User:Vent1261/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. Maybe 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 instruments are grouped in families. Instruments are grouped into 3 different families which are reed, string, and percussion.

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. Which is different from percussion, where you hit the instrument, like how you hit a drum with a stick.

Violins, ukulele, and cello are a few examples of instruments that belong in the string family. These instruments have strings that are bowed or plucked. 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. Piano is another example of a string instrument. It is a hybrid instrument which falls into the string and percussion families. The piano has strings in it that are hit with small hammers which vibrates the strings to make sound.

Percussion instruments are one of the oldest instruments known. They differ from the string and reed instruments because they are sounded by hitting the instrument, like hitting a xylophone. Piano is an example of a percussion instrument. People often mistaken that pianos are just string instruments because it has strings in it but it's a hybrid instrument because the strings are hit with little hammers.

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.