User:Ihatepickingusernames/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 might have been the first musical instrument. I was never particularly interested in drumming though, because I don't have a good sense of rhythm. Other kinds of instruments have also interested me, and eventually I found out that instruments are grouped in families. Instruments can be placed in four families or groups, three of which are string, percussion and woodwind.

Clarinet is a reed instrument, which is an instrument that has a reed you blow through to make the sound. Instead of a string vibrating, the reed vibrates. Because of the reed, it is classified as a woodwind instrument.

Percussion is different from woodwind. Instead of a vibrating reed, you hit the instrument, like how you hit a drum with a stick. One funny example is the piano. Most people would think it was a string instrument, because it has strings in it. However, it's a percussion instrument because the strings are hit with little hammers. Another example of a percussion instrument is the xylophone.

There is a string family as well, in which the instruments have strings that are bowed or plucked. One example is the violin. The violin has spread all around the world, and there have been many famous violin players.

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. You don't strike it, you don't play it with a bow, and there is no reed. It's also not brass, which is the final family. It does not seem to belong to any one family, but is classified as a friction idiophone. Though only three families of instrument have been discussed there are one more family of instruments, making four groups in all.