Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to  Classify musical instruments by their belonging to the sections of the modern symphony orchestra

The Sections of the Orchestra

The typical orchestra is divided into four groups of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. The typical Western marching band, school band, or wind ensemble (woodwinds and brass together are winds) leaves out the strings, but otherwise uses most of the same instruments as the orchestra.

Strings

There are four stringed instruments commonly used in the modern orchestra: the violin, viola, cello, and bass.All are made of wood and have four strings. Sounds on string instruments are usually produced by drawing a bow across the strings, Another technique of producing a sound is  the pizzicato which is executed by plucking the strings. Pizzicato is used  throughout an entire work or movement (as in the two examples below)  or in parts of a concerto or solo work for a stringed instrument.   Please remember that the term  for this is piccicato and the description is “plucking the strings with the finger”.. Be sure to use the term – pizzicato– when discussing this technique.

There is an example of  pizzicato technique:  Pizzicato Polka by Joseph strauss

https://youtu.be/3CAXpuPqfv0

Here is another example of pizzicato technique: Tchaikovsky Symphony 4 – Third Movement:

 

.The violin is smallest, has the highest sound, and is most numerous; there are normally two violin sections (the first violins and second violins), but only one section of each of the other strings.

The viola is only a little bit bigger than a violin, with a slightly deeper and mellower tone. One might have trouble telling a viola from a violin without a side-by-side comparison.

The cello is technically the “violoncello,” but few people call it that anymore. There is no mistaking it for a violin or viola; it is much bigger, with a much lower, deeper sound. Whereas violins and violas are held up under the chin to be played, cellos and basses have to rest on the floor to be played.

The bass, also called the “double bass” (its official name), “standing bass” or “string bass,” is so big that the player must sit on a high stool or stand up to play it. It has a very low sound.

Woodwind  Family

Classical oboe with seven keys, following improvements in the Baroque oboe from the mid-eighteenth century.

The woodwind members of the orchestra are the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. There can be two, three, or four, of any of these woodwinds in an orchestra, depending on the size of the orchestra and the piece being played. All of the modern orchestral woodwinds are played by blowing into them and fingering different notes using keys that cover various holes. Most, but not all, are made of wood and have at least one piece of reed in the mouthpiece.

You may be surprised that the saxophone is not here. This is the one instrument that is always found in bands and wind ensembles, but only very rarely plays in the orchestra.

Although flutes may be made of wood, the orchestral flute is usually made of metal. It also does not have a reed. It is grouped with the woodwinds partly because it is in fact more closely related to those instruments than to the brass (please see Wind Instruments: Some Basics), but also because the color of its sound fits in the woodwind section. The sound is produced when the player blows across a hole in the side (not the end) of the instrument. It has a clear, high sound that can be either gentle or piercing. An even higher-sounding instrument is the piccolo, a very small flute that is much more common in bands than in orchestras.

The oboe is the instrument that traditionally sounds the first “A” that the orchestra tunes to. It is black, made of wood, and at sight can be mistaken  for a clarinet. But its sound is produced when the player blows in between two small reeds, and its high “double-reed” sound is not easily mistaken for any other instrument. The cor anglais, or English horn, is a slightly larger double reed instrument with a deeper, gentler tone, that is sometimes called for in orchestral music.

The clarinet is also black and normally made of wood, although good plastic clarinets are also made. It uses only a single reed. It is a versatile instrument, with a very wide range of notes from low to high, and also a wide range of different sound colors available to it. In the orchestra, clarinets are no more numerous than the other woodwinds, but it is usually the most numerous instrument in bands and wind ensembles because of its useful versatility. There are many sizes of clarinet available, including bass and contrabass clarinets, but the most common is the B flat clarinet. The clarinet is the only common orchestral woodwind that is usually a transposing instrument, although there are less common woodwinds, such as English horn, that are also transposing instruments.

The bassoon is the largest and lowest-sounding standard orchestral woodwind. (Bass clarinet and contrabassoon are used only occasionally.) It is a long hollow tube of wood; you can often see the tops of the bassoons over the rest of the orchestra. Like the oboe, the bassoon is a double reed – the player blows between two reeds – but the player does not blow into the end of the bassoon. The air from the reeds goes through a thin metal tube into the middle of the instrument.

Brass Family

The orchestral brass are all made of metal, although the metal can be a silvery alloy instead of brass. The sound is actually produced by “buzzing” the lips against the mouthpiece; the rest of the instrument just amplifies and refines the sound from the lips so that it is a pretty, musical sound by the time it comes out of the bell at the other end of the instrument. A slide, or three or four valves, help the instruments get different notes, but players rely heavily on the harmonic series of their instruments to get the full range of notes. (Please see Wind Instruments: Some Basics for more on the subject.) The orchestral brass instruments are the trumpet, French horn, trombone, and tuba. As with the woodwinds, the number of each of these instruments varies depending on the size of the orchestra and the piece being played. There are usually two to five each of trumpets, horns, and trombones, and one or two tubas.

