1.
Flute
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The flute is a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening, according to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a player, flautist, flutist or, less commonly. Flutes are the earliest extant musical instruments, as paleolithic instruments with hand-bored holes have been found, a number of flutes dating to about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago have been found in the Swabian Jura region of present-day Germany. These flutes demonstrate that a musical tradition existed from the earliest period of modern human presence in Europe. Flutes, including the famous Bansuri, have been a part of Indian classical music since 1500 BC. A major deity of Hinduism, Krishna, has been associated with the flute, the English verb flout has the same linguistic root, and the modern Dutch verb fluiten still shares the two meanings. Attempts to trace the word back to the Latin flare have been pronounced phonologically impossible or inadmissable, the first known use of the word flute was in the 14th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this was in Geoffrey Chaucers The Hous of Fame, today, a musician who plays any instrument in the flute family can be called a flutist, or flautist, or simply a flute player. Flutist dates back to at least 1603, the earliest quote cited by the Oxford English Dictionary, flautist was used in 1860 by Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Marble Faun, after being adopted during the 18th century from Italy, like many musical terms in England since the Italian Renaissance. Other English terms, now obsolete, are fluter and flutenist. The oldest flute ever discovered may be a fragment of the femur of a cave bear. In 2008 another flute dated back to at least 35,000 years ago was discovered in Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, the five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the officially published their findings in the journal Nature. The flute, one of several found, was found in the Hohle Fels cavern next to the Venus of Hohle Fels, on announcing the discovery, scientists suggested that the finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe. Scientists have also suggested that the discovery of the flute may help to explain the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between Neanderthals and early modern human. A three-holed flute,18.7 cm long, made from a mammoth tusk was discovered in 2004, the earliest extant Chinese transverse flute is a chi flute discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty and it is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and has five stops that are at the flutes side instead of the top
2.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
3.
Bullroarer
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The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over greatly extended distances. It dates to the Paleolithic period, being found in Ukraine dating from 17,000 BC, anthropologist Michael Boyd, a Bullroarer expert, documents a number found in Europe, Asia, the Indian sub-continent, Africa, the Americas, and Australia. In ancient Greece it was an instrument used in the Dionysian Mysteries and is still used in rituals worldwide. Along with the didgeridoo, it was a prominent musical technology among the Australian Aborigines, a bullroarer consists of a weighted airfoil attached to a long cord. The cord is given a slight initial twist, and the roarer is then swung in a circle in a horizontal plane. The aerodynamics of the roarer will keep it spinning about its axis even after the initial twist has unwound, the cord winds fully first in one direction and then the other, alternating. The low-frequency component of the sound travels extremely long distances, clearly audible over many miles on a quiet night, various cultures have used bullroarers as musical, ritual, and religious instruments and long-range communication devices for at least 19,000 years. For example, due to their sound, some people used bullroarers in the southern United States in the late 1800s. Because of its pitch modulation, the bullroarer has been used as an example of something exhibiting the Doppler effect. This explanation seems credible because the blade is moving so fast that it is difficult for a human observer to simultaneously track the blades location. However, the user will actually hear the same pitch modulation as an observer. The greatest pitch variation are not caused by the approach and recession of the blade at all. Rather, as the spins, it winds up or loosens the twisting of the cord that holds the blade. At that time, the blade will reverse its direction again. During the reversals the blades rotational speed about its long axis rises and this variation in its own rapid rate of spin is what produces the pitch variation. A bullroarer featured in the Kate Bush Before The Dawn concerts in London 2014, a bullroarer can be heard prominently in the song Bullroarer, featured on Midnight Oils 1987 album Diesel And Dust. Bullroarers have been used in ceremonies and in burials to ward off evil spirits, bad tidings. Bullroarers are considered secret mens business by some Aboriginal tribal groups, fison and Howitt documented this in Kamilaroi and Kurnai
4.
