What are the 6 families of instruments What instruments make up each group? The great majority of musical instruments fall readily into one of six major categories: bowed strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, and the guitar family, the first four of which form the basis of the modern symphony orchestra.
What are the four main instrument families?
Multimedia Presentation Activity
- Has four strings
- Shaped like an hourglass
- Made out of wood (usually spruce, maple, and ebony)
- Played with a bow
- Is the smallest of the string instruments
What are the Five Families of musical instruments?
Woodwind
- Woodwind instruments are, as their name suggests, usually made from wood, and create sound with the aid of wind.
- They are "aerophones", and produce a note in most cases by air passing across a reed, which causes air inside the instrument to vibrate before being amplified.
- The exceptions to this are flute and picollo.
What are the five general groups of musical instruments?
What Are the Five General Groups of Musical Instruments?
- Strings. Strings are instruments such as violin, guitar, harp and bass. ...
- Woodwinds. Woodwinds are instruments such as bassoons and oboes. ...
- Percussion. The most commonly known form of percussion instruments are drums. ...
- Keyboards. The most common forms of keyboards are pianos and organs. ...
- Brass. ...
What are the categories of instruments?
There are five different categories of instruments:
- Percussion
- Woodwind
- String
- Brass
- Keyboard
Which are the groups or families of instruments?
Instruments of the OrchestraStrings. Learn about the string instruments: violin, viola, cello, double bass, and harp! ... Woodwinds. Learn about the woodwind instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon! ... Brass. Learn about the brass instruments: trumpet, french horn, trombone, and tuba! ... Percussion.
How are instruments grouped into each family?
Each instrument has unique characteristics, such as the different ways they produce a sound, the materials used to create them, and their overall appearance. These characteristics ultimately divide instruments into four families: woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings.
What are all the groups of instruments?
There are five main instrument families: strings, woodwind, brass, keyboards, and percussion.
Why are instruments grouped into families?
Musical instruments are grouped into families based on how they make sounds. In an orchestra, musicians sit together in these family groupings. But not every instrument fits neatly into a group. For example, the piano has strings that vibrate, and hammers that strike.
What are the 6 classifications of instruments?
The great majority of musical instruments fall readily into one of six major categories: bowed strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, and the guitar family, the first four of which form the basis of the modern symphony orchestra.
How are instruments grouped?
Musical Instrument Families and the Sachs-Hornbostel System The families of musical instruments are brass, percussion, string, woodwinds, and keyboard. An instrument is categorized into a family depending on its sound, how the sound is produced and how the instrument is engineered.
What are the 5 general groups of musical instruments?
Some commonly recognized families are:Strings family.Keyboard family.Woodwind family.Brass family.Percussion family.
What is a group of musical instruments called?
In most cases, a larger classical group is referred to as an orchestra of some type or a concert band. A small orchestra with fifteen to thirty members (violins, violas, four cellos, two or three double basses, and several woodwind or brass instruments) is called a chamber orchestra.
How many instruments are there?
5 Tuneful Origins of Celebrated Musical Instruments – Did you know there are over 1,500 musical instruments? These musical instruments are broken down into six major categories. The musical instrument categories include bowed strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, and the guitar family.
What are the instruments in the families of the orchestra?
The four families of the orchestra are:String.Woodwind.Brass.Percussion.
How are instruments grouped in an orchestra?
Traditionally, there are four families of instruments; Strings, Woodwinds, Brass (sometimes “Brasswind”), and Percussion.
What are in the woodwind family?
The woodwind family of instruments includes, from the highest sounding instruments to the lowest, the piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon and contrabassoon.
The 4 Instrument Families
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of instruments that make a wide variety of sounds; from the birdlike flute to the deep resonating bassoon; from the crashing cymbals to the mournful standing double bass. But within this vast array of sounds are similarities.
How Are Musical Instruments Grouped?
Musical instruments are typically grouped based on the materials they are made with, how they look, and how their sounds are produced. Musicians are seated in an orchestra based on the four primary instrument families; then they are usually further organized based on the size and shape of the instruments as well.
