The brass family and playing in the F position

Hello and welcome to today's lesson entitled: "The brass family and playing in the F position." My name is Mr. Norris. Today, we're gonna be exploring the brass family, such a key family of instruments, and we're also gonna be learning how to play it in a different position on the keyboard or the F position. So let's get started. The outcome of today's lesson is, I can identify the characteristics of the brass family and can play in the F position on the keyboard, Some keywords that we're gonna be using. The first is brass, and this is a family of instruments in the orchestra made of brass metal that produce sound by buzzing air through the instrument. Fanfare, this is a short triumphant sounding musical idea that's often played by brass instruments. Range, the range of an instrument is how high and low it can play. And then finally, F position, and this is a hand position on the keyboard where your thumb rests on F, as we can see in that image there. So we're gonna be exploring all these concepts more in detail as we go. The first part of today's lesson is focused on the brass family. The brass family is a section of the orchestra made up of the following instruments. We've got the trumpet, french horn, trombone, and the tuba. And as we can see just from those images there, they're different in size and different in shape and design as well. What common characteristics, however, do you notice about those instruments? I'll give you a few seconds to have a look and see if you can pick anything out. Here are some of the things that you might have noticed. They're all curved tubes of brass metal and they all have a funnel like bell at the end. So a bell that opens out at the end. Like woodwind instruments, they need air to produce sound. But for brass instruments, this is created by using the lips to buzz. So by breathing literally quickly against each other rather than just blowing air. And this is what creates the vibrations that allow the instrument to produce sound. Let's just have a look at that in action. In this video. When playing brass instruments, we vibrate our lips known as buzzing. (teacher buzzing) When we do this into a mouthpiece, the sound reverberates and gets louder. (teacher buzzing) (sound reverberates) Now when we add the instrument, the mouthpiece is going to turn that buzzing into a proper note. (sound reverberates) (gentle trombone music) So hopefully you've got a bit of an understanding of that technique now. I'd like to listen to this piece of music and in particular focus on the brass section. How would you describe the sound or the timbre that they make? And pause my video and have a listen. So you might have described the timbre as bright or clear or warm, and there are lots of different ways we can describe. It really depends on how it's being played. And the brass instruments sit towards the back of the orchestra because their sound carries across the ensemble. That's our map there of our orchestra. And as we can see, they're sitting in that purple section at the back and their sound projects over the entire orchestra. They're powerful instruments. They're able to play very loud. So they're small in number and they sit at the back. I'd like to list the four main brass instruments and pause my video while I do that. And the correct answers here then were trumpets, french horn, trombone and tuba. Well done if you've got all four of those. Which two of the following best describe the brass family? They are quiet and delicate. They are loud and powerful. They sit towards the back of the orchestra. Or they sit towards the front of the orchestra. I'll give you a few seconds to choose two. And the correct answer then are they're loud and powerful and they sit towards the back of the orchestra. And those two things are related, aren't they? Because they're loud and powerful, they can sit at the back and still project their sound over the top of all the other instruments. Most brass instruments use valves to change pitch. What the valves do is they extend the tubing so they block off or they open up sections of the tubing which change the pitch. We will lower the pitch if they're extending it. And we can see in that image there those three valves that the player has under their fingers. That's how they control and change the pitch. The trombone is slightly different as it uses a slide to extend the tube rather than valves. Let's just have a look at some trombone playing here to see that technique in action. (upbeat trombone music) Now, the first brass instruments didn't have valves, and this meant that the instruments could only play certain notes. So you might have heard the bugle, play in the last post, for example, on Remembrance Day, and that's based on the notes that a brass instrument could play without valves. So let's just have a look at that. (triumphant bugle music) (triumphant bugle music) (triumphant bugle music) (triumphant bugle music) Now this characteristic, coupled with the ability to play loud, means that brass are often associated with playing fan fairs and fanfare like musical ideas. A fanfare remember is a triumphant sounding short musical idea that's often associated with things like ceremonies and royal occasions and military parades and things like that as well. I'd like to listen to this clip and you're gonna pause my video to do that in a second. Do you recognise this famous fanfare from Mendelssohn's "Wedding March"? Have a listen. Now in the brass family, like in the other families, is the bigger the instrument, the lower the pitch. And this is a theme across all of the families, isn't it? I'd like to listen to these three clips and see if you can identify the instrument by listening to the pitch. We've got a trumpet, a trombone