The trumpet is the shortest, highest-sounding orchestral brass instrument. Its shape is quite cylindrical (it doesn’t flare much until the very end), giving it a very clear, direct sound. Trumpets may read in C or may be B flat transposing instruments. The cornet, which is more common in bands than in orchestras, is very similar to the trumpet and the two instruments are often considered interchangeable. The cornet has a more conical, gently-flaring shape and a slightly mellower sound.

French horn

The French horn, or horn, is much more conical than the trumpet and has a much mellower, more distant sound. It has a wide range that overlaps both the trumpet and trombone ranges, and in the orchestra is often used to fill in the middle of the brass sound. Its long length of tubing is wrapped into a circular shape and the bell faces backward and is normally rested on the player’s leg. It is a transposing instrument that usually reads music in F.

The trombone is the only valveless brass instrument in the modern orchestra. One section of its tubing – the slide – slides in and out to specific positions to get higher and lower pitches, but, as with the other brass, it uses the harmonic series to get all the notes in its range. Its range is quite a bit lower than the trumpet, but it also has a brassy, direct (cylindrical-shape) sound.

There are a few instruments in the middle and low range of the brass section that are commonly found in bands, but very rare in the orchestra. The baritone and euphonium play in the same range as the trombone, but have the more cylindrical shape and a very mellow, sweet sound. In marching bands, the horn players often play mellophone and the tuba players play the sousaphone. The mellophone is an E flat or F transposing instrument with a forward-facing bell that is more suitable for marching bands than the French horn. The sousaphone was also invented for use in a marching band; its tubing is wrapped so that the player can carry it on the shoulders.

The tuba is the largest, lowest-sounding orchestral brass instrument. It is a conical brass instrument, with a much mellower, distant sound than the trombone. Its bell (and the bell of the baritone and euphonium) may either point straight up or upward and forward.

Percussion

In a Western orchestra or band, anything that is not classified as strings, woodwinds, or brass goes in the percussion section, including whistles. Most of the instruments in this section, though, are various drums and other instruments that are hit with drumsticks or beaters. Here are some of the more common instruments found in an orchestra percussion section.

Timpani are large kettledrums (drums with a rounded bottom) that can be tuned to play specific pitches. An orchestra or wind ensemble will usually have a few tympani of various sizes.

Other common drums do not have a particular pitch. They are usually cylindrical, sometimes with a drum head on each end of the cylinder. They include the small side drum, which often has a snare that can be engaged to give the drum an extra rattling sound, the medium-sized tenor drum, and the large bass drum. All orchestral drums (including tympani) are played using hard drum sticks or softer beaters. Drums that are played with the hands, like bongos, are rare in traditional orchestras and bands.

Cymbals can be clashed together, hit with a beater, or slapped together in “hi-hat” fashion. For smaller ensembles, various cymbals and drums may be grouped into a drum set so that one player can play all of them. Gongs are usually larger and thicker than cymbals and are usually hit with a soft beater.

 More Percussion

There is only one group of common percussion instruments on which it is easy to play a melody. In these instruments, bars, blocks or tubes are arranged in two rows like the black and white keys of a piano keyboard. Orchestral xylophones and marimbas use wooden bars arranged over hollow tubes that help amplify their sound. The glockenspiel uses metal bars (like the familiar children’s xylophone), and tubular bells use long, hollow, metal tubes.

Common percussion extras that add special color and effects to the music include the tambourine, triangle, maracas and other shakers, castanets, claves and various wood blocks, and various bells and scrapers.

Strings

Listen to the instruments of the string family in the following sound file:

Introduction

Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration, which the instrument emits as sound.

Listen: String Instruments

The first modern violin is thought to have been developed by Andrea Amati (ca. 1505-1577) in Italy.
Listen: String Instruments :
Viola

Other String Instruments

Woodwinds

The modern orchestra’s woodwind section typically includes: flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon are commonly used supplementary woodwind instruments. The section may also on occasion be expanded by the addition of saxophone(s).

Flute
Flutes produce sound by directing a focused stream of air across the edge of a hole in a cylindrical tube. The flute family can be divided into two sub-families: open flutes, and closed flutes.

Flute

Flutes dating back to 43,000 to 35,000 years ago have been found in Germany, but the contemporary mechanism for contemporary flutes was developed between 1832 and 1847

https://youtu.be/bfdydn6UdbI

Oboe

Oboes first appeared in the mid-seventeenth century and were developed further in the nineteenth century.

English Horn

The English horn originated in about 1720.

