What is the Philharmonia Orchestra?

The Philharmonia Orchestra has been putting on Family Music Days for the past 7 years.

The word 'philharmonia' means 'music-loving'.

In 1945, a man called Walter Legge got lots of brilliant musicians together to record some big pieces of music. It worked so well that the orchestra stayed together. (Of course over the years all the players have changed - otherwise they'd be really old!)

The Philharmonia Orchestra gives over 300 performances and recordings a year, which take place all over the world. It is based in London but travels to visit other places in Britain such as Basingstoke,Bedford, Bristol and Leicester.

But what exactly is an orchestra...?

An orchestra is a big group of musicians playing together. There are four different families of instruments: the strings (violins, violas, cellos, double basses and harps), woodwind (flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons), brass (horns, trumpets, trombones and tubas) and percussion (lots of different instruments from the triangle to the timpani drums).

A string instrument is so called because the music is made by making its strings vibrate. The violin is held in the left hand, under the chin,and the right hand holds a bow. To make the notes higher or lower you move the fingers of your left hand along the strings. As you move your fingers towards the end of the violin, the notes get deeper.

What happens when you want a deeper note and your fingers have come to the end of the violin? You get a bigger violin! This is called a viola. It is played just like the violin, but is a bit bigger, which means it can play deeper notes.

But what happens when you want even deeper notes? You get a cello! A cello is too big to fit under the chin, so it has to stand on the floor on a long spike.

The giant of the string family is the huge double bass, which plays very deep sounds.

Each section of the orchestra has small instruments to play high notes and large instruments for low notes.

The woodwind instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons)are played by blowing air down a tube while the player covers holes cut into the tube to make the different notes. Each woodwind instrument has a different mouthpiece, which is why they all make different sounds.

Brass players also make notes by blowing through a tube of brass, but they make different notes by buzzing with their lips. If you blow a raspberry and make a buzzing sound, that's just what they're doing! Like all the other sections there are high and low instruments, from the trumpets and French horns down to the trombones and tuba.

The percussion section has all sorts of different instruments, from the small snare drum to the big bronze timpani drums, which are all played by being hit with sticks.