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= = = = =Welcome to THS Year 7 Music 2011 = =Pathfinder for Instruments of the Orchestra = = = This pathfinder will help you find the information you need for this unit of work, Instruments of the Orchestra, using: 1st, Encylopedias 2nd, Books 3rd, Internet sites selected by the teacher librarian = = If you use the pathfinder this way you will be gathering information in a systematic way, and you will be able to build your knowledge progressively. Don't forget to make a reference list of every encyclopedia, book, or website. If you would like further guidance on how to research or write a reference list, go to **research tips**. Go to **searching the web** to find some tips on searching, using google, evaluating websites and using search terms.

There is a **going deeper** section at the bottom of this page. These are sites that are more detailed and contain higher level information. You can go to them if you want to find out more.

=Key terms & definitions =

== =**Task 1** = What are the families of the orchestra and what makes them different? These are some questions that you will need to answer: What are they made of? How are they played? How do they make a sound? How are they used in the orchestra? Where do they sit? Find a picture of a symphony orchestra seating plan. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Write a 1-2 page report in your music exercise book, you can use pictures & diagrams)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Orchestra**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Brass instruments**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Woodwind instruments**
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">S tring instruments**
 * **Percussion instruments**.
 * **Tone colour:** Refers to what makes a sound distinctive. What helps you identify the sound source? Some elements that affect tone colour are the sound source material such as wood, metal, or string, and the method of sound production such as blowing, hitting, plucking, or bowing.
 * **Pitch:** Refers to the relative highness and lowness of sounds. Pitch can be definite (melodic instrument) or indefinite (some percussion instruments like high drums vs. low drums)
 * **Dynamics:** Refers to the volume of sound, loud or soft.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Task 2**
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Choose one of the instruments of the orchestra and answer the following questions. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">To what orchestral family does it belong? What is it made of? How is it played? How would you describe the sound? When and how was it invented? What role does it play in the orchestra? <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Refer to tone colour, pitch and dynamics <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">( Write a short PowerPoint presentation to present to the class, 5-6 slides, you can use pictures, diagrams, sounds & video<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">)



=<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Resources =

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Video **
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Before you start, watch this video found on youtube. It gives a good overview of the instruments of the orchestra and their families. It will help you answer some of the questions in task 1.

media type="file" key="instruments of the orchestra.WMV - YouTube.flv" width="360" height="270"



<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Reference Section ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reference resources are encyclopedias, atlases and dictionaries that are always in the library for you to use (they can’t be borrowed), or online. Reference resources give you general information that can be used as background information. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reference resources are both in the library and online. If you can’t find the reference section in the library ask your friendly teacher librarian.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**World Book Encyclopedia** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Encyclopedias have general and reliable information about almost everything. The World Book Encyclopedia is set up in alphabetical order, much like a dictionary. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Look up “Orchestra” <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Look up the instrument of your choice such as “trumpet” or “violin”.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Encarta Kids** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">On your desktop, open Encarta Kids 2009. This is an online encyclopedia. If you search for “Orchestra” you will find brief information. Go to “Parts of the orchestra” to find out about the instrument families, including where they sit.

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** ﻿ ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Books ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Books are a great source of reliable information. Always go to the books first and then when you have background knowledge you can start searching on the internet.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Closed Reserve
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Have a look at the books on closed reserve.

//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">What does **closed reserve** mean? // <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">It means that these books are not able to be borrowed, usually until the assignment is due. They are kept on the blue shelf and will always be here for you to come use when you come into the library. When the assignment is over they go back in their usual place ready for anyone to borrow.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The World Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments, Max Wade-Matthews** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book is particularly useful to find information on the history of your chosen instrument. It is quite detailed so you will need to take some notes so that you can recall what you have read.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Go to the contents page and find the page number for the family of instruments you are interested in.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">In each section you will find detailed information about the family and how their sound is made.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Flick through the section to find the information on your chosen instrument.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The ABC book of Musical Instruments, Michael Atherton** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">You will need to use the table of contents to find the instrument you are looking for. They are grouped using the way the sound is produced.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Aerophones (sound produced by vibrating air, i.e. wind instruments)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chordophones (sound produced by vibrating strings, i.e. string instruments)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Idiophones (sound produced by hitting resonant material such as wood or metal, e.g. xylophone)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Membranophones (sound produced by a vibrating membrane, i.e. drums)