Harmonica
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There are many types of harmonica, including diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one or more holes along a mouthpiece, behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. A harmonica reed is a flat elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, when the free end is made to vibrate by the players air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are pre-tuned to individual pitches, tuning may involve changing a reeds length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds, an important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates and cover plates. The comb is the body of the instrument, which. The term comb may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb, Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood but now are also made from plastic or metal. Some modern and experimental designs are complex in the way that they direct the air. There is dispute among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica, among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute, however, that comb surface smoothness and air-tightness when mated with the reedplates can greatly affect tone, the main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability. In particular, a comb can absorb moisture from the players breath. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem. Much effort is devoted by serious players to restoring wood combs, some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, players still dip harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes. The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing, the reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the side of the reed plate respond to blowing
5.
Siren (alarm)
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A siren is a loud noise making device. Civil defense sirens are mounted in fixed locations and used to warn of natural disasters or attacks, sirens are used on emergency service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. There are two types, pneumatic and electronic. Many fire sirens serve double duty as tornado or civil defense sirens, most fire sirens are either mounted on the roof of a fire station, or on a pole next to the fire station. Most fire sirens are single tone and mechanically driven by electric motors with an attached to the shaft. Some newer sirens are electronically driven by speakers, though these are not as common, fire sirens are often called fire whistles, fire alarms, or fire horns. Although there is no standard signaling of fire sirens, some utilize codes to inform firefighters of the location of the fire, fire sirens are often blasted once a day at noon and are also called noon sirens or noon whistles. Some time before 1799, the first siren was invented by the Scottish natural philosopher John Robison, robisons sirens were used as musical instruments, specifically, they powered some of the pipes in an organ. Robisons siren consisted of a stopcock that opened and closed a pneumatic tube, the stopcock was apparently driven by the rotation of a wheel. In 1819 an improved siren was invented and named by Baron Charles Cagniard de la Tour, de la Tours siren consisted of two perforated disks that were mounted coaxially at the outlet of a pneumatic tube. One disk was stationary, while the disk rotated. The rotating disk periodically interrupted the flow of air through the fixed disk, de la Tours siren could produce sound under water, suggesting a link with the sirens of Greek mythology, hence the name of the instrument. Instead of disks, most modern sirens use two cylinders, which have slots parallel to their length. The inner cylinder rotates while the outer one remains stationary, as air under pressure flows out of the slots of the inner cylinder and then escapes through the slots of the outer cylinder, the flow is periodically interrupted, creating a tone. The earliest way of summoning volunteer firemen to a fire was by ringing of a bell, either mounted atop the fire station, as electricity became available, the first fire sirens were manufactured. In 1886 French electrical engineer Gustave Trouvé, developed a siren to announce the silent arrival of his electric boats, two early fire sirens were the Decot siren and Sterling Siren. Both started manufacturing fire sirens around 1900 to 1905, many communities have since deactivated their fire sirens as pagers became available for fire department use. During the Second World War the British civil defence used a network of sirens to alert the population to the immanence of an air raid
6.
