Musical Instruments 7 Articles

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Musical Instruments: The Orchestra 257 words

Musical Instruments - Brass Instruments 298 words

Musical Instruments - String Instruments 227 words

Musical Instruments: Percussion Instruments 242 words

Musical Instruments - Woodwind Instruments 214 words

Musical Instruments - Djembe 215 words

Musical Instruments - The Bugle and Taps 257 words

Page 1 of 18 ReadWorks.org · © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments: The Orchestra Musical Instruments: The Orchestra By ReadWorks An orchestra is a group of musicians who perform together by playing a variety of instruments. The musicians usually play classical music. Orchestras often play in concert halls. The conductor is the person who leads the orchestra. The conductor stands with his or her back to the audience and conducts all of the musicians. The conductor keeps the beat and tempo with a stick called a baton. The conductor makes sure that musicians play their notes at the right time and speed.

Sometimes orchestras accompany operas. An opera is a type of play set to music. Operas include songs and sometimes dances. When an orchestra plays for an opera, it often performs from an area below the level of the stage. This area is called the pit.

Symphony orchestras are large orchestras. They have four families of instruments. There are strings,

Page 2 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments: The Orchestra woodwinds, brass, and percussion. The instruments in each family are related because they make sound in a similar way.

Groups of musicians have been playing together for thousands of years. However, the idea of the modern symphony orchestra took shape around the year 1600. Before 1600, groups of musicians didn’t play specific instruments. They used any instruments that were around, and the musicians sat anywhere in the groups. Today, musicians’ seats in a symphony orchestra are arranged by instrument. The seating chart below shows one way all of the different instruments can be placed. If your classroom were a symphony orchestra and your teacher were the conductor, which instrument would you play?

symphony orchestra seating chart

Page 4 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - Brass Instruments Musical Instruments - Brass Instruments By ReadWorks Loud and bold! Brass instruments have been around for ages. In ancient Egypt, a metal trumpet was used for rituals or for military uses. In other cultures since then, brass instruments have been used to send messages to warriors on battlefields. Today, some militaries still use brass instruments for special occasions.

Brass instruments became used more as musical instruments in the time period called the Middle Ages. All brass instruments make sound in the same way. The musician presses his or her lips into a tiny cup on the end of the mouthpiece. When he or she blows air into the mouthpiece, the musician’s lips buzz.

After the air goes through the mouthpiece, it enters tubes wound round and round. The air exits through a large hole at the other end of the tubes. This end is shaped like a bell.

The sound of a brass instrument depends on the length of the tubes. Some brass instruments have small holes in part of their tubing. There are buttons at each of these holes. These buttons are called valves. When musicians press on the valves with their fingers, they change the lengths of the tubes in which the air can travel. This is how brass instruments with valves make different notes. Examples of these brass instruments include trumpets and the French horn.

Trombones are brass instruments that have a different way to change the lengths of the tubes. They have a U- shaped tube that slides in and out. Sliding the U-shaped tube out extends the lengths of the tubes in which the air travels.

Brass instruments are usually made out of brass. Brass is a shiny metal that looks like gold. The instruments can also be made out of other metals.

trumpet

pocket trumpet

French horn

trombone

String instruments make music with their strings. A bow is a piece of wood with horsehair stretched from end to end. When the musician draws the bow across the strings, the strings vibrate and produce sound. The sound echoes inside the body, or wooden part of the instrument.

There are four primary instruments that make up the string section of the orchestra. They are the violin, viola,

Page 9 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - String Instruments cello, and bass. The picture above is a viola, but the violin, cello, and bass also have the same basic shape. They are very different in size, though. The violin is the smallest. Its body is about 14 inches long. The bass is the largest. It is about 6 feet tall!

The violin can play the most notes of any of the string instruments. The violin usually plays the melody of a song in the orchestra.

The beautiful sounds produced by the viola are deeper than those of the violin. In the orchestra, the viola usually plays the harmony.

The cello is larger than the viola. The musician plays while sitting on a chair. The cello’s music can be beautiful and sad.

In order to play the bass, the musician either stands or sits on a very high stool to play the instrument. Its sound is one of the lowest out of all of the instrumental voices of the orchestra.

Drums are a large part of the percussion family. The body of a drum is usually made of a wooden cylinder. A drum skin is stretched across this cylinder. A drum skin is often made from animal skin. When the drummer hits the surface of the drum skin, the surface vibrates. Those vibrations produce sound!

