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To the best of my knowledge, there is no difference between a symphonic orchestra and a philarmonic orchestra in terms of the number of musicians, instruments, musical arrangement, and quality of the musical performance, but there is a significant difference between the two terms as symphonic orchestra refers to a group of professional musicians who get paid for their musical performance, whereas the term philarmonic orchestra refers to a group of philantropic musicians who do not get paid, at least in theory, for their musical performance. The term philharmonic is rooted on philantropy or philantropic, and means, from its Greek root, philos (friend), and harmony ... namely, friends of harmony. I got this info a few years ago from a well known American musicologist. You may review the concept, and make a correction to your article if needed. (Comment by 206.181.220.6 on 22 October 2004)

"[T]he term philarmonic orchestra refers to a group of philantropic musicians who do not get paid, at least in theory, for their musical performance."

Ah. You mean like the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and Vienna Philharmonic? Emoll (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The term "philharmonic", though bearing the same root (philos) as "philanthropic", is not directly related to the term otherwise. Better translated, it better be read "pleasing/friendly sounds" than "friends of harmony." I don't believe there is any correlation between whether an ensemble calls itself a philharmonic orchestra and whether the members are paid for performances. 69.161.83.118 (talk) 16:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

what is the best method ? Prisms and rain (talk) 06:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

the beastie boys are a 4 part group, not 3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.61.17.152 (talk) 19:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Journey is definetely worthy to be on the list with alot of hit songs and a national anthem "Don't Stop Believin."

Megadeth should to with a bunch of good songs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.61.17.152 (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC) the examples are for clarification. this is a list of different types of musical ensembles, NOT a list of bands.Reply[reply]

E

I suggest that a rock band article is made. Rock bands cover enough grounds to have an individual page. Also, there is no introduction to rock bands. I came here to read about rock bands and could only find their classification by amount of members, which is not what i was looking for. This article does not explain what a rock band is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ARBoughton (talk • contribs) 23:46, 25 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think you are right. If one is interested in the line up of a particular band, they should search the bands page. I would suggest someone deletes all the bands, explains few exsamples of typical line ups instead of trying to cover every possible line up. The german version of this page is much more informative by the way. Die bibi (talk) 19:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree, that would be nice (but not easy). One thing such an article might talk about is how rock band names have evolved over the years. For ideas about that, there is some discussion here. Open4D (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wow - this article is all over the place. It seems like we'd be better served with a much shorter but much broader entry with brief summaries of all of the different kids of bands along with links to new entries that get into the detail that is awkwardly/unevenly distributed here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.30.180.96 (talk) 17:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Just make a section for them and enter the groups in, like N.W.A, The Black Eyed Peas, the Backstreet Boys, etc.

I just wanted to say that I think there are way too many line up examples. I would like to see the number of them reduced and/or made into a table or chart or something. Thanks. 98.127.72.61 (talk) 04:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have removed this content, as it violates the spirit of WP:IINFO, since there is theoretically an infinite number of lineups. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 06:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Everly Brothers, here, cutting them out of the "Two person" (or something) section because they rarely recorded or performed as a two piece. Rather they were surrounded by amazing session musicians all the time. But I think that I mostly will NOT get involved with this article. It reeks of "vested interests" and "entrenched positions" and other stuff that I mostly avoid Carptrash (talk) 00:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've just removed all the unlinked and red-linked bands listed in the article. I actually think that each paragraph should mention no more than two or three bands - if you want lists, use categories, or create list articles - but I don't feel confident in pruning them. But it's a no-brainer to remove any that haven't even got a WP article. --ColinFine (talk) 09:12, 19 May 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Is there a good reason for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CCMDonation29.JPG to be in this article? It doesn't seem to depict any particular ensemble or any thing mentioned in the article. Willondon (talk) 14:38, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's a little creepy, I think. 24.99.49.178 (talk) 23:33, 27 March 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I just searched the word "Combo" (ie Jazz combo) with no results to show for it. Should there not be some mention of Combos?

Wouldn't music band be a more popular name? Google books suggests it beats music ensemble (which, incidentally, is about twice as popular as the current musical ensemble) by 6:5. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC) We're going for correct and succinct here, not popular. A group of people who play music together is a Musical Ensemble, not a Music Ensemble (because the suffix -al is added to "music" to make its adjective form "musical", which modifies "ensemble.") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.169.242 (talk) 01:44, 17 November 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Right now, Horn (instrument) redirects to French horn. A campaign of recent edits has replaced the redirected links with direct links to French horn. That doesn't seem appropriate for this article, and I suspect it's not appropriate for at least some of the articles caught up in the mass editing net. Willondon (talk) 04:22, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for starting this discussion, Willondon! Because a discussion back in December and January established that "Horn (instrument)" applies to several articles on Wikipedia, it would seem consistent to redirect that title to the Horn disambiguation page, and possibly the Musical instruments section specifically. Before that happens, the incoming links should really be switched over so we don't have a huge number of articles suddenly linking to the disambiguation page. Considering that the links had always been to the article now located at the title French horn, I have generally been assuming that article to be the intended target except in cases where such is clearly not the case. Please feel free to choose a different target for any of the links you feel do not intend the French horn. Unfortunately, I am just about to go on vacation and I don't expect to have access to the internet for just over a week, but I would be glad to discuss this subject further with you when I return. Neelix (talk) 11:54, 30 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The article, as written, is a random collection of assertions about a non-topic. "Musical ensemble" is no more a topic for an encyclopedia article than is Sports team or University classroom. Having no real focus or unifying theme, it has become a dumping ground for fans of different rock groups to make sure their favorite bands are mentioned in the article. The section on "The Role of Women" is a complete nonsequitur, if something could possibly be irrelevant to an article which has no relevance to begin with. How is the role of women in ensemble music different from the role of women in solo performance?

And, while it includes a list of musical ensembles in western musical cultures, it completely ignores ensembles in other cultures. What about gamelan orchestras? Ubangi tribal chants? Mongolian overtone singers? The overwhelming problem of the topic is that it has no boundaries. The definition of a musical ensemble is essentially "all music making in the world, where the music maker is not doing it alone."

In fact, there is much to be said about music-making as a social activity. There is the work of ethnomusicologists like John Blacking and Sophie Drinker. There are music theory books and books on technique which discuss the special musical skills required for collaborative music making. But these topics would not be discussed in an article titled "Musical ensemble".

If someone were to nominate this article for deletion, I would enthusiastically support it. But, of course, deleting an article like this is impossible here, because deletion requires consensus, and there are those partisans who like it because it mentions their favorite rock group. So the article will remain forever, another blotch on Wikipedia's escutcheon. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]