Didgeridoo
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It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or drone pipe. Musicologists classify it as a brass aerophone, there are no reliable sources stating the didgeridoos exact age. A modern didgeridoo is usually cylindrical or conical, and can measure anywhere from 1 to 3 m long, most are around 1.2 m long. Generally, the longer the instrument, the lower its pitch or key, however, flared instruments play a higher pitch than unflared instruments of the same length. There are numerous names for the instrument among the Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia, many didgeridoo enthusiasts and some scholars advocate reserving local names for traditional instruments, and this practice has been endorsed by some Aboriginal community organisations. However, in conversation, bilingual Aboriginal people will often use the word didgeridoo interchangeably with the instruments name in their own language. Didgeridoo is considered to be a word of Western invention. A rival explanation, that didgeridoo is a corruption of the Irish language phrase dúdaire dubh or dúidire dúth, is controversial. Dúdaire/dúidire is a noun that may mean, depending on the context, trumpeter, hummer, crooner, long-necked person, puffer, eavesdropper, or chain smoker, while dubh means black and dúth means native. Yiḏaki is one of the most commonly used names, although – strictly speaking – it refers to a type of instrument made. There are numerous other, regional names for the didgeridoo, the following are some of the more common of these. Authentic Aboriginal didgeridoos are produced in traditionally oriented communities in Northern Australia or by makers who travel to Central and they are usually made from hardwoods, especially the various eucalyptus species that are endemic to the region. Generally the main trunk of the tree is harvested, though a branch may be used instead. Aboriginal didgeridoo craftsmen hunt for suitably hollow live trees in areas with obvious termite activity, termites attack these living eucalyptus trees, removing only the dead heartwood of the tree, as the living sapwood contains a chemical that repels the insects. Once a suitably hollow tree is found, it is cut down and cleaned out, the bark is taken off, the trimmed, and the exterior is shaped. This instrument may be painted or left undecorated, a rim of beeswax may be applied to the mouthpiece end. Traditional instruments made by Aboriginal craftsmen in Arnhem Land are sometimes fitted with a sugarbag mouthpiece and this black beeswax comes from wild bees and has a distinctive aroma. Non-traditional didgeridoos can also be made from PVC piping, non-native hard woods, glass, fiberglass, metal, agave, clay, hemp, and even carbon fibre
7.
Brass instrument
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A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the players lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning lip-vibrated instruments, there are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. The view of most scholars is that the brass instrument should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent, as valved instruments are predominant among the brasses today, a more thorough discussion of their workings can be found below. The valves are usually piston valves, but can be rotary valves, slide brass instruments use a slide to change the length of tubing. The main instruments in this category are the family, though valve trombones are occasionally used. The trombone familys ancestor, the sackbut, and the folk instrument bazooka are also in the slide family, there are two other families that have, in general, become functionally obsolete for practical purposes. Instruments of both types, however, are used for period-instrument performances of Baroque or Classical pieces. In more modern compositions, they are used for their intonation or tone color. Natural brass instruments only play notes in the harmonic series. These include the bugle and older variants of the trumpet and horn, the trumpet was a natural brass instrument prior to about 1795, and the horn before about 1820. In the 18th century, makers developed interchangeable crooks of different lengths, natural instruments are still played for period performances and some ceremonial functions, and are occasionally found in more modern scores, such as those by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Keyed or Fingered brass instruments used holes along the body of the instrument and these included the cornett, serpent, ophicleide, keyed bugle and keyed trumpet. They are more difficult to play than valved instruments, Brass instruments may also be characterised by two generalizations about geometry of the bore, that is, the tubing between the mouthpiece and the flaring of the tubing into the bell. Those two generalizations are with regard to the degree of taper or conicity of the bore and the diameter of the bore with respect to its length, cylindrical bore brass instruments are generally perceived as having a brighter, more penetrating tone quality compared to conical bore brass instruments. The trumpet, baritone horn and all trombones are cylindrical bore, in particular, the slide design of the trombone necessitates this. Conical bore brass instruments are those in which tubing of constantly increasing diameter predominates, conical bore instruments are generally perceived as having a more mellow tone quality than the cylindrical bore brass instruments. The British brass band group of instruments fall into this category and this includes the flugelhorn, cornet, tenor horn, horn, euphonium and tuba
8.
Trumpet
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A trumpet is a musical instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group contains the instruments with the highest register in the brass family, trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through almost-closed lips, producing a sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century they have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, there are many distinct types of trumpet, with the most common being pitched in B♭, having a tubing length of about 1.48 m. Early trumpets did not provide means to change the length of tubing, most trumpets have valves of the piston type, while some have the rotary type. The use of rotary-valved trumpets is more common in orchestral settings, each valve, when engaged, increases the length of tubing, lowering the pitch of the instrument. A musician who plays the trumpet is called a trumpet player or trumpeter, the earliest trumpets date back to 1500 BC and earlier. The bronze and silver trumpets from Tutankhamuns grave in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, trumpets from the Oxus civilization of Central Asia have decorated swellings in the middle, yet are made out of one sheet of metal, which is considered a technical wonder. The Shofar, made from a ram horn and the Hatzotzