Lesson 4

Instruments are grouped by instrument families.

 

 
 

 Today’s lesson is mostly in the Watch It section.

 

 

Musical instruments are grouped into four families:

  • Woodwinds (flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons)

  • Brass (horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba)

  • Strings (violins, violas, cellos, basses)

  • Percussion (piano, drums, cymbals, triangles, etc.)

 
 

Find the instrument families in this orchestra seating chart.

 

In the activity below, click on the conductor’s speech bubble “Instrument Families” to draw back the curtains.

Click on each of the four circles of instruments to bring up a yellow play button to hear the sound of each family.

 

 

This is a video of an orchestra performing Benjamin Britten’s composition The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

It starts with the full orchestra. Then it shows each instrument family. Next each instrument in each instrument family takes a turn. At the end the full orchestra plays together again.

 

 

There are hundreds of percussion instruments.

We will spend a whole lesson later on looking at the percussion family. For now, enjoy this 2 minute video of some orchestra percussion.

 

 

 

 You watched it, so now let’s try it!