Mª JOSE PEREZ

INSTRUMENTAL
EMSEMBLES
1. CHAMBER MUSIC

Music composed for small instrumental ensembles and performed without a

conductor. Traditionally intended for performance in a room or reception hall,
often solely for the performers' own pleasure, chamber music is now often heard
in concert halls.
It began with the 16th-century instrumental consort, and long continued to be
associated with aristocratic households.

A musical ensemble is a group of several musicians who gather to perform

music. There are several denominations of ensembles according with their size
and composition.

The terms duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, and nonet are used
to describe groups of two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine musicians,
respectively.

• A common duet is formed by a polyphonic instrument (e.g. piano, harp,

guitar, harpsichord…) and a melodic one ( e.g. flute, trumpet, oboe,violin…)

• A standard ensemble is the string trio (violin, viola, cello) and piano trio
(piano, violin, cello).

• A common quartet is the string quartet, composed of two violins, a viola

and a violoncello. Remains the best-known chamber genre and ensemble.
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• The most usual quintet is the string quintet ,similar to the string quartet, but
with the viola duplicated. In some cases, though, it is the violoncello that is
duplicated. A piano quintet is usually a string quartet plus a piano.

Another fairly common grouping in classical music are the wind quintet,
usually consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, and the Brass
quintet (two trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba ) .

• A group with more instruments is usually called an orchestra. A small

orchestra is called a chamber orchestra. The chamber orchestra, usually
with fewer than 25 musicians, is often used for 18th-century music and
usually requires a conductor.

2. Symphony Orchestra

A symphony orchestra is a large body of several tens and often

more that a hundred musicians, divided in groups of instruments: violins (I and II),
violas, violoncellos, basses, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and sometimes more.
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There is no difference between Symphonic, Philharmonic, and similarly titled

orchestras. These are only names used to distinguish different symphony orchestras. A
Sinfonietta usually denotes a somewhat smaller orchestra (though still not a chamber
orchestra), and the terms concert or pops orchestra usually mean an orchestra
concentrating mainly on the light classical and more popular repertoire.

A string orchestra has only strings, i.e., violins, violas, violoncellos and basses.

3. POPULAR ENSEMBLES
• A group that plays popular music is usually called a band. It is a group of
instrumental musicians who generally perform outdoors, and who
incorporate movement - usually some type of marching - with their
musical performance. It is composed by aerophones, idiophones
and membranophones instruments without any chordophone
instrument. Their repertorie is varied: classical, zarzuelas, film´s
soundtrack, military marchs…

• Band of cornets and drums. Are used in Easter´s processions in some

regions of Spain.

• Tuna. It´s a type of Rondalla is formed only by plucked string instruments

like bandurrias, lutes and guitars.

• Pop and Rock band. A standard quartet formation in pop and rock
music is an ensemble consisting of two electric guitars, a bass
guitar, and a drum kit. This configuration is sometimes modified
by using a keyboard instrument (e.g., organ, piano, synthesizer) or
a soloing instrument (e.g., saxophone) in place of the second
electric guitar.
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• In Jazz and Jazz fusion music quartets are widely used.

A standard quartet formation in jazz is an ensemble consisting of a
"horn" (e.g., saxophone, trumpet, etc.), a chordal instrument (e.g.,
electric guitar, piano, Hammond organ, etc.), a bass instrument
(e.g., double bass or bass guitar) and a drum kit. This
configuration is sometimes modified by using a second "horn" in
place of the chordal instrument, or by using two chordal
instruments (e.g., piano and electric guitar).

• Other traditional ensembles of other countries:

Bali and Java-

A gamelan is an ensemble of musicians playing metalophones and gongs.

China- Afrique-
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Japan-