and a tuba, and three sounds there. See if you can match each based on their pitch. Pause my video while you have a go. So well done then if you manage to get this. The tuba was the first one. That's the lowest pitched of the brass instruments. The trumpet's the higher pitched one, and that's sound two. And then the trombone, which sits in the middle of the two, was sound three. Well done if you've got all three. Now I'd like you to listen to the sound of the french horn. Firstly, how would you describe the timbre? How does it contrast with the timbres of the other brass instruments? And then where do you think it fits in the order of pitch? If you've got trumpet as the highest pitch, trombone in the middle and tuba as the lowest pitch, where do you think the french horn would fit into that? And pause my video while you have a listen. So the range of the brass instruments overlaps, and that means that some of the notes that each instrument can play could also be played on another instrument. For example, if a trombone is playing really high, a trumpet could also play those notes quite low in its range and so on. Now, you might have described the timbre the french horn there as quite mellow or pure or smooth, or some people would describe it as muffled. It's quite different to some of the other brass instruments. And it actually has a really wide range, so it can blend with both trumpets when it plays quite high or trombones when it plays, or it has a really vast range and it's quite a notoriously difficult instrument to play really well. Let's check your understanding. Which brass instrument uses a slide instead of valves? Is it the trumpet, French horn, trombone or tuba? I'll give you a few seconds. And the correct answer here then is the trombone. That's the one that uses the slide. All of the other three instruments use valves to extend the tubing and change the pitch. Which brass instrument has the lowest pitch? Is it trumpet, trombone, tuba, or French horn? I'll give you a few seconds. And the correct answer here then was tuba. That's our lowest pitch. Well done if you managed to remember that. For task A, there are two questions we're gonna do. The first, I'd like you to listen to excerpt A and excerpt B and name the brass instrument that is playing in each one. You can complete the table as you're doing that. And then question two, you're gonna listen to excerpt C. I'd like to name the two different brass instruments in the order that they are heard, so which one you hear first and then which one do you hear second. I'd also like to try and describe the music that each of them is playing. So what is it that they're playing? How would you describe it musically? So you can pause my video now and give this task your best shot. Good luck. Let's go through this one then. For question one, excerpt A was a tuba, and you probably would've identified that by noticing the low pitch of the instrument. And if excerpt B, that was a french horn playing. And really the easiest way to identify that is by noticing that slightly different timbre. So really well done if you managed to do that. For excerpt C, question two, the two different brass instruments were trombone and then trumpet. So we heard trombones and trumpets. And that's all well done if you've got both of those. And then question B is to describe the music they're playing. We'd say it was loud, and the word we're really looking for here is fanfare. They're playing a fanfare like idea, this sort of triumphant sounding pattern. So well done if you managed to get that word in there and describe that. The second part of our lesson, we're looking at the F position. Let's look at the middle section of "Going Home." Now it uses some notes that fall outside of the C position. You just have a look and see if you can identify which notes could not be played in the C position. So hopefully you can see that almost all of the notes in this fall outside the C position. The only one that doesn't is that G. So to play this on the keyboard, we need to move our hand to a different position, which is called the F position. Let's have a look at that. One, two, three, four. (gentle piano music) Just a C is to the left of the two black keys. We can find F by looking at the pattern of notes on the keyboard as well. So there we've got C to the left of those two black notes and F is gonna fall to the left of those three black keys we can see in the middle of the keyboard there. Once we've found F, we're gonna put a thumb on it and then we're gonna have fingers up, G, A, B, and C. Now changing hand position on the keyboard allows you both to find the notes more easily, but also to play more effectively, legato that smoothly. And in order to do this, we need to be able to find the notes relatively quickly. So let's have a look now at how we move from C position to F position. (bright piano music) Let's check your understanding of that. How do we find F on the keyboard? Is it to the left of the three black keys, to the right of the three black keys, or to the left of the two black keys? I'll give you a few seconds. And the correct answer then is it's to the left of the three black keys. That's where we find. Well done if you got that. Which of the following is F position? I'll give you a few seconds to look at these and choose the correct answer. And the correct answer here then is the first one there and that's because the thumb, number one, is on the key F, and then we've got the fingers on G, A, B, and C above it. In the other two, the hand is in a different place. It's got a different starting note. Now we can also identify the notes as they have their own unique place on the stave as we know. F and G both fall within the C position, but the three new pictures that we have are A, B, and