Listen to the Violin
Listen to the Viola
Listen to the Cello
Listen to the Double Bass
Listen to the Flute
Listen to the Oboe
Listen to the Clarinet
Listen to the Bassoon
Listen to the Trumpet
Listen to the French Horn
Listen to the Trombone
Listen to the Tuba
Listen to the Snare Drum
Listen to the Cymbals
Listen to the Xylophone
Listen to the Timpani
Editor
Tiffany A. Bryant
Producer
Kenny Neal
Updated
February 22, 2022
Take the field and learn the looks, sounds, history, and notable players of orchestral instruments from four eras—baroque, classical, romantic, and modern. Next, use the interactive audio mixer to choose your players and hear them perform together. Finally, test your musical knowledge with a fun baseball-style quiz.
Listening to an orchestra can be a powerful experience. It can entertain you, tell you stories, make you laugh or cry, or take you away to faraway places. Knowing a few things about orchestras and the range of music they play can make it even better. Everything you need to get started is right here in this guide.
Meet great composers, explore the vast musical world of the orchestra, study the science behind the instruments, and discover how classical music is anything but boring.
Looking to bolster your knowledge of classical music or simply trying to broaden your knowledge of music in general? Whatever your reason, here’s a different kind of musical hit list—our choices for the top 10 works in Western classical music for kids and their parents.
Feel like giving each season a personal playlist? This handy guide to keeping the classics with you all year round can help.
The invention of the orchestra hundreds of years ago meant bigger musical possibilities, and composers all across Europe were inspired to try their hand at pushing classical music to new limits.
Kennedy Center Education Digital Learning
ARTSEDGE, part of the Rubenstein Arts Access Program, is generously funded by David Rubenstein.
Additional support is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.
Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts and the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.
The contents of this Web site were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal government.
Unless otherwise stated, ARTSEDGE materials may be copied, modified and otherwise utilized for non-commercial educational purposes provided that ARTSEDGE and any authors listed in the materials are credited and provided that you permit others to use them in the same manner.
© 1996-2019 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
