Keyboard section

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Keyboard section" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The keyboard section of an orchestra or concert band includes keyboard instruments. Keyboard instruments are not usually a standard members 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 was 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).