I hope you guys will excuse my ignorance , but could someone please tell me:

1. What does Strings: 12 – 12 – 10 – 6 – 4. mean?
This is obviously in the context of an orchestra. My guess is that it means:
There are 12 first violins, 12 second violins, 10 violas, 6 cellos and 4 basses, am I right?

2. When you have such a large number of instruments (lets say 10 second violins), do they all generally play the same notes? Or is it common for some of those violins to harmonize what the rest of the second violins is playing?

3. What does a Grade III/IV Concert Band consist of? Is there a standard set of instruments that should be used for such a Band?

Thanks for the help!

Charly

Q1 yes thats right

Q2 it depends on the music, sometimes the violins 'divisi' and play different notes. It will be clear in the score if this is to happen by the composer writng 'divisi' over the parts. Usually the outer play (on each desk) takes the top part, the inner player the lower part. If it divides into more than 2 parts then the section will divide by desk.

Q3 I haven;t a clue. Anyone else?

12-12-10-6-4 means the work is scored for 12 1st violins, 12 2nd violins, 10 violas, 6 'cellos, and 4 Double Basses. Or at least that is what is recommended.

Most of the time all those in the same part (eg 2nd violin) will play the same notes, but occasionally, they will split into two or more different parts, usually only for a short while. This is called 'divisi'

Someone else will have to answer question 3, as I'm not experienced in that area.

(sorry for repetition, Jane beat me to the reply, I must have been typing as she was posting!)

Q1 What Jane said.

Q2 Likewise, but just to add that all the instruments will play the same notes unless there is a specific instruction (like the ones Jane mentioned) to do otherwise.

Q3 Concert bands consist of woodwind, brass and percussion. As far as I know they use basically the standard orchestral instruments plus saxophones. I've seen concert bands with double basses in them but I don't know if this is standard. A Grade 3/4 concert band is presumably one in which the individual parts are of somewhere between AB Grade 3 and Grade 4 levels.

Of course my desk partner and I always divisi the double stops whether it tells us to or not

Gee! You guys are awesome!!!! Fastest reply I've seen in my entire life !! Pity you guys don't work for the Government or something. I'm so impressed I already want to ask something else but I cannot figure what!

Thanks a lot!!!!

Charly

That reply was quite slow really at 24 minutes! The first question I ever asked was answered in 7 minutes (by Car Expert). So I claim the fastest response .... unless anyone else can beat it

Welcome to the forums anyway Charly - glad you've found it useful already and hope you enjoy it here

Perhaps we do ...

Two minutes? Here: http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=22050

Aha! The secret is out!!!

lol I tend to do the opposite where possible - double stop the divisi But then again, there are only two second violins at the most.

This reminds me of being one of two basses playing a Sibelius symphony (4 or 6, can't remember which) and coming across some four-part chords. Basses hardly ever double stop, because small intervals don't sound well on the lower strings and the normal hand can't manage the stretch that large intervals require; they occasionally play octaves with an open string at the bottom. However, in this part it turned out that most of them could be managed (or, more precisely, could have been played accurately by a better player than me), so we did our best and got a fair approximation. On another occasion, three of us played the four-part chord in Dvorak 9, with a genuine double stop in a fairly high position, where the stretch was manageable.

Us too - well I double stop if they're easy, and triple stops get split 2 and 2. I forget which piece it is but we've one where it's divisi and two different sets of double stopping. Looks very confusing on the page especially as it's alto clef - I ain't good at that bit!

And that's only one of the many faking strategies we have