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Instruments

The school offers tuition in the following instruments:

Strings: Violin, Viola, Cello, Doublebass, Guitar, Harp
Woodwind: Flute, Clarinet, Saxophone, Recorder
Brass: Trumpet, Trombone
Percussion: Piano, Drums
Voice

Piano

The most universal of instruments is the piano. The reason why it occupies this position is easy enough to discover. Most instruments like voices can play only one melody at a time and are unable to sound the simultaneous tones of a chord. A pianist, on the other hand can play tunes, chords and contrapuntal passages with ease. The piano is of course the instrument for composers since it can reproduce the tones of choral compositions, string quartets and other instrumental combinations leaving nothing to the composers imagination but the instrumental colouring.

Harp

The present day concert harp is far larger and has many more strings that those of the seventeenth century. However the principal is the same. Its forty-seven strings stretched with great tension on its frame covers a range of about six and a half octaves. The harp is played by plucking the strings. The harpist using his/her thumb and three fingers on each hand can sound eight tones at once.

Violin

The violin family is unique among all stringed instruments in its ability to produce steadily sustained tones and even tones, which become louder as they continue. The violinist through the use of the bow can control the intensity, quality and duration of the tones with amazing precision. All the members of the violin family are alike in general construction. Each has four strings tuned approximately half an octave apart which are stretched over a small bridge above a hollow wooden box of peculiar shape, which acts as a resonator making what would otherwise be a feeble tone, full and rich.

Viola

The viola is one of the two chin-sized members of the string choir. It may be described as an overgrown violin, which has had its highest string removed and a correspondingly lower string added at the opposite side. It is only slightly larger than the violin, and so the two instruments are almost alike in tone.

Cello

Because of its greater bulk, the cello is held between the knees. Its tone, while warm and mellow, has a quality in its upper range, which is lacking in the viola. Its deeper tones are rich and resonant.

Doublebass

The double bass is a close companion to the cello. It is the giant member of the string choir, truly named the bass violin, but frequently called double bass, contra bass, string bass or just bass. Its tones are about an octave lower than those of the cello and because of its ponderous size, it is tuned in fourths rather than fifths.

Guitar

The guitar is a six stringed instrument, which originated from the mandolin, which was prevalent in Asia, Taiwan, and China in as early as the fifteenth century. The guitar has changed substantially over the years and there are now many different varieties of the guitar, the most popular being Acoustic and Electric.

Flute

The flute family is not a complete choir in itself. It has no tenor or bass member. In fact, only two treble-voiced instruments appear at all frequently: the Piccolo (high Soprano) and the Flute (Soprano).

Clarinet

The clarinet family has two members: the Clarinet and the Bass Clarinet. Its agility is meticulous rather than flamboyant. Its high tones are brilliant and penetrating, its middle register full and mellow, and its low tones have an intense vibrant quality. The bass clarinet looks like a large sized clarinet with a turned-up end in the manner of a saxophone. Because of its lower pitch, it is somewhat mellower.

Saxophone

Like the violin family, the saxophone comes in all sizes from soprano to contra bass. However it is a rather peculiar instrument. It belongs partly to the woodwinds and partly to the brasses, for it is a combination of both. Its metal tubing is like that of a bugle, yet its mouthpiece and arrangement of holes and keys are patterned after the clarinet.

Trombone

The trombone is the only brass instrument, which has no valves. It is about an octave lower in pitch than the trumpet. Its tone is impressively powerful. It has the trumpet’s bold, ringing quality, but also a nobility which no other instrument can quite equal.

Trumpet

The trumpet, being so closely related to the bugle, has the same bold, martial quality and intensity of volume, that makes the bugle so desirable an instrument for military use outdoors. Played softly, it has a round tone that is fuller and richer than any other woodwind tone.

Drums
Among the drums are two familiar members of every military band: the bass drum which, when struck with a padded hammer produces a deep, reverberating “boom” and the snare drum which takes its name from the snares or strings of catgut, that vibrate against the lower head when the upper head is hit, and give it its distinctive crisp, rattling sound.

Voice

The simplest and in some ways the most fundamental of all instruments is the human voice. Since male and female voices are of different aptitudes of pitch, the two sing roughly an octave apart. In each division there are high, medium and low voices. The female voice ranges from soprano to mezzo-soprano to contralto. The male voice ranges from tenor to baritone to bass. Within each range of pitch, voices differ from each other in quality and style. The human voice radiates a personal warmth and intensity of feeling, which cannot be duplicated by any man-made instrument.