Why joining an orchestra is such a good idea
- Alison Fairrchild
- Mar 20, 2015
- 2 min read
As someone who has played violin from a young age, joining an orchestra as a child was a way to both socialise and improve my sight-reading, but it also has other benefits.
The violin, as a melody-line instrument, is both very flexible and slightly limited. Seeing the underlying chord structure in a piece is quite tricky if you only play violin. Learning piano alongside, or guitar, can help you to understand it, but this function can also be performed by an orchestra. It helps you to feel where your part fits in a harmony, how all the notes in a chord are important, and if you're missing a section for any reason in a rehearsal, what function each part performs. We were recently missing our double-bass section as none of them could come that night, and there was a tangible difference in the depth of the music. Something of the richness was missing. It's the same when we're missing any of the brass or woodwind. Each instrument has it's own peculiar quality that contributes, and that is one of the valuable lessons you learn when playing in a large ensemble such as an orchestra.
Orchestras are great places to socialise with other musicians. As an adult musician and a teacher it's a way to network, make friends and contacts, find out about useful things like violin repairers if you're new to an area, and get to know other local teachers, and have a good time playing some challenging music. As a child it's a great way to make friends with similar interests, to have fun playing in a bigger group than you would have played with before and being challenged and stretched by the music you play. It's a great way to improve sight-reading and skills such as rhythm and counting, which are so important to playing music but are often tricky to learn.
Most of all, though, there is just the sheer pleasure of being part of a world of sound. There is such a variety of sound within an orchestra, and being in the middle of it it such a wonderful experience! The thrill of all those instruments playing together and being part of that wonderful huge entity all making music together is a great feeling!
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