Music

• Timbre is the combination of different sound qualities of the instruments or voices.
• The human voice consists of sounds made through the ”vocal tract” that enables one to talk, sing, laugh, cry, and scream.
• Composers write music for a choir which is an organized group of singers, typically one that takes part in church services or performs regularly in public.
• A choir is also known as choristers, chorus, or glee club. The first group of well-known European composers, wrote music only for the church so that choirs could sing together, which gave rise to choral music.
• Girls and women with high voices sing the soprano part. Those whose voices are not as high sing the alto. Between these two voices is the mezzo soprano or the middle soprano.
• Boys and men with high voices sing the tenor. Men with very low voices sing the bass. Between these two voices is the baritone.
• An orchestra is a large group of musicians playing various musical instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek word orkheisthai, which means "to dance”.
• Western orchestra, sometimes called the symphony or phil harmonic orchestra, is an instrumental ensemble or group of instruments that contains sections of string, woodwind, brass wind, and percussion instruments.
• A full-sized orchestra is composed of about 100 or more musicians, which may be accompanied by a chorus.
• A small-sized orchestra known as chamber orchestra usually has at least 12 to 40 musicians. This orchestra usually plays in a chamber or a hall.
• The conductor is the main coordinator of an orchestra and stands in front of the musicians while holding a baton.
• A baton is a slender wooden stick used by the conductor to direct the orchestra. It serves as an extension of the conductor's hand in expressing the musical piece.
• In the absence of a conductor, the first violinist or the concertmaster serves as the leader of the orchestra and is also in charge of tuning the instruments.
• The principal oboe is the main oboe played in an orchestra. There are four families of instruments that are played in Western orchestra. These are the string, woodwind, brasswind, and percussion.
• Stringed instruments are the largest family of instruments in the orchestra and are also known as its "backbone". They are divided into four groups, namely: the violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. All the instruments in this family are made of wood, with four strings, and are played by pulling a bow across the strings and by plucking the strings.
• Woodwind instruments are narrow cylinders or pipes generally made of wood metal, plastic, or any combination that have at least one piece of reed in the mouthpiece or none at all.
• A reed is a thin piece of metal, wood, or plastic fitted inside the mouthpiece like that of an oboe or a clarinet that vibrates to produce sound when blown.
• Brasswind instruments are used to produce sound by means of blowing. They are made of brass metal or sometimes the metal can be a silvery alloy.
• Percussions are instruments that are shaken, banged, tapped, rubbed, scraped, or struck with mallets, hammers, or sticks. There are two kinds of percussion instruments: tuned percussions, which have notes or pitches that follow musical scales, and untuned percussions, which have definite tones or pitches but do not play any musical scales. These instruments are placed at the back of the orchestra.