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The Power of Music

An orchestra is extremely powerful. It can capture a specific time or place, inspire an emotion, tell a story, or paint a picture—all with music. It can sound big and grand—and then small and soft. It can switch in an instant from super-slow to super-duper-fast. It can reach deep down for low notes or soar way up for high notes. How can an orchestra have such incredible powers?

It’s all in the music. Composers, the people who write or “compose” music, use a special toolbox to make their music sound as dramatic as possible. Throughout our Learning Activities and at the concert, you’ll hear more about these unique tools and how composers use them to explore musical extremes.

Listening Activity: Introduction

The Fast and Slow of Tempo

Tempo is a tool composers use to control the speed of the music. It might be fast, slow, or anywhere in between. The tempo can stay the same—or it can change again and again before the music ends. Composers put directions in the sheet music so the conductor and the musicians know the right tempo to use. For example, they use Italian words like:

• adagio (ah-DAH-zhee-oh) for slow
• allegro (ah-LEY-groh) for fast
• presto (PRES-toh) for super-fast!

During the concert, the conductor communicates the right tempo to the musicians.

Wait, Who Is the Conductor?

Gianandrea Noseda conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Scott Suchman

The conductor is the person who leads the orchestra. Using hands and sometimes a thin white stick called a baton (buh-TAHN), a conductor sets the tempo for the musicians. Notice how the musicians stay focused on the conductor and are able to start or stop at the conductor’s command. The best conductors bring out the emotion in the music to make the orchestra’s performance more enjoyable for the audience.

The High and Low of Pitch

The second tool a composer uses is pitch—selecting high notes and low notes and many notes in-between—and stringing them together. When you hum or sing to music, you are following the melody, or the pitch, of high notes and low notes.

Sometimes a composer moves from one note to another by taking simple steps up or down the scale. Other times, the melody leaps to a much higher note or drops to a much lower one. You might also hear the notes slide up or down from one note to the next.

If the melody contains notes that are really high or really low, the composer can pick from all the musical instruments in the orchestra to reach these notes. Certain musical instruments handle pitches better than others, just like singers. Some are high; some are low.

Listening Activity: Fast Slow High Low

Dancing with Swords

Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (A-ram kah-chuh-TOOR-ee-uhn) wrote his Sabre Dance to describe Russian warriors who danced with their swords. A sabre is a curved sword with a fancy handle. Since then, Sabre Dance has been used to capture the crazy energy of circus acts, acrobats, magicians, and jugglers. Listen carefully for extremes in tempo and pitch during Sabre Dance.

The Power of Musicians

When it comes to writing music for an orchestra, composers have another extreme tool to choose from—size. They can go big by writing music for a full orchestra—sometimes as many as 120 musicians. Or, they can go small—by writing for a smaller orchestra or a soloist.

Listening Activity: Big Small & Meet the Orchestra

Wait, What Is a Soloist?

Many composers write music to feature one instrument over all others. When that happens, an orchestra can showcase a particular member or include an additional musician who is not a regular member. Even though a soloist is only one person compared to a big orchestra, he or she performs with extraordinary skill.

Calling All Players

A composer picks from many instruments in an orchestra—from extremely big ones to extremely small ones. There are lots of choices because an orchestra is big. In fact, it is so big that it is divided into four sections, or families:

The string section is made up of violins, violas, cellos, and basses. These instruments can sound soft and sweet, or soaring and majestic.

The woodwind section gathers flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Woodwinds can carry the melody over the quietest and the loudest parts of a piece. Some think they come closer to the human singing voice than any of the other instruments.

The brass section includes horns, trumpets, trombones, and tuba. Brass instruments are important in the loud, exciting parts of the music. They also can be used to create epic swells and sudden bursts of sound.

The percussion section is home to drums, chimes, gongs, cymbals, and whistles. These instruments are used to provide pounding rhythms, booming drum rolls, and driving energy.

The Big...

The double bass, the harp, and the timpani are among the largest instruments in the orchestra.

Listen to the Double Bass

...and the Small.

Photo By: Cpl. Brittney Vito

The smallest instruments include the triangle, castanets, and the piccolo. The piccolo is a smaller version of a flute, but don’t let its size fool you! Piccolos are powerful!

Listen to the Piccolo

Learn more about the orchestra with our Instrument Spotter's Guide.