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Instruments of the Orchestra, Roy Bennet** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Look up your instrument in the contents in alphabetical order. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book is useful for finding detailed information on the instrument of your choice. The author gives a very good history of the instrument, as well as diagrams and pictures. He also discusses how they are used in the orchestra

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Websites **

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Oregon Symphony Education site** [] This is a great introductory site. It will introduce you to the different types of instruments, how they are played, constructed and make their sound. There is a general section about the symphony orchestra, then you can click on the links on the left hand side to go to the instrument families. At the top of each of these pages there are links to each instrument. The information on this site is accurate and will help with both task 1 and 2.
 * Use the headphones so that you can listen to the sounds of the instruments on these websites. Some websites have better quality sound than others. **

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**San Francisco Symphony Kids** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This site is provided by the San Francisco Symphony orchestra. Choose a family of instruments: strings, brass, woodwind or percussion. Then you can click on an instrument that you want to study further. You will be given brief text about the instrument and its role in the orchestra, and a picture which you can rotate.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Dallas Symphony Orchestra Kids** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Something I have noticed when searching for information for this pathfinder is that many of the recordings on websites are not good quality. This site has excellent recordings….the instruments actually sound like this! <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This site is provided by the Dallas Symphony orchestra. On the LISTEN page you can click on the instruments, listen, and find information.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**New York Philharmonic Kids** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]? <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">You will have fun exploring this site. Go to the **Instrument Store Room** to find the information on the instruments. This site is excellent because it gives you a longer sound clip from an orchestral piece of music so you get to hear what the instruments sounds like in the orchestra rather than just by itself. There is also information about the instrument and its history. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">When you have finished looking at your instrument, go to the **composition workshop** and explore how you could use your instrument in an orchestral piece.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Lancaster Symphony orchestra** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This site is great for pictures to print and colour. They can be used for illustrations for your assignment.

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Do your own search **

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Boolify **

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the past, when a teacher gave you an assignment you would have gone straight to Google. Only start searching when you have looked at the resources in the library such as encyclopedias, books and pathfinder websites. Why not try a different search tool, **Boolify**, and learn an effective way of searching. You will find the best results using **Boolean search operators and Boolify will help you use them**. IT'S SIMPLE. Click and drag the "word" puzzle piece to add a search term, use the "not" puzzle piece to add words that you don't want such as "sale" and "sales". <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Use the key words at the top of this page to help with your search terms: "orchestra", "orchestral instruments", or the instrument of your choice such as "trumpet" or "clarinet". //**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Remember that the best websites are rarely on the first page of search results. **//



<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Going Deeper….. **

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Book**
<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments: from all eras and regions of the world.** <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Bozhidar Abrashev, Vladimir Gadjev, Anton Radevsky** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Normally I wouldn’t recommend this book for year 7 but if you are feeling game… It is useful for very detailed information on the instrument of your choice. It is particularly useful for the history of the instruments. Find out where your modern instrument has come from, how it came to be made and played the way it is today.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Websites**
<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Thinkquest: The Symphony, an Interactive guide** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">This site is particularly useful for finding out how an instrument is constructed, including materials used and how they affect the sound. Click on the link to ORCHESTRA and you will see a map of the symphony orchestra. Click on the different sections to find the instruments and their descriptions.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">**University of Michigan, Instrument Encyclopedia** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">To navigate this site you need to click on the BROWSE link, and then BROWSE BY GENERAL REFERENCE. You will be able to find excellent information about your instrument.