Instrument Families: Brass, Woodwind, Percussion, Strings

Last week was the last Sound Beginnings class of the semester, which meant I had the joy of hosting a very special Instrument Petting Zoo day.  Even ambitious parents who want to take their 2-4 year old to the orchestra know that toddlers aren't likely to sit through an orchestral concert. So, unless the child has someone playing an instrument at home, this class is a special chance to hear the sounds of real instruments up close and personal.

And, for the first time ever, all four of my own children happened to be home on a school break, which meant they played piano, ukulele, violin, trombone, saxophone, french horn and trumpet samples for my class. Although the variety of instruments around the world is huge, there are four categories/families of instruments found in the orchestra. Each family creates sound in a similar way. This interactive online orchestra lets you hear each family play its sound- just click on the section you'd like to sample.

Brass Instruments

It's pretty clear to see why the brass instruments naturally go together: they're all made of metal.

Trombone, tuba, sousaphone, trumpet, and french horn are a few brass instruments. 

But that's not the main reason these instruments are a family. I like to point out to my students that these instruments all make sound in a similar way. Yes, you put air into the instruments (aerophones), but not just by huffing and blowing. Brass instruments require the player to buzz the lips.  The embouchure (the way in which a player applies the mouth) is a mouth with tight corners and loose lips in the center, creating a buzz that can be adjusted higher or lower in pitch. I invite all my students to experiment with buzzing, like with this short video to get the feel.

Adjusting the buzz/embouchure creates an overtone series.  A bugle, the simplest brass instrument, has no valves or slides.  So, different notes are produced by adjusting the embouchure and the notes are limited to the overtone series.

Other brass instruments have a few valves or a slide added, allowing the musician to play all notes of the chromatic scale. And what about the saxophone? It's made of brass for sure, but I never put it in the brass family because it is not a 'buzzed' instrument. Nowadays there are even brass instruments made of plastic. A pBone or pTrumpet is lightweight, durable, and kid-friendly (that means it doesn't get dents) but it is STILL a brass instrument with no brass to be found.

Because the embouchure is adjustable, much like the vocal cords, students need to have a good ear to know if they are hitting the correct pitch. Complete musicianship programs like Let's Play Music help develop the ear and prepare a student for success with brass.  Here's a fabulous trumpet solo with some close-ups of the finger action to inspire youngsters who love brass:


 
Woodwinds

The woodwinds are clearly also aerophones (require air to play), but they present a lot of variety in look and sound. Bassoon, saxophone, piccolo, oboe, flute, and clarinet are a few woodwinds.

The name of this family leads everyone to wonder, "Are all of the woodwinds actually made of wood?"

The answer is that, yes, long ago all of these instruments were actually made of wood.  Over time, some of these instruments have been replaced with metal or plastic. And then, around 1840, the saxophone was invented and considered part of this family because (as you now know) it just didn't belong in the brass family. 

All sounds are created from vibrations.  While brass instruments rely on the player's lip buzz to create the vibration, woodwinds generate vibration when air travels across a thin piece of wood, the reed, which vibrates. The clarinet and saxophone have one reed, the oboe and bassoon have two reeds, and the flute and recorder have no reeds (the air vibrates along the length of the tube).

This 7-minute video by House of Sound explains to kids how sound waves are set up in various woodwinds. You might enjoy watching their other videos, too.
 

Strings

Strings are chordophones (make sound by vibrating strings).  Violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, and guitar are a few instruments from this family. The strings are made of nylon, steel, or gut, and the bodies of the instruments are hollow inside to allow the vibrations to resonate. 

Strings are played most often by drawing a bow across the strings. The bow handle is made of wood and the strings are horsehair! Musicians can also pluck the strings with their fingers or tap the strings with the wooden side of the bow.

The Piano Guys love finding ways to get interesting sounds from a cello in unconventional ways. In this video, the deep bass drum sound is a bump on the body of the cello with a little help from some effects. The shaker sound was created by Steve rubbing rosin on his bow. The record scratch is Steve scratching a quarter on the strings. Check out all of Piano Guys videos and our Piano Guys interview, too.
 