Instruments in an Orchestra
For this activity, you are going to pick any instrument commonly played in an orchestra to further research. With this information, you will create a multi-media presentation. For this presentation, you can use Google Slides, Prezi, VoiceThread, PowerPoint, or any other similar platform. First, you need to choose an instrument to research.
What do you need to know about musical instruments?
You will need to know: which are the standard instruments in each family, and which other instruments are commonly used in a symphony orchestra.
What are some instruments similar to the English?
Percussion – timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle; plus tambourine, glockenspiel, xylophone and gong. b. Instrument Names. Many instrument names in Italian, German and French are quite similar to the English – or close enough for you to be able to work out.
What are the instruments that make up the percussion family?
Aside from drums, the percussion family includes cymbals; auxiliary percussion like the tambourine, triangle and shakers or maracas; and mallet instruments like bells, xylophone and marimba. Most of the time, percussion instruments play a supporting role, though bells and xylophones occasionally get the melody.
What is the difference between the four instruments?
As you can see here, the main difference between the four instruments is their size. As with any instrument, the smaller it is, the higher the pitches it plays, and the larger the instrument is, the lower the pitches it plays.
What are the four families of the orchestra?
You now know that the four families of the orchestra are the string, woodwind, brass and percussion families . The string family uses string vibration, the woodwind family uses reed and air vibration, the brass family uses lip vibration and the percussion family contains instruments that are struck or shaken to make vibration. Learning Outcomes.
What is the woodwind instrument called?
Most woodwind instruments use a small piece of wood called a reed to produce their vibration. The reed vibrates when air is blown across it. This is how instruments like the clarinet work. Saxophones also use a reed. This is why they are classified as a woodwind and not a brass instrument.
What are the four main instruments in the orchestra?
These are the violin, the viola, the cello and the bass. Each of these instruments can be plucked or bowed.
What family plays the melody in an orchestra?
In the orchestra, trumpets and horns occasionally play the melody, but much of the brass section's job is to play supporting notes. The Percussion Family. All the way in the back of the orchestra, we have the percussion family, known for its loud banging and crashing.
What are the four main strings?
These are the violin, the viola, the cello and the bass. Each of these instruments can be plucked or bowed. The instruments in the string family vary in size.
What instruments are part of the Bass family?
A bass horn, such as a tuba, serpent, and sousaphone from the wind family and low-tuned versions of specific types of brass and woodwind instruments, such as bassoon, bass clarinet, bass trombone and bass saxophone, etc. (less common usage).
What are the parts of a double bass?
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What are the 6 families of instruments What instruments make up each group?
The great majority of musical instruments fall readily into one of six major categories: bowed strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, and the guitar family, the first four of which form the basis of the modern symphony orchestra.
What instrument has only 3 strings?
Balalaika. The balalaika is a Russian folk instrument. It has a short neck with three strings, metal frets similar to a guitar, and a large, triangular body. Its short neck and small sound hole produce a sound similar to the ukulele, and much like a ukulele, it is strummed and plucked with the fingers.
Why do they call it a double bass?
The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. The origin of the name of the double bass stems from the fact that its initial function was to double the bass line of large ensembles.
What is the difference between a bass and a double bass?
The difference between a bass guitar and a double bass is that the bass guitar is smaller, it’s held perpendicular to the player’s body, it’s often amplified via a bass amplifier, and it’s played with fingers or a pick. Double basses are larger, they’re stood upright, and they can be played with a bow.
What is the largest family in the orchestra?
The strings are the largest family of instruments in the orchestra and they come in four sizes: the violin, which is the smallest, viola, cello, and the biggest, the double bass, sometimes called the contrabass.
What are string instruments?
In general terms, string instruments are a family of musical instruments that produce sound by vibrating strings. String instruments make up the largest family of orchestral instruments and include the violin, viola, cello and double bass.
What are the key elements of string instruments?
Most string instruments generally have the same basic parts, with some having a few unique elements.

Hornbostel-Sachs Classification System
Reinhard Classification System
Schaeffner Classification System
- Yes, the sounds of string instrumentscome from their strings. The strings may be plucked, as in a guitar or harp; bowed, as with a cello or a violin; or struck, as with a dulcimer. This creates a vibration that causes a unique sound. Stringed instruments include the violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, and dulcimer.
Mann Classification System
Other Classification Systems