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Instrument Families of the Orchestra: String, Woodwind, Brass & Percussion

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  • 0:33 The Four Families
  • 0:53 Strings
  • 2:31 Woodwinds
  • 4:50 Brass
  • 6:29 Percussion
  • 7:28 Lesson Summary
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Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Liz Diamond-Manlusoc

Liz has taught music for K-12 and beyond. She holds a master's degree in Education Media and Design Technology.

There are so many instruments in the orchestra! What similarities and differences can one find between them? How do the instruments work? Find out about the string, woodwind, brass and percussion families in this lesson!

The Orchestra

Ah, the orchestra. The pinnacle of sophistication, acting as the backdrop for the hoity-toity elite and commercials for expensive cars. But really, it's just a group of musicians getting together to make music. How do they make these instruments work? Which instruments are related and why?

The Four Families of the Orchestra

To start, we can break the instruments into four families. Each family is grouped by the way the instrument produces vibration. This kind of classification gives us the string family, the woodwind family, the brass family and the percussion family.

The String Family

When you think of the orchestra, you most likely think of the violin, or at least some sort of string instrument. This is probably because they make up the majority of the instruments in the orchestra, so good thinking! All string instruments use string vibration to produce sound, so it makes sense that they are called the string family! There are four main string instruments. These are the violin, the viola, the cello and the bass. Each of these instruments can be plucked or bowed.

The instruments in the string family vary in size.
String Family

As you can see here, the main difference between the four instruments is their size. As with any instrument, the smaller it is, the higher the pitches it plays, and the larger the instrument is, the lower the pitches it plays. A very common arrangement would have the violins playing the melody and the violas, cellos and basses playing supporting roles. This is not always the case, but it's important to know.

These instruments are some of the oldest instruments made for the modern orchestra, and some early orchestral music is even written solely for this section. Lastly, the harp and the piano are sometimes included in the string family, just depending on the time period when the music was being played.

The Woodwind Family

The next largest section of the orchestra is usually the woodwind family. Most woodwind instruments use a small piece of wood called a reed to produce their vibration. The reed vibrates when air is blown across it. This is how instruments like the clarinet work. Saxophones also use a reed. This is why they are classified as a woodwind and not a brass instrument. As far as instruments go, saxophones are fairly new, having only been created in the mid-1840s. Because of this, there aren't really many orchestral pieces that include saxophones.

Some woodwind instruments have a reed that has two parts called a double reed. Instruments like the oboe and the bassoon use a double reed. In this case, both reeds vibrate and tend to create a nasal sound.

There's also one woodwind which uses just the 'wind' part - it's the flute. The flute does not have a reed. Instead, the player just blows across a hole in the instrument, much like you would do if you were blowing across the top of a pop bottle.

You might have noticed that this family has all the instruments with a ton of buttons, or keys as they're actually called, on them. One of the most challenging parts of playing a woodwind instrument is just knowing which keys to press down and getting your fingers to the right spots without getting tangled. Once mastered, a woodwind player can play quickly with ease, as you can hear in Bach's 'Partita for Flute.' In the orchestra, the higher-pitched woodwinds, like the flute and oboe, tend to play the melody, while lower-pitched woodwinds, like the bassoon, tend to play supporting harmonic parts.

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You are viewing lesson Lesson 8 in chapter 1 of the course:

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Music 101: Intro to Music

12 chapters | 100 lessons

Ch 1. Elements of Music
Ch 2. Medieval Music

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