Instruments By Range
Western instruments are also often classified by their musical range in comparison with other instruments in the same family. These terms are named after singing voice classifications:
- Soprano instruments: flute, clarinet, recorder, violin, trumpet, oboe, soprano saxophone
- Alto instruments: alto flute, viola, horn, alto saxophone
- Tenor instruments: English horn, trombone, tenor saxophone
- Baritone instruments: cello, baritone horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
- Bass instruments: double bass, tuba, bass saxophone
Some instruments fall into more than one category: for example, the cello may be considered either tenor or bass, depending on how its music fits into the ensemble, and the trombone may be alto, tenor, or bass and the French horn, bass, baritone, tenor, or alto, depending on which range it is played.
Many instruments have their range as part of their name: soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, baritone horn, alto flute, bass flute, alto recorder, bass guitar, etc. Additional adjectives describe instruments above the soprano range or below the bass, for example: sopranino saxophone, contrabass clarinet.
When used in the name of an instrument, these terms are relative, describing the instrument's range in comparison to other instruments of its family and not in comparison to the human voice range or instruments of other families. For example, a bass flute's range is from C3 to F♯6, while a bass clarinet plays about one octave lower.
Read more about this topic: Musical Instrument Classification
Famous quotes containing the words instruments and/or range:
“We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–84)
“The Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and danger, than ever the New England colonist went, and led them, though not to clear and colonize the wilderness, yet to range over it as coureurs de bois, or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan prefers to call them, coureurs de risques, runners of risks; to say nothing of their enterprising priesthood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)