The Band - Instruments of Sound
The baritone is a member of the brass family. The baritone works in the same manner as a trumpet but it’s twice the length. It plays the exact same notes as a trombone and even uses the same mouthpiece. The biggest difference is that the baritone uses valves rather than a slide to change the length of the air flow.
The flugelhorn is a valved bugle developed in Germany. It has a conical bore. The bugle had no valves and therefore could produce only the natural harmonics of the tube. The design pitch was was typically middle C or B-flat. The flugelhorn has a mellower sound than the trumpet.
Saxophones are made in eight sizes and pitch levels, spanning the entire spectrum of wind-instrument pitches. The most common are the alto and tenor saxophones. They have been effectively used in jazz bands and popular dance orchestras.
The oboe is a soprano-range, double-reed woodwind instrument of length 62 cm. Its wooden tube is distinguished by a conical bore expanding at the end into a flaring bell. A melodic instrument capable of very gentle, expressive passages, the instrument is yet said to take a large amount of air to play.
Tuba refers to a family of lip-vibrated, upright, valved, metal wind instruments with a folded tube of wide, conical bore. It was designed to fill an urgent need in brass bands for a satisfactory bass to the valved bugle.
The flute is made in the form of an open cylindrical air column about 66 cm long. Its fundamental pitch is middle C (C4) and it has a range of about three octaves to C7. Sound is produced from a flute by blowing onto a sharp edge, causing air enclosed in a tube to vibrate.
The bass drum usually has a diameter of 50-100 cm and membranes on both ends of the cylindrical body. Although the drum does not have a well-defined pitch center, it is common practice to tune the lowest modes of the two heads about a musical fourth apart.
The bassoon is a double-reed woodwind instrument with a conical bore air column, the bass member of the oboe family. Its normal range is about 3 octaves, from B1flat to E5flat. The tube, 2.79 m (9 ft 2 in) long, is bent to make a height of 1.22 m (4 ft) and consists of a metal crook on which the reed is placed and four sections of maple or pearwood.
Sometimes called "orchestra bells", the glockenspiel has rectangular bars 1 in to 1 1/4 in wide and 5/16 to 3/8 thick. A typical range is G5 (784 Hz) to C8 (4186 Hz), matching the top end of the piano. When played with brass or plastic mallets, a sharp attack is produced followed by a clear, ringing sound at the designed pitch.
Tubular bells are typically struck on the top edge of the tube with a rawhide- or plastic-headed hammer. Often, a sustain pedal will be attached to allow extended ringing of the bells. Tubular bells are used in popular music, as well. The tubes are used to provide a purer tone than solid cylindrical chimes, such as those on a mark tree.
The clarinet consists of a closed cylindrical air column with a bell-shaped opening at one end. It's mouthpiece holds a single reed, in contrast to the double reed of the oboe family. It is typically constructed of wood.
The playing range of a concert marimba is A2 to C7 (110 to 2093 Hz) and bass marimbas extend down to C2 (65 Hz). The undercutting of the bars on the marimba produce overtones which are described as two octaves up, and then three octaves plus a minor third.
The snare drum is a two-headed drum, as is the bass drum and other orchestral and band drums used in Western music. On the snare drum, eight to ten wire-bound gut strings, or snares, usually are stretched across the lower of the two heads; they vibrate against the heads as the membranes are struck.
Timpani (also known colloquially as kettledrums or kettle drums) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl commonly made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet.
The xylophone is a component of the percussion section of an orchestra and many instrumental groups. The xylophone has a close cousin called the marimba. Both instruments consist of wooden keys mounted on a wooden frame over a series of metal tubes called resonators.