Drums have been around for a long time. Ancient art includes pictures of drums. This art shows that drums have been used to make music and rhythm since about 6000 BCE. Many different societies have used drums for ceremonies and sacred occasions. Today, drums are often used in orchestras and popular music.

The biggest drum is called the bass drum. The bass drum makes the deepest sound. In orchestras the bass drum sets the rhythm for the rest of the orchestra. The sound from the drum is so strong that the other musicians can feel it!

All percussion instruments are not drums, however. Do you see the cymbals at the top of the drum set in the image above? Cymbals are made from metal. They have been around since at least 1500 BCE. Other percussion instruments are not in the image above. One example is the xylophone, an instrument made up of metal keys. Bells and the gong are also percussion instruments. These instruments are very different from drums, but all percussion instruments have one thing in common. They all make sound when someone strikes their surface.

Page 12 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - Woodwind Instruments Musical Instruments - Woodwind Instruments By ReadWorks Has your gym coach ever blown a whistle to get your attention? The noise may sound harsh. It is not too different from original woodwind instruments. The first woodwind instruments were hollow pieces of wood. One end was open and the other end was closed. By blowing into the open end, people made whistles. Over time these instruments became more complicated. Since they were made of wood, they became known as the woodwind family.

Today, the most famous woodwind instrument is the flute. It isn’t made of wood at all. It is made of silver. Most professionals play on solid silver flutes. Students play on flutes made of silver-plated metal. Look at the picture of the flute below. It is a long narrow tube. When musicians blow into the mouthpiece of the tube, the flute makes music. Musicians use their fingers to cover the holes along the tube. This controls what notes the flutes

In orchestras, the woodwind section has more kinds of instruments than any other family. The section is made up of flutes, piccolos, oboes, English horns, clarinets, bass clarinets, bassoons and contrabassoons. All of these instruments are hollow tubes made of wood or metal. The piccolo, less than 13 inches long, is the smallest instrument in the whole orchestra.

An old African proverb says “A village without music is a dead village.”

The djembe is pictured above. The djembe has been making music in Africa since around1200 AD. The djembe came from the ancient African Mali Empire. Today the djembe is played in many African countries. Just as people in different countries speak different languages, people in different countries play the djembe differently too!

African music is very different from classical European

Page 15 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - Djembe music. Often, European music is written down. The notes and rhythms stay the same each time the song it played. African music is meant to be flexible. Rhythms can change. Rhythms have a lot of significance! The musicians remember important rhythms for different ceremonies. The music communicates emotion to the listeners. Ancient African healers played the drum to cure sicknesses. Other times, drums were used for dances.

The djembe gets its name from the tree used to make it. To make a drum, first a musician has to locate a djem tree. The djem tree has very thick wood. It is perfect for the drum. After the musician cuts down the tree, he carves the tree trunk into the shape for the drum. Finally, a piece of goatskin is stretched across the surface of the drum and attached. The drum is finished

Page 16 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - The Bugle and Taps Musical Instruments - The Bugle and Taps By ReadWorks The bugle is a brass instrument. The military uses brass instruments, especially the bugle, for many reasons. Bugle songs are often described as “calls” because the music calls soldiers to duty or communicates something that needs to be done.

One of the most widely recognized bugle calls is “Taps.” “Taps” tells soldiers that it is time for “lights out” at night.

The story of “Taps” comes from the United States Civil War. The legend is that General Daniel Butterfield wrote the tune in 1862. He was in charge of troops in the Northern Army. One day his men fought long and hard. Many men came back exhausted, and many did not come back at all. The camp was filled with sadness for those who had died. That night the bugler played the “lights out” call. General Butterfield did not like the tune of the

Page 17 of 18 © 2016 ReadWorks®, Inc. © 2012 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved. Musical Instruments - The Bugle and Taps call. It was harsh and not pleasing. He wanted a gentle, mellow tune that would comfort the men and echo their sadness. That evening Butterfield wrote the beautiful music to “Taps.” From then on, his music played at the end of the day.

Now, the United States military plays “Taps” at funerals and other serious ceremonies.

There are no official words, but here are two verses commonly sung to “Taps”:

Day is done, gone the sun From the lake, from the hills, from the sky All is well, safely rest God is nigh.

Fading light dims the sight And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright From afar, drawing nigh Falls the night.