Why does an orchestra have many people playing the same instruments? How does it add to the overall performance?
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The biggest reason is balance. You could have 100 violins going ham on stage but if one trumpet decides she’d like to be heard, she could play over all of them without a huge amount of effort.
Theres a (weak and rarely followed these days, but very prevalent before the 20th century) rule of thumb in orchestral composing that the strings are going to be playing 90+% of the time, the woodwinds about 30-40%, and the brass and percussion no more than about 10-20%. Thats because the way orchestras were built then, if that wasn’t the instrumentation balance, it would just be the Trumpet and Horn show with violin accompaniment. This is even more pronounced the further back you go, largely because orchestras were much smaller then (25-40 people vs today’s 60-80). In a baroque orchestral piece from the early 18th century, the trumpet might have 3 or 4 minutes of silence, then a couple bars of playing something to accentuate how big and exciting the violins sound, followed by another 3 or 4 minutes of silence.
The other reason is color and acoustics, especially for strings. Instruments in the violin family have an incredibly complex sonic profile, also known as the timbre or color. Basically, timbre is what makes a violin sound like a violin. (Fun fact: a flute in the upper register has a timbre very very close to a pure sine wave, which is the simplest form of oscillation). When you have multiple string instruments playing the same thing*, each of those complex sound profiles combine to create a rich, lush bed of sound. None of them are matching the others timbre or pitch *perfectly exactly*, so you get this great chorus effect of a bunch of sound all hovering and kinda shimmering in the same place. If you’ve ever watched an orchestra play, you’ll notice that the string players are all wiggling their hands back and forth — thats called vibrato. The more they do it, the more the sound wobbles back and forth, and the more rich the sound the entire string section will produce. Pay attention the next time you’re watching an orchestra: the more intense and emotional a section is (not necessarily loud!), the more vibrato the strings will use, and vice versa. There’s nothing quite as dead-sounding as a string orchestra playing without any vibrato at all.
Thats part of why composers have them playing all the time — its like a pad synth in EDM; you probably don’t notice that its there, but you’ll definitely notice when its not because it’ll feel empty, hollow, weak, or unstable. Strings are great to put in the lead because they are so rich and versatile, but also great to have as support because they provide sonic presence without dominating the actual lead. Trumpets and any other (cylindrical**) brass just can’t do that; they’re too bright and too piercing, no matter how hard they try to mellow out and play quiet.
* Side note: if you’re ever writing for strings, never ever have two of them play in unison. One is fine; they make for great solos. Three or more is fine because they start to have that nice chorus effect I described above. But with two playing in unison, they will never be able to match the other’s pitch, and even the wobbliest vibrato in the world won’t save them.
** There are two types of brass instruments: cylindrical and conical. All brass instruments have a conical bell (the end) in order to project the sound, like a megaphone, but the shape it takes from the mouthpiece to the bell can either be cylindrical aka the same diameter or conical aka gradually getting wider. Cylindical brass have a much brighter, more piercing sound, while conical brass tend to be mellower and full in tone. Both can play very loud though, so don’t mistake mellow for quiet. Examples of cylindrical brass: trumpet, trombone. Examples of conical brass: French horn, euphonium, tuba.
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