Percussion

Percussion instruments are idiophones (makes sound when hit), or membranophones (makes a sound through the vibration of a stretched skin). Others make sounds when shaken or scraped. The worldwide list of percussion instruments is huge, but includes bongos, bass drum, snare drum, xylophone, cymbals, tambourine, maracas, gong, chimes, celesta, and piano.

Did you catch that I added piano to the percussion family? It's true that the piano has vibrating strings inside, so could possibly be considered a string instrument. This amazing brief animation shows the hammer action of the piano keys. When you press each key, a hammer taps the string and sets it to vibrating. When you release the key, a soft pad comes into place to stop the vibration. Because the instrument is played primarily by striking with varying levels of force, I think it fits best into the percussion family.

Piano falls into a sub-group of pitched (tuned) percussion instruments. Other instruments that can be tuned to play notes include ones with lots of notes like glockenspiel, marimba and bells, or ones with only a few notes, like timpani.

There are thousands of percussion instruments, and you have some with you right now! Hand-clapping and finger-snapping are percussion instruments, too. A child's percussive body is the best first instrument to master, so we encourage lots of patting, tapping, and dancing as a foundational skill for learning to play all of the other instruments you've read about in this post. I took my kids to see STOMP LIVE and we loved how they made percussive music from found everyday objects. Check out this video that takes hand-clapping and foot-stomping to an amazing level:
  

Timbre

So there it is. Now you know about the four families of music, grouped together based on how they make sounds. Now, if you had four families of people from different places, each family would speak with its own accent. 

In music, we have timbre (pronounced tamber). Timbre is the character or quality of musical sound. If you play the same tune on a banjo and on a guitar (like in the tune dueling banjos) you'd easily be able to tell the instruments apart because each has a different timbre.

Timbre is often referred to as tone color, an analogy that makes good sense. If each instrument has its own color, and instruments from the same family have similar colors, the composer can paint even more colors/sounds by layering and blending the colors. Or he can paint two contrasting colors/sounds right next to each other, to make them boldly stand out. To make a trumpet melody really stand out, the strings (not other brass) could be chosen to play the harmony.

Tone color/ timbre plays a very important role when the music is written to evoke specific feelings or represent specific ideas or events, so composers carefully select instruments to paint you that picture. 

A fun finale for today's post is to listen to the story Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and notice how carefully each instrument was chosen to represent the characters in the story. The cat is a clarinet, grandpa is a bassoon, the duck is an oboe, the bird is a flute, and the wolf is a french horn. Have fun!

 

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher 

Interview with The Piano Guys: Practicing, Composing, and Great Friendships

There's a fun new group making something new by blending classical and pop music. They call themselves the Piano Guys, and if you haven't heard them before, today's the day you'll discover your new favorite YouTube channel! Read on to find out what the Piano Guys have to say about practicing, performing, and the importance of choosing good friends.

L to R: Al van der Beek (music producer/songwriter), Jon Schmidt (pianist/songwriter), Steven Sharp Nelson (cellist/songwriter), Paul Anderson (producer/videographer)

LPM: The Piano Guys gained popularity from the really fun piano and cello renditions of popular songs on your YouTube channel.  Do you think of your music as classical or pop music? Why did you decide to merge the two?
 
Al: Our music includes both genres. Classical music is the root of all music, so it fits perfectly with today’s pop music. We hope that by combining the two it will help introduce classical music to the younger generation in a way that is more accessible by combining it with songs they hear every day on the radio. 

We also hope that we can win over some classical purists by showing them that pop music can be pretty cool too. 

LPM: It must be working...several of your YouTube videos have over 20 million views, which makes it clear that young people are definitely loving your music and videos! How do you think the study of classical music helps you as musicians and performers?

Al: There are many benefits to studying classical music, or any music for that matter. Music provides people with a means of self-expression and a great way to connect with others. It builds confidence and teaches discipline. 

Classical music has always been cool and you can hear it sprinkled in almost every genre. We always put the video link to the entire classical piece we used in our mashups so people can enjoy it in its true form.

