Tidbits Attends the Symphony • Vol. 17: #50

It’s time for a trip to the symphony, and who doesn't enjoy the perfectly synchronized and harmonious blends of musical instruments played by highly skilled professionals? This week, Tidbits tunes up with the orchestra and gives you some of the interesting facts behind these melodic performances that are so satisfying to millions worldwide.

• We'll start with the performers themselves. The path to gaining a position as an orchestral musician is somewhat routine. First, you nearly always have to attend a respected music school, graduating at least at the Master's degree level. Second, the training should be under the tutelage of a teacher with either orchestral experience or has had students who have qualified for placement in a recognized orchestra.

• The qualifications of the orchestra conductor, or maestro, generally include all of the above, along with a huge amount of dedication and diligent work. It requires a basic knowledge of each instrument, the complete understanding of musical scores, the ability to produce correct moods and moments, and skill in managing performers.

• While an orchestra is defined as a group of musicians playing together, not all orchestras are the same. If the number of musicians is less than 50, it’s a chamber orchestra, whereas a number exceeding 100 is called a symphony orchestra.

• Orchestral instruments are divided into four separate families: woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings.

WOODWINDS

• The woodwinds consist of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and English horns. Brass consists of trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tubas. Percussion instruments include kettle drums, xylophones, cymbals, chimes, and tympanis. The string section is made up of first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.

• The range of the pitch of instruments varies from high to low, with soprano the highest, followed by the lower-pitched alto, then tenor, and finally the bass, the lowest range.

Soprano instruments would be the violins and flutes. Oboes and violas play in the alto range, while cellos and clarinets are considered tenor voices. The bassoon and the double bass are in the low bass range. The English horn is a tenor oboe.

BRASS

• The orchestra’s lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family is the tuba. There’s a difference between a tuba and a sousaphone. The sousaphone, popularized by bandleader and March King John Philip Sousa, is a type of tuba that fits around the player’s body and is supported by the left shoulder. Its broad bell faces forward above the musician’s head. The bell of a tuba, smaller than that of the sousaphone, faces upwards and is held in the player’s lap. It contains about 16 feet of tubes. You’ll often see the sousaphone in marching bands because it’s easier to carry than the tuba.

STRINGS

• Three Italian gentlemen during the 1600s were primarily responsible for the development of the modern violin – Gasparo da Salo, Andrea Amati, and Antonio Stradivari. In the tiny town of Cremona, Italy, Stradivari produced 1,116 instruments, including 960 violins. It’s believed around 650 of these still survive, 450 to 500 of which are violins.

• Violin strings were initially crafted from the dried intestines of cats or sheep. The guts were dried, stretched, and twisted. Today’s strings are made of a variety of metals along with synthetic materials.

• A violin’s body contains 70 different parts, made from a variety of woods. A violin bow contains at least 150 hairs. While some are made from nylon, horsehair is the preferred component of the best bows.

• It seems that playing the violin has many benefits in the areas of reasoning and thought processes. A Harvard University study concluded that learning to play the violin improves cognitive and complex motor skills such as memory, nonverbal reasoning, and attention span. A violinist’s cognitive processing skills are faster than one who does not play an instrument. The brains of string players tend to be larger, and on top of all of that a violinist burns around 170 calories an hour while playing!

• What’s the difference between a violin and fiddle? Nothing really, except with the type of music played. The violin is more often used for classical pieces, while the fiddle is associated with Irish or folk music.

PERCUSSION

• While the piano and harpsichord both have strings, they are not considered string instruments because the player’s hands do not come in direct contact with the strings, but rather an intermediate object strikes them. They are classified instead as percussion instruments, which are those whose sound is generated by striking the surface with an object. The word “percussion” has its roots in the Latin language, with “percussion” translating “striking.”

• The percussion section’s kettle drums are frequently called tympanis, from the Latin word “tympanum,” meaning “hand drum.” During its construction, a sheet of copper is shaped into a bowl, which acts as the tympani’s resonator. A goat or calf skin, known as the vellum, is stretched tightly across the opening by a metal ring surrounding the top of the bowl.

• A xylophone consists of 42 to 48 wooden bars strung together with cord, vibrating when struck with a mallet. The different lengths of the bars produce the range, with the shorter bars generating higher notes and longer bars the lower notes.

Xylophone made of hardwood; being played with four mallets.

They have a range of four octaves. Most xylophone bars are made of hardwood, such as the richly-hued rosewood. However, some are made of maple, bamboo, or even fiberglass, which produce a much different sound. Early xylophones were created with wooden bars attached to gourds. Xylophones aren’t just for making music. In the country of Senegal, the instrument is used to scare monkeys and birds from people’s gardens!

• Those brass or bronze concave metal plates known as cymbals are measured by their diameter in inches or centimeters. The larger the cymbal the louder the sound and the longer the resonating ring. A cymbal’s weight is a description of how thick it is, with heavier cymbals producing a louder sound. The word cymbal comes from the Latin “cymbalum,” which translates “cup or bowl.”

• In the orchestra, a pair of cymbals, known as clash cymbals, crash cymbals, or plates, are traditionally used. Each cymbal has a strap set in the bell for the percussionist to hold. Sometimes the edges are rubbed together to produce a certain sound, which is referred to as a “sizzle,” as opposed to striking them together for the “crash.” Cupping them together in order to choke the sound is called a “crush.”

STAYING ON TEMPO

• When musicians are practicing, they might employ the use of a metronome, a device that precisely measures tempo. A mechanical metronome was first patented by a German civil engineer in 1815. The word itself comes from the Greek words “metron,” meaning “measure,” and “nomos,” translating “regulating.”

• Traditional metronomes operate like a clock with a pendulum that makes an audible tick as it swings back and forth. A weight on the pendulum that slides up and down allows the user to regulate the tempo, measured in ticks per minute. Markings at the beginning of compositions tell the performer what speed to play, for example, MM60 means 60 ticks per minute with a quarter note for each tick. Modern metronomes are electronically controlled.

A traditional metronome, with a pendulum that makes an audible tick as it swings back and forth.

• If the orchestra is playing a concerto (pronounced con-chair-toe), one or more soloists is being accompanied by the orchestra. The composition is named for the solo instrument, such as a violin concerto, or concerto for two pianos. □

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