The Extremely Talented Violin

Violinist Adrian Pintea, from The Julliard School, plays a 1729 Stradivari known as the "Solomon, Ex-Lambert" in 2007 at Christie's in New York. Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

The violin might well be the favorite instrument for composers because it sounds so much like us. And even though it is the smallest of all the stringed instruments, the violin makes the highest sound.

Made of wood with four metal strings, musicians play the violin using a bow (a wooden stick strung with a tight ribbon of horsehair) in their right hand and pressing the string with the fingers of their left hand. The body of the instrument has a hollow center. This center is called a resonating chamber, and it makes the sound of the strings loud and strong. That sound comes out of the two f-shaped holes. A small instrument can make a powerful sound.

Listen to the Violin

When Big Is Better

In An Alpine Symphony, German composer Richard Strauss (REE-card STRAUS) describes a difficult mountain climb that begins before dawn and ends just as night falls. In between, the climb is filled with beautiful sights, adventure, and a terrible storm. Strauss chose a full orchestra to recreate this journey. He even added instruments not usually part of an orchestra, including cowbells; a glockenspiel (GLOCK-en-shpeel), which is like a large xylophone; and wind and thunder machines.

Activity: Build a Thunder Drum

The Loud and Quiet of Musical Dynamics

Another tool in the composer’s toolbox—musical dynamics—controls whether music is loud or quiet. While dynamics focus on the music’s volume, there’s more to it than simply sliding the dial on the volume control.

The funny thing about music is that sometimes loud is fun and exciting, but it can also be dramatic or sad or spooky or any number of things. In the same way, quiet music can be soft and gentle, but also dramatic or sad or spooky. It all depends on the types of dynamics used when musicians perform the work.

Listening Activity: Loud Quiet & Deal with Dynamics

Wait, How Do Musicians Know How Loud or Soft to Play?

Just like choosing tempo, composers include directions for musicians in the sheet music. And again, just like with tempo, different Italian terms are used to describe musical dynamics. For example, here are a few:

• crescendo (kreh-SHEN-doh) becoming louder
• diminuendo (dih-min-yoo-EN-doh) becoming softer
• forte (FOR-tay) loud
• fortissimo (for-TEE-see-moh) very loud
• piano softly
• al niente (ahl- knee-EN-tay) fade to nothing or silence

Extreme Emotions

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (GOOS-tahf MAH-ler) is celebrated for tackling thoughtful ideas and emotions in his music. His music often considers the biggest questions: What is life? What is death? What is love?

Mahler is considered one of the greatest Romantic composers, but the word “romance” here doesn’t mean hearts and flowers. In Mahler’s case, it describes a musical style that is filled with thoughts and feelings.

Listen to excerpts from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The composer expresses his concern over life’s extreme conditions. Listen how Mahler uses musical dynamics to make the music more emotional and thought-provoking.

Strike Up the Band

American composer John Philip Sousa (SOO-zuh) is most famous for his rousing march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever," which was recognized by the U.S. government as the official march of the United States. It’s not a long piece of music—but its belting brass, crashing cymbals, and piercing piccolos are sure to get any audience clapping and cheering.

Sousa is also the only composer to have an instrument named after him.

The sousaphone is a large brass instrument like a tuba that wraps over the musician’s shoulder. You often see a sousaphone in a marching band.

Listening Activity: Everything We've Learned So Far

For Educators

Students (and their teachers!) will get more out of the NSO Young People’s Concert when they are prepared for the Exploring Extremes program in advance. Here are some tips for using these resources:

• The Listening Activities are designed for grades 3 and up. The activities may be presented by the classroom teacher or music specialist.
• Many students will require at least two opportunities to engage with the content. We suggest this approach to the Listening Activities:
  
  Engage Students > Play Audio > Reflect > Repeat as Needed > Go to the Next Activity

General Tips

• Listen for yourself. Spend some time alone with the activities and other resources. This prep time is invaluable as you bring these resources into the classroom.
• Allow enough lead time. Some teachers introduce students to the material weeks before the concert.
• Prepare not only for the music but for the event. For many students, this will be their first time at a concert with a full orchestra. They’ll be more comfortable if they know what to expect.
• Most importantly, bring your own creativity to the process. Change these activities to fit your classroom and add your own variations.

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