Instrument Comparison

Musical instruments come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and sounds. Depending on the material the instrument is made of and how it’s played, they can create all sorts of wonderful music with very different results. In this paper, I will compare and contrast one selection from each of the four major instrument families: the oboe for woodwinds, the trombone for brass, the harp for strings, and the timpani for percussion.

The oboe is a reed-based woodwind instrument played by blowing air into the reed and fingering the keys to release air at different intervals and create different tones. Like many string and some brass instruments, the instrument requires strong finger dexterity in order to play many different notes or chords (Campbell et al. 21). Like percussion instruments, is not primarily a solo instrument, but generally included as part of an orchestra.

The trombone is a brass instrument, played by the likes of famed jazz trombonists such as Carl Fontana. Like the oboe and other woodwind instruments used in the Vienna Philharmonic, it is played by blowing air through it and changing the amount of air passing through to produce different tones. Unlike woodwinds, the trombone achieves this by using a slide that allows for more air to pass through the instrument when extended. Like the timpani and some other percussion instruments, this instrument can produce low, resonant tones for sustained periods of time (Campbell et al. 298). Unlike the harp, it does not require that the musician be seated during play.

The harp is a string instrument that is played by plucking individual strings to create various tones. Similarly to the oboe and the trombone, the tone of the note played on the harp is affected by the length portion of the instrument producing the sound: the string, in the harp’s case, and the tube of air for the other two (Campbell et al. 62). Like the timpani, the harp can be adjusted so that the notes do not echo or linger. Unlike the oboe and the trombone, the harp can be tuned to play a different set of notes by the musician, while the others require different construction or the addition of mutes to modify the notes.

The timpani, also known as the kettle drum, is a percussion instrument played by beating a stretched out animal skin called the “head” over a large, half-dome-shaped pocket of air enclosed with metal or wood. When struck, it produces a tone that varies depending on how tight the head is stretched across the frame (Campbell et al. 38). Like all the other instruments previously described, it is capable of producing low tones. However, unlike the other instruments, any tone created by the timpani is of a low pitch, whereas the others have greater pitch variety.

Work Cited

Campbell, Murray, Clive A. Greated, and Arnold Myers. Musical Instruments: History, Technology, and Performance of Instruments of Western Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.