WHAT IS AN ORCHESTRA?
Musical instruments are all around us, everywhere we turn. What are some ways that you can make sounds,
other than with your voices? There are three basic ways that music can be formed: blowing air, plucking a string
or striking materials with your hand or other objects. The way the sound is produced is how the family that an
instrument belongs to is identified. Woodwind and Brass instruments form sounds by blowing air, String
instruments form sounds by plucking or sliding a bow against strings and Percussion instruments make their
sound by beating or striking the instrument.
Even though the musical instruments may seem very complex now, these types of instruments came about long
ago, when people found that you could create sounds by blowing air into a shell, form a beat by striking or
beating on a hollow log, or by pulling different-length strings tight to pluck. What types of instruments can you
find on your own that form sounds similar to the instruments in the orchestra?
An interesting fact that all instrument families have in common is that the smaller instruments have a high sound
and the larger instruments have a low sound. For example, listen to the trumpets and notice how much higher the
sound is than one of the bigger brass instrument, like the tuba. The smaller the instrument, the higher the sound.
The bigger the instrument, the lower the sound.
You will see the musicians seated on the stage based on the instrument they play, much like this picture:
Activity/Pre-Assessment:
Objective: Students will actively listen to place sounds in three categories: produced by air, strings, or by striking
objects. This activity is for students to engage in thinking about the difference in sound, specifically between wind
instruments and string instruments. They will learn the “right” answers when going over the instrument families
and the instruments in each.
Materials:
o
Recording of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, mvt 2
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CD Player/Sound System
Procedure:
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As a class, make up three (silent) hand movements or gestures to represent the three ways sound can be
created: blowing air, plucking or sliding a bow against a string, or striking an object. Here are a few
suggestions, but students can come up with equally as interesting motions:
Blowing air: breath in, blow out, puff cheeks and play the air trumpet
Strings: Hold left arm out straight (as if holding a violin) and drag an air bow across the middle
Percussion: Play the air drums.
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The teacher should have a gesture for when to listen to a new sound. Communicate this gesture to the
students.
o
Play a minute or two of the recording. Each time the melody comes up (which begins with the clarinet),
have students show, through the corresponding gestures, how they think the sound is created.
The teacher can chose to either keep the music running continuously or pause the music every
once in a while to point out a melody or specific sounds to listen to.
Extension:
What types of materials can you find to make sounds in one of these three ways? Try to find an example
for each.
Now let’s take a look at each instrument family!
STRINGS
Four of the string instruments are shaped alike – the violin, viola, cello and bass. They have carved,
hollow, wooden bodies with four strings running from one end to the other. These strings are plucked
with the finger or played with a bow. The bow is a wooden rod strung with hair from a horse’s tail.
Another string instrument is the harp, a triangular frame with 47 strings, which are plucked with the
fingers. The majority of the musicians in a symphony orchestra play string instruments. These are the
instruments that distinguish an orchestra from a band. Although the guitar is not an orchestral
instrument, it sometimes appears with the strings.
WOODWINDS
These instruments are called woodwinds because they were all originally made out of wood (the flute is now
made out of wood and beginner models of the other instruments can be made out of plastic) and the sound is
created by using wind (your breath). Thus the name, woodwind. Three of the instruments use a reed (a small strip
of cane/wood) to vibrate the air blown into the instrument. The fourth woodwind instrument, the flute, does not
use a reed – air is blown across an opening (much like blowing air into a soda bottle). Modern flutes are no longer
made out of wood – they are silver instead. The four main instruments in the woodwind family are the flute,
oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. However, each of these instruments have an auxiliary “relative” – the piccolo (flute),
the English horn (oboe), the bass clarinet (clarinet) , and the contra-bassoon (bassoon). There is also an
instrument that is sometimes featured in the symphony.
BRASS
Brass instruments are long brass tubes which are bent in different shapes. They can produce very loud sounds. All
brass instruments have cup-shaped mouthpieces, through which to blow air, and wide, bell-shaped ends for the
sound to come out. While the woodwind instruments use a reed to vibrate the air, brass players buzz their lips
together to create the vibration and push the air through the instrument. Most of the brass instruments use
valves to open and close different tubes/sections of the instrument to make different pitches. The trombone does
not use a valve to lengthen the tubes; instead, it has a long slide that is moved to change the pitch. The four brass
instruments are trumpet, french horn, trombone, and tuba.
PERCUSSION
As you learned earlier, an instrument whose sound is created by striking or beating upon an instrument would fall
into the Percussion family. Percussionists also create their sounds through shaking and scratching. Therefore, you
can imagine that there are hundreds of percussion instruments. To make it easier to identify them, they are
divided into sub-families: drums, keyboard mallets and traps.
Drums are instruments that are sounded by being struck by sticks or with the hands and are typically cylindrical or
barrel-shaped with a skin/membrane wrapped around one or both ends. The most frequently used drums in the
symphony are the timpani and the snare drums. Timpani can be tuned by tightening and loosening the drum head
to produce the actual musical pitches.
Keyboard mallets have notes arranged just like the keys on a piano. Some are made of metal (glockenspiel or
bells) and some of wood (xylophone). Rather than using your fingers on the keys like you would on a piano, a
keyboard percussion player uses 1-4 mallets (like sticks) to produce the sounds.
The traps instruments make sounds, but no actual musical pitch. Some of the more frequently used traps
instruments used in the orchestra are cymbals, tambourine, triangle and woodblocks. There are even sound effect
percussion instruments that can sound like thunder, rain, sirens, sleigh bells, and ducks.
Here are a few of the more common percussion instruments in the orchestra:
CONDUCTOR
Although you will not hear too many sounds from the conductor, unless he is talking into the microphone, the
conductor plays an important role as the leader of the orchestra musicians. He or she stands on a platform, called
a podium, at the front of the orchestra. They use their arms and a baton to give signals to the orchestra musicians
for when to begin, when to slow down or speed up, when to play louder or softer, and when to stop. Sometimes,
he/she points to a particular musician or section of instruments when they have an important part in the music to
make sure that they come in on time.
In addition to leading the orchestra, the conductor plans the music that is played on their concerts. They work
with any soloists that are featured in the concert to make sure that everybody has the same interpretation of the
music. They can also work with other performers, like dancers, mimes and narrators to bring in an additional
component to the music.
While becoming a conductor takes years of practice, as well as hours of time spent studying all of the music that
each of the musicians are reading, condensed into a musical score, many people have the skills to do the basic
motions. See if you have what it takes:
For Music in 2/4 or cut time
For music in 3/4
For music in 4/4