'instrumental ensembles,' 'wind ensembles,' 'wind bands,' 'brass bands,' 'orchestras,' or similarly ambiguous titles. As if this isn't confusing enough, the ensembles are called different things in different countries. For example, pifarri is a specifically Italian name. In France these ensembles were called hauts ménéstrels (literally 'loud minstrels'), in Spain ministriles altos (also translated as 'loud minstrels'), in England loud minstrels, and pfeifer in Germany. Thus, many relevant sources refer to the ensembles by varying terms that often make a positive identification of the pifarri difficult.

The conflict between various publications about the name of these ensembles is very difficult to sort out. For example, among those who called these ensembles pifarri are: C. AnthonSAS ; D. Arnold Giovanni , who calls it capella as well; Iain Fenlon M&M, who also refers to them as the alta capella; in G. Reese MR they are pifare; and in E. Selfridge-Field's VIM studies the ensembles are called not only pifarri, but also 'orchestras' and 'instrumental ensembles.' Among those who identify pifarri as the players of flutes, pipes, shawms, or various wind instruments are: A. Baines; BI I. Fenlon; Mantua H. Landon and J. Norwich; FCMV and A. Newcomb Newcomb. Lewis Lockwood says of the designation "pifarro" that it ". . .generally means wind player." Lockwood p. 226 Some publications even refer to them by different names in different articles or chapters! These are just a sampling of some of the various names given for the ensembles by experts in the field.

I prefer pifarri over alta if only because pifarri is specific to Italy, and appears slightly more accurate for the two hundred year period I am studying. For the purposes of this paper, the pifarri are the wind ensembles of the shawm and bombarde or trombone band, and the cornett and trombone band. I use the term as a general one for those ensembles, and where distinction is necessary, I will make it by identifying the ensembles as I have above, as the 'shawm and trombone band' or by whatever distinction seems necessary.