User:Bwilson333/sandbox

=Disorganized Essay Example=

I've always been interested in music, and learning about different musical instruments. When I was a kid I played clarinet in the school band, and the clarinet has been around for a long time, longer than the saxophone for instance. But clarinets aren't as old as drums. Perhaps the drum was the first musical instrument, but I was never particularly interested in drumming. Other kinds of instruments have also interested me, and eventually I found out that instruments are grouped in families, like there is the string family, which is instruments that have strings that are bowed or plucked. One example is the violin. There have been many famous violin players, and also the violin has spread all around the world. I didn't play violin when I was in school, though, because I played clarinet. Music is a very large and spanning topic, more specifically instruments and how they are broken down into different families, however I have the most knowledge on the clarinet, glass harmonica, and the brass family.

The clarinet is a reed instrument also classified in the woodwind family, which is an instrument that has a reed you blow through to make the sound. Instead of a string vibrating, the reed vibrates. Which is different from percussion, where you hit the instrument, like how you hit a drum with a stick. One funny example is the piano. You'd think it was a string instrument, because it has strings in it, but it's a percussion instrument because the strings are hit with little hammers. Also, xylophones are percussion instruments.

One of the weirdest instruments I know of is called the "glass harmonica." It was invented by Benjamin Franklin. It's a bunch of glasses that make a singing sound. I don't know what orchestra family that would fit under. You don't strike it, you don't play it with a bow, and there's no reeds. I wonder where a singer would go, too. I think there's one more family of instruments. There are four, and we have talked about three in this essay.

Trumpets, trombones, tubas are all classified within the brass family. These instruments work when the vibration of the air correlates with the vibration of the players lips. These loud and bold sounding instruments have been used throughout history to sound warning or to signal out. The brass instruments are most commonly practiced in big bands, classical orchestras, and jazz, however one of the most primary places we see brass instruments being played is in a marching band due to the fact they are able to be easy played by being carried and they have a very amplifying sound without the use of electronics to project the sound.