![]() Today, the violin is an incredibly popular instrument and some of classical music's biggest stars are violinists – think of Nicola Benedetti, Joshua Bell and Itzhak Perlman.īut did this all happen by chance? Perhaps if Baroque composers had decided the oboe sounded better on the melody, we might be listening to orchestras with a very different make-up. Is the violin still the most popular instrument today? One result of that was that the orchestras playing Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony or Stravinsky’s The Firebird needed even more strings, because the sound of the non-string instruments needed to be balanced out. However, in Romantic and 20th-century music, composers like Mahler, Wagner and Stravinsky began to write for a wider range of brass, woodwind and percussion instruments. Here is how an orchestra is often set up: The Conductor The conductor evolved over the past few centuries, starting as a keyboardist or string leader who would guide the orchestra from their instrument. In fact, pre-1700s, the leader of the first violin section led the whole orchestra, instead of a modern-day conductor. There are four main families of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Orchestras specialising in Baroque music tend to be much smaller and more focused on string instruments. Since the Baroque period, violins have pretty much always been included in orchestral scores. Plus, history has always favoured violins Bass: The Bass is the largest instrument in the string family. The strings on the cello are A, D, G and C but sound one octave lower then the Viola. It is played sitting down but is still a bowed string instrument. Simply put, there need to be enough violins to balance out the bright, penetrating sound of the oboe. Cello: The cello is much larger then the violin or viola. But if you play first violin, you are one of ten playing that line. Take the oboe, for instance: if you play first oboe, you’ll generally be the only one playing that particular line of music. This works in the same way for the woodwind section – except the numbers are far fewer. While the first violin section normally has the melody or counter-melody, the second violin section tends to play a lower harmony. So, just as you need more upper voices to make sure they’re heard over the lower voices in a choir, you need at least two violins per woodwind or brass instrument to achieve a balanced sound.īut why do orchestras need two violin sections? Musicians must wear earplugs in orchestra to prevent hearing damage, study revealsĪlthough violins have a high, singing quality, they are not particularly loud. In fact, in professional orchestras today there are often perspex screens positioned in front of the brass, woodwind and percussion sections to deflect some of the force of sound coming from them. ![]() Sitting next to a violinist or a trumpeter while they're playing are two very different aural experiences – and over-exposure to the latter can do long-term damage to your ears. Why are there fewer woodwind and brass instruments?
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