Keyboard section

The keyboard section of an orchestra or concert band includes keyboard instruments. Keyboard instruments are not usually a standard member of a 2010-era orchestra or concert band, but they are included occasionally. In orchestras from the 1600s to the mid-1750s, a keyboard instrument such as the pipe organ or harpsichord normally played with an orchestra, with the performer improvising chords from a figured bass part. This practice, called basso continuo, was phased out after 1750 (although some Masses for choir and orchestra would occasionally still have a keyboard part in the late 1700s).

Members

Common members of this section are:

• Piano (in 20th- and 21st-century pieces that call for it, such as Copland's "Hoedown" and Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements)
• Pipe organ or harpsichord (in 17th- and early 18th-century works with basso continuo accompaniment; occasionally in later music, such as Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Mahler's Eighth Symphony)
• Celesta (from the late-19th century onward, in works like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite)
• Keyboard glockenspiel (from the early 18th century onward, first by Handel in 1739 in his oratoriao Saul)
• Synthesizer (called for in some 20th- and 21st-century works, like John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine)

Less common members

• Electronic organs, such as the Hammond and Lowrey organs
• Fender Rhodes (e.g., Bill Evans' "Symbiosis" for Fender Rhodes and orchestra (1974)
• Harmonium
• Regal

In some cases, one or more harps may be placed in the keyboard section.

See also

• String section
• Woodwind section
• Brass section
• Percussion section