Okuzeka
Music vocabulary · Instruments and Voice

Brass

Meaning in music, with examples

/bræs/nounCommon term

In music, brass means: The family of wind instruments, usually made of metal, in which the player makes the sound by buzzing the lips into a cup-shaped mouthpiece, such as the trumpet, trombone, horn and tuba.

In Turkish: bakır üflemeliler, bakır üflemeli çalgılar

How it is used

In orchestras, 'the brass' or 'the brass section' sits at the back. Bands may have a 'brass section' or 'horn section'; a 'brass band' is a whole group of brass players. Players talk about 'embouchure' (lip position) and 'mouthpieces'.

Example sentences

  1. The brass enters fortissimo in the last movement.

  2. We hired a three-piece brass section for the album launch show.

Common collocations

  • brass section
  • brass band
  • brass player
  • brass instrument
  • the brass
  • woodwindThe family of wind instruments that make sound by blowing across an edge or through a reed, such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and saxophone.
  • stringsThe section of instruments played with a bow, mainly violins, violas, cellos and double basses. It also means the actual strings on an instrument such as a guitar.
  • percussionInstruments played by hitting, shaking or scraping them, such as drums, cymbals, the xylophone, the tambourine and the darbuka.
  • orchestraA large group of musicians playing string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments together, usually led by a conductor.
  • transposeTo move a whole piece or passage up or down by the same interval into a different key, keeping all the notes in the same relationship.

More terms: Instruments and Voice

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