LPM: Playing music isn’t always fun. Sometimes practice can be frustrating. Whether you can’t quite get the sound you want, or you can’t quite master the fingering on a certain passage.  Let’s Play Music students want to know: what do you do when practice time is frustrating? Or maybe you don't get frustrated now that you're an adult? 
 
Steve: I can totally relate to this. I have ADHD which has been a great blessing, but has always made practicing extra challenging for me. Some people can go hours and hours without taking a break. I can go 15 minutes before I need to take a break! So as you can guess, I take lots of breaks. :-) I’ll answer an email, do 20 pushups, say a prayer, make a phone call, run a lap — something that is short and productive, but restarts my stamina for practicing again. This works for me because my retention improves as I stop and start each time. But this wouldn’t work for everyone. The key is finding what works for you. Experiment.

Read up on what others do (hey, like you’re doing right now!) Don’t give up!! If stamina isn’t the issue but frustration is, change it up — switch from a passage that is troubling you to something else that is a little more enjoyable and then come back to it — for instance, I like to play something by ear, hone my speed pizzicato or percussion prowess, or sharpen my improv chops. 

Music shouldn’t be about perfection. It should be about progression. And joy. 

LPM: You guys "play around" with music. We like to ‘play’ in Let’s Play Music too! In your videos you're banging on different parts of the piano and everyone looks to be having a ton of fun. Is this what your jam sessions are like? What do musicians do when they hang out together? 

Paul: Yes, we definitely have fun with making music, but it's not all fun and games. There are many days where it's just really hard work, but we never give up! One thing that helps is our relationship with each other; even though we have different personalities, our goals are the same: to uplift and inspire others. 

We are different than most groups we hear about; we actually like hanging out with each other when we aren't with our families. Most venues are surprised that we will all use the same Green Room on tour instead of having our own separate rooms. We are constantly talking with each other sharing thoughts and ideas on how to become a better husband, father, and business partner. Who your friends are can really make a difference in your life, so pick good ones! 

Steve: Remember also to play as much, if not more, than you practice. Go find some friends to “jam” with, perform at a senior living center one day, in your church or school talent show, form a band, a string quartet, play weddings, play bar mitzvahs! Play at your brother’s friend’s cousin’s aunt’s birthday party! Then you are honing your performance skills along with your practice skills — and you’ll have fun because you’re sharing your talents and bringing others joy, the purest purpose of music! A shared talent grows much faster than a secluded talent. 

LPM: You guys love to travel and put pianos in crazy places! Which video was your favorite to film?

Paul: Yes, we get really excited about making videos in crazy locations and believe it keeps things fresh for us, especially in writing new music. So, some advice we can give is to look for things that create passion with your music. Change it up once in a while and try new things, stay out of your comfort zone as much as possible, and be willing to work really hard!

Each video has some really incredible memories attached to it, but the ones that stand out right now would be the most challenging ones. Most recently, filming Fight Song/Amazing Grace in Scotland! Of course, filming at the Wonders of the World was really exciting also, like The Great Wall of China, and Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio.

From what we have seen, challenges are the greatest gift when it comes to filming and writing music!
 
LPM: Let’s Play Music trains students to hear music in their heads, like Beethoven did!  How does ‘hearing it in your head’ help you to be able to make the music you want? 

Jon: When you are hearing the music in your head, the hardest part is accomplished.  Once you hear something, then you just have to find the matching notes on the piano.  

This is something you can have fun with.  Have someone play happy birthday on the piano.  Ask them to play a wrong note intentionally.  If you can hear the wrong note, then your ear is good enough to be able to play notes you hear in your head or anywhere for that matter.  And your ear will get better and better as you practice finding notes.  Start with single notes.  High, medium and low.  Then try finding 2 notes at a time.  Then the lowest note in a chord,  the highest, a note between highest and lowest.  Then tackle a phrase in a song.  Find the melody part, then the bass part, then as many notes between the melody and the bass as you can pick out (don't worry if you can't find all of the "in-between" notes at first). 

You will get better at this with every phrase you learn.  You will get to the point where you can hear several phrases and be able to play it back on the first try.  This is how I learned to play by ear.  If I heard something cool I tried to learn it by ear: melody, then bass, then some notes in between.  You don't need to have perfect pitch for this (I don't).  You just need to be determined, and have a "can do" attitude.
 
