User:Gianna U/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. The drum was the first musical instrument. But I was never particularly interested in drumming. I don't have a good sense of rhythm. Other kinds of instruments have also interested me, and eventually I found out that orchestra instruments are grouped in families: there is the string family, the woodwind family, and the percussion family.

The string family is a group of instruments that have strings that are bowed or plucked. Many string instruments require a special substance called rosin to be rubbed on the bow before playing. One example is the violin. The violin has a light and melodic sound to it when played with a bow. There have been many famous violin players, and the violin has spread all around the world. I didn't play violin when I was in school, though, because I played clarinet.

Clarinet is a reed instrument, part of 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.

Percussion instruments are different from both the string and woodwind family because the have to be hit in order to be played correctly. Xylophones are an example of percussion instruments. Pianos are known as percussion, but it's argued that it's actually a mixture between the string and percussion family.

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. There's one more family of orchestra instruments. There are four, and we have talked about three in this essay.