How does a concert begin?
A musician’s preparation for a concert is not unlike an athlete’s preparation for a big game: musicians need to “warm up.” When you first take your seat, you’ll probably see members of the orchestra filing into their seats on stage and warming up by playing a few measures of music. After the orchestra is seated and ready, the lights dim, the audience quiets, and the concertmaster, the leader of the first violin section, enters from backstage. He takes a bow and the audience claps. The concertmaster turns to the orchestra and cues the principal oboist, who sits in the middle of the orchestra, to play a single note (an A) to which all musicians tune their instruments.