LPM: Let’s Play Music students focus a lot on chords, chord theory, improvisation, and ear training.  How does your knowledge of theory help you compose and improvise?

Steve: I LOVE theory. Is that totally weird? Or geeky? I’m cool with that. :-) There’s just something so energizing about learning the fundamental language of music. Yes, you can be an extremely talented and successful by-ear musician knowing no theory. Many have proved this. But there are tremendous advantages of “music literacy.” I use it EVERY day. 

It’s like cooking — theory gives you so many ingredients to work with at the onset of a culinary creation. And more than that, it teaches you the “recipes” that many “cooks” have used in the past to make something sound delicious. After a while of cooking others’ recipes you learn what elements go well together and you begin creating your own dishes. And you can go even further by experimenting with new combinations — new spices and garnishes to season your composition. 

Theory has helped me many times to wok my way out of writer’s block. When we were potato-mashing up Disney’s “Let It Go” with Vivaldi’s “Winter,” I wanted to write a bridge that utilized a sequence to travel from one key to another. I used my theory knowledge — specifically tonicization — to figure out what key to start on and how many cycles it would take to arrive back to my home key. 

TOTALLY GEEKY, right? But way cool. And fun. 

Theory often pushes people away because at first it can seem lame. It’s like when you’re studying grammar. The study of the mechanical aspects of sentence structure is not top on my list of things to do on the weekend, but writing suspenseful short stories, lyrical poems, imaginative fiction, or motivational speeches all can soar on the time-testing principles of grammar. You just have to wade through the beginning parts of theory and grasp it as best you can, remembering that the granite building blocks comprise the     opportunities to create majestic castles!
 
LPM: Your 'Cello Wars' is a fantastic mix of five Star Wars songs, rearranged to tell your story, and 'Moonlight' is a piece that Steven composed, based on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and 7th Symphony.  For all the new composers out here:  how do you compose based on an inspiring song you like?  Right now, over 1500 LPM students in the US are in their final year, and working on writing their very first piano compositions!  What advice do you have for students about writing and creating music? Is there a secret recipe for you?

Steve: Thank you so much! Starting with an inspiring song or a song you really like is such a great baseline for composing. Arranging becomes composing when you authentically infuse your personality, ingenuity, and creativity into a song. We love experimenting with a melody and a chord pattern to turn them both on their heads. 

During Cello wars, the Jedi plays the theme in its original major key, but the Sith echoes in the minor key. 

We love experimenting with rhythm too. In Moonlight we used accents and a driving four-on-the-floor feel to reinvent Beethoven’s masterpiece. When we did our version of “Mission Impossible” with Lindsey Stirling, we rewrote Mozart’s legendary Piano Sonata in C so that it was minor and in 5/4 timing to match the vibe of the MI theme. 

We also love using cultural aspects of music to approach a tune from a completely different direction — like our African spin on Coldplay’s Paradise, Indian spin on “Don’t You Worry Child,” or our Scottish influenced rendition of “Fight Song.” 

We love using Classical themes and chord structures to infuse more material into our arrangements — like when we added material from a Chopin prelude to our  “Kung Fu Piano” tune we filmed on the Great Wall of China. One of my favorite experiments was when we “recomposed” a One Direction tune (“Story of My Life”) based upon the feel of Saint Saens “Aquarium” from his “Carnival of the Animals” Suite. It became this ethereal, storybook-sounding film score that told an entirely new tale. 

Composing rocks. Don’t force it. Let it lead out. Don’t try to be someone else. Learn from others then discover your style, your groove, and your flow. Pray that your music can be of benefit to others and work at it with others in mind. Pour everything you have, everything you are, into it. Don’t get discouraged when it isn’t working. Sleep on it and try again the next day. It will come. Most of all, enjoy the process rather than falling victim to the feeling that you can’t wait till its done. Break a leg! Or, as we say in the cello world, “Break a bow hair!” :-)

A big thanks to The Piano Guys for taking the time to tell us about their creative process and their music. If you haven't watched the videos yet, check them out here. And good luck with YOUR composing!