Clarinet

The clarinet became a standard orchestral instrument by the 1800s.

Bassoon

The bassoon was developed in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Contrabassoon

The contrabassoon was developed in the mid-eighteenth century.

Brass

 Introduction

The view of most scholars is that the term “brass instrument” should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above, and not by whether the instrument is actually made of brass. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornet, the serpent and the didgeridoo, while some woodwind instruments are made of brass, like the saxophone.

French Horn

The French horn (commonly known simply as the horn) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and is descended from the Medieval Horns. Valves used for changing pitch were introduced in 1815. Listen: French Horn

Trumpet

The trumpet has the highest register in the brass family. As a signaling device, trumpets have a very long history, dating back to at least 1500 BC; they have been used as musical instruments since the 15th century.

Earlier trumpets did not have valves, but modern instruments generally have either three piston valves or, more rarely, three rotary valves. Each valve increases the length of tubing when engaged, thereby lowering the pitch.

Trombone

Nearly all trombones have a telescoping slide mechanism that varies the length of the instrument to change the pitch. The trombone is a predominantly cylindrical tube bent into an elongated “S” shape. The ‘slide’, the most distinctive feature of the trombone, allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch.

The word trombone derives from Italian tromba (trumpet) and -one (a suffix meaning “large”), so the name means “large trumpet”.

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. It first appeared in the mid 19th-century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band. The tuba largely replaced the ophicleide. Tuba is Latin for ‘trumpet’.

An orchestra usually has a single tuba, though an additional tuba may be asked for. It serves as the bass of the orchestral brass section and it can reinforce the bass voices of the strings and woodwinds.

The conical bore causes the instrument to produce a preponderance of even-order harmonics.

The modern sousaphone, named after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a hélicon with the bell pointed up and then curved to point forward.

Percussion

Introduction

A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater (including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles); struck, scraped or rubbed by hand; or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice.

The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone (which do not have piano keyboards) are included.

Percussion instruments are most commonly divided into two categories: pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, and unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes or sounds without an identifiable pitch.

Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, and brass. However, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, other percussion instruments (like the triangle or cymbals) have been used, again generally sparingly. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the twentieth-century classical music.

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the eighteenth century.

The head’s tension can be adjusted by loosening or tightening the rods giving thew option for tuning to different pitches. Most timpani have six to eight tension rods.

Bass Drum

Bass drums are percussion instruments which vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums are as follows:

A bass drum is typically cylindrical with the diameter much greater than the height. There is normally a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The heads may be made of calf skin or plastic. There is normally a means of adjusting the tension either by threaded taps or by strings.

Snare Drum

The snare drum or side drum is a ubiquitous percussion instrument known for its cylindrical shape and powerful, staccato sound.  Snare drums are typically played with drum sticks, although there are other options for a completely different sound, such as the brush.

The snare drum is constructed of two heads—both typically made of plastic—along with a rattle of metal wires on the bottom head called the snares. The wires can also be placed on the top, just like on the Tarol Snare. The top head is typically called the batter head because that is where the drummer strikes it, while the bottom head is called the snare head because that is where the snares are located.

Cymbals

Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a definite note.

More Percussion

Tam-Tam (Gong)

Piano

The piano (an abbreviation of pianoforte) is a musical instrument played using a keyboard. An acoustic piano usually has a protective wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings, and a row of 88 black and white keys (52 white, 36 black). The strings are sounded when the keys are pressed, and silenced when the keys are released. The note can be sustained, even when the keys are released, by the use of pedals.

Pressing a key on the piano’s keyboard causes a padded (often with felt) hammer to strike strings. The hammer rebounds, and the strings continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air. When the key is released, a damper stops the strings’ vibration, ending the sound. Although an acoustic piano has strings, it is usually classified as a percussion instrument because the strings are struck rather than plucked (as with a harpsichord or spinet); in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones. With technological advances, electric, electronic, and digital pianos have also been developed.

Grand Piano

In grand pianos, the frame and strings are horizontal, with the strings extending away from the keyboard. The action lies beneath the strings, and uses gravity as its means of return to a state of rest.

Listen: Piano

Celesta

The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), or a large wooden music box (three-octave). The keys connect to hammers that strike a graduated set of metal (usually steel) plates suspended over wooden resonators.

Organ

The organ (from Greek ὄργανον organon, “organ, instrument, tool”) is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria, who is credited with inventing the water organ. It was played throughout the Greek and Roman world, particularly during races and games. During the early medieval period it spread from the Byzantine Empire, where it continued to be used in secular and imperial court music, to Western Europe, where it gradually assumed a prominent place in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument.

Organs can fall into one of several categories including pipe organs, reed organs chord organs, steam organs, and electronic organs such as the famous Hammond Organ.