Orchestra

An orchestra is a collection of musicians who work together to perform large, complicated compositions. Orchestras may be composed of as many as one hundred musicians at a time. Within each orchestra, there are four main families of instruments: the string family, the woodwind family, the percussion family, and the brass family. Most orchestras also have a conductor. The conductor leads the orchestra by keeping the various musicians in time. Some orchestras may also have a choir and/or a keyboard section.

Background

Musicians have played together in various arrangements for as long as musical instruments have existed. However, orchestras in their modern form are only about four hundred years old. Before then, when composers wrote music, they did not write with any particular instrument in mind. Musicians were expected to play the composition with whatever instruments they had.

In 1607, Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi broke that trend. Monteverdi had just completed his most recent opera, Orfeo. The composer knew that without proper accompaniment, the music would know sound as he had imagined. He wrote out exactly how many musicians were needed to perform the piece and which instruments they would need to use. This ensured that if performed properly, Orfeo would always sound the same. While Monteverdi organized musicians into sections like a modern orchestra, the composition of each section was very different from the sections used today.

These organized groups of musicians, then called consorts, continued to develop over the next two centuries. During this time, string instruments—such as violins, violas, and cellos—gradually grew in importance. As they became more popular in compositions, the number of string instruments included in consorts increased.

As consorts grew, musical directors sometimes became necessary. Keeping dozens of musicians playing in time was a difficult task and required an experienced musician to lead the other players. Consorts continued to grow over the next hundred years, and the position of musical director moved to the first chair violinist. Called the concertmaster, the first violinist kept time for the rest of the consort. As consorts developed into full orchestras, the assembly of musicians grew so large that many could not see the concertmaster. Concertmasters began to use batons to increase visibility. Some began to stand at podiums in front of the musicians. By the twentieth century, the position of concertmaster had evolved, and modern conductors began leading orchestras.

Meanwhile, the composition of the symphony orchestra had stabilized by the nineteenth century. The string family made up the largest section, with smaller brass, woodwind, percussion, and keyboard sections filling out the rest of the orchestra. The keyboard section is sometimes grouped with the percussion section because many keyboard instruments function by striking internal strings or plates with hammers. While some orchestras will add more exotic elements or slightly alter the sizes of the different sections, this composition has remained relatively consistent into the modern era.

Overview

Modern orchestras feature large ensembles of musicians led by a conductor. The musicians work together to play complicated musical pieces. Orchestras come in a variety of sizes and compositions. Nevertheless, most utilize the same musical sections.

The string section is usually the largest section of an orchestra. String instruments use different gauges of tightly-wound strings to produce sound. The strings are usually vibrated with a bow, plucked, or strummed. String sections often include violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. The sounds these instruments produce range from high soprano notes to lower bass notes, providing accompaniment throughout most of the musical spectrum.

The brass section is composed of certain breath-powered instruments. Brass musicians vibrate their lips against the mouthpiece of their instruments. The instrument then amplifies that sound. Most brass instruments have valves that the musician activates, which change the length of the tubes inside the instrument. By changing the length of the tubes, the musician alters the distance air travels before reaching the end of the instrument. This changes the pitch, allowing the brass musician to play a full chromatic scale.

Brass instruments come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Trumpets are small, higher-pitched instruments that can be carried in one hand. Their high-pitched notes can easily be heard over the rest of the orchestra. On the other hand, tubas are large, powerful horns that play deep bass notes. Trombones, baritones, and French horns produce a variety of sounds and pitches that range between those produced by the trumpet and the tuba.

The woodwind section is another large section of the orchestra. Like brass instruments, woodwind instruments are powered by musicians' breath. Instead of amplifying the vibrations of a musician's lips, they usually amplify the vibrations of a reed on the end of the instrument. The flute and piccolo are notable exceptions, as they do not have reeds. Still, these instruments do rely on the musician's breath to produce sound, and many flutes and piccolos were made of wood in the past. Therefore, they are included in the woodwind section.

The woodwind family contains a wide range of instruments. The piccolo and flute occupy the soprano range, though the piccolo produces a higher pitch than the flute does. The clarinet produces sounds in the alto range, and the bassoon can be played as either a tenor or a bass instrument.

The percussion family makes up the fourth musical family of an orchestra. Percussion instruments produce sound by being struck by another object, such as a hammer or drumstick. The percussion family includes various types of drums, including bass drums, snare drums, and tambourines. Many orchestras include other types of percussion instruments, such as gongs, maracas, chimes, celestas, castanets, xylophones, and cymbals. Pianos are also technically percussion instruments, as the strings inside are struck by hammers, but these instruments are not usually included in most orchestras. Percussion instruments produce some of the most exotic sounds in an orchestra. They also help to maintain the rhythm and provide dramatic emphasis at important points in the musical composition.

Many types of orchestras exist today. The smallest of these, the chamber orchestra, has just fifty musicians. The next largest size, the sinfonietta, has roughly seventy-five musicians. A full orchestra, called a symphony or a philharmonic orchestra, has up to one hundred musicians. Many musical compositions can be played by a chamber orchestra. However, some particularly elaborate pieces from later classical periods require the use of a full symphony orchestra to accurately perform the composition.

Bibliography

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