Musical Instruments

Bowed Strings

 

The four principle orchestral string instruments are (in descending order of overall pitch) the violins (usually divided into two sections, playing individual parts), the violas, the cellos and the double basses. Each have four strings arranged in order of pitch, can be played by means of a bow (arco) or plucked (pizzicato), but whereas the violin and viola are played with the instrument resting between the shoulder and the chin, the larger cello (or, to give it its full title, violoncello) is placed facing outwards between and slightly behind the knees, and the bulky double bass is played standing up or seated on a high stool.

Enthusiasts of Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque music will encounter earlier varieties of bowed instruments known variously as vielle, viol, or in its earliest form, fidel (hence the modern nickname for a violin, 'fiddle'). The most popular member of the viol family is the cello's precursor, the viola da gamba (literally 'viol of the legs').

Woodwind

 

The four principle woodwind instruments of the orchestra all work by means of a system of keys (usually silver-plated) which when variously depressed and released allow air to pass through differing lengths of the instrument resulting in notes of different pitch. In order of descending overall pitch, these are:

Flute

 

 

a normally silver-plated (or in more extravagant cases, gold), narrow-bored instrument, held horizontally just under the mouth, and activated by blowing air across an aperture at one end of the instrument. Its higher-pitched cousin, the piccolo, is often encountered, although the lower alto flute rather less so. Early forebears include the unkeyed fife. The most popular close relation is the recorder family, largely unkeyed and end-blown in the vertical position.

Oboe

 

 a narrow-bored wooden instrument descended from the medieval shawm, held vertically, and activated by means of placing the end-positioned double-reed in the mouth, and blowing under high-pressure so as to force air between the two bound reeds, causing them to vibrate. Other members of the oboe family include the lower pitched cor anglais (or English Horn), and (far more rarely) baritone oboe and heckelphone (bass oboe). The instrument's most famous predecessor is the Baroque oboe d'amore, often used by Johann Sebastian Bach

 

Clarinet

 

  like the oboe usually wooden, played vertically and held in the mouth, but with a wider bore and consisting of a single reed which when activated vibrates against a detachable mouthpiece. The standard instrument can be pitched in B flat (usually) or A, and the family is unusually extensive including the higher-pitched E flat, the B flat bass, the rarely-used C, the alto (a modern relative of the basset horn), and the even more obscure double-bass or 'pedal' clarinet. Occasionally the clarinet's 'popular' cousin can be seen in the concert hall, the saxophone. 

 

Bassoon

 


 



as the name would suggest, the bass member of the woodwind family, and by far the largest, especially its lower-pitched relation, the extremely bulky double or contra-bassoon. Like the oboe, it is a double-reed instrument, although to facilitate the playing action (the instrument is normally held across and in front of the body) it is connected to the bassoon via a silver-plated, curved crook. Its most notorious cousin is the Baroque serpent, shaped very much as its name would suggest.