high C. So those are the three new notes that we're gonna be looking at. Let's just have a look at the notes of that F position here. (gentle piano music) Each symbol obviously has its own pitch. Let's have a look at B. This is one of our new notes. What's the easiest way to identify that? What's distinct about where it sits on the stave? Have a think for a few seconds. So the distinct thing about B is it's on the middle line, so the note head sits right in the middle of that stave and that's an easy way to identify it. And then A and C are gonna be either side of it in the spaces. Let's check your understanding. True or false? This note is a B. I'd like to justify your answer with one of the statements down the bottom. Few seconds left. And the correct answer is this is a B. That's true. Our justification for that is that it sits on the middle line of the stave. So there are lots of notes that could be black circles with a stem or with a line, but this one is definitely B because it's on the middle line of stave. Well done if you identify that. I like to fill in the following note names, choosing from F, G, A, B, and C. Pause my video while you work these out. And the correct answers here then are: first is A, then we go on F and B, C and G. Well done if you've got all five of those. For task B, I'd like to complete the following tasks. You are gonna find the F position on the keyboard with your right hand. And then there are two patterns there that I'd like to practise playing evenly. So we've got this one starting on F and then one starting on C, and that's in the F position. Now I'd like to practise playing F with your thumb and then C with your thumb, so you can get used to moving comfortably between the C position and the F position, getting the feel for that, learning that muscle memory of that movement. So you can pause my video now and have a go at that. Best of luck. Let's have a look at what both of those tasks should have looked like if they were done really well. Here's the first one. One, two, three, four. (gentle piano music) And here's the second one. One, two, three, four. (bright piano music) Hopefully now you're starting to get a feel for moving between those two positions and feel like you can play it fluently in both the F position and the C position. And that's gonna come in really helpful in this third section of a lesson which is focused on performing the middle section of "Going Home". I'd like to watch this performance of the middle two phrases of "Going Home". This is our middle section of the piece. And in particular, I'd like to note the hand position, the keyboard technique and the repetition of musical ideas. So looking out for those things. Let's have a look. One, two, three, four. (gentle piano music) So to perform the middle section, start by finding the F position. Remember good keyboard techniques, that means fingers slightly curved over the keys with a straight line from the elbow to the little finger. Play the same phrase twice. So this middle section is based on that same repeated idea. Hopefully you notice that in that video. And try and play it in a legato style, so moving smoothly between the notes and sustaining the notes. Have a look here. In which picture is the hand in the F position? Give you a few seconds. And the correct answer then is it's that second one, option B. And we know that because the thumb is sat on air, that's the key to F position. Well done if you pick that up. For task C, practise playing the middle section of "Going Home". Some success criteria here for you. Firstly, you find the F position first with the correct hand shape. Makes you use the finger prompts and the notation to identify the order and the rhythm of the notes, in particular, paying attention to those dotted crotchets at the start of each phrase. And try and play in a legato style, and that means moving smoothly between the notes. So you can pause my video, give this task your best shot. Let's move on the final part of this task. And here we're gonna watch a performance of the middle section of "Going Home". How could it be even better? And how is this performance successful? Few prompts here that might help you answer this. The first is, is the hand in F position and in the correct shape? Are the pictures of each note accurate? Are the rhythms accurate? And is it performed in a legato style? Let's have a look. (gentle piano music) Just pause my video while you're finishing your answer. Let's review this then. So the hand is in the F position and it has the correct shape. Pitches and rhythms are accurate all the way through, however, it is not performed in a legato style. So it could be improved by trying to focus on playing it smoothly, not detaching the notes from each other and playing it legato. Well done if you made some of those same points. Let's review today's lesson then. So the brass family consists of four main instruments, we've got trumpet, french horn, trombone, and tuba. As the instruments get bigger, the pitch gets lower, as we found across all the families of the orchestra. And the range of an instrument is how high and low it can play. The brass family often used to play fanfares, which are triumphant melodies, remember these are often associated with celebrations or royal occasions or military events. And the middle section of "Going Home" is played in the F position. The F position uses the notes F, G, A, B, and C, and your thumb should rest on F as we can see in that diagram there. So that's the end of our lesson. Thanks very much for taking part in today's lesson. Hopefully you feel like you've developed your keyboard skills and hopefully you feel like you've developed your understanding of the orchestra as well. I look forward to seeing you in another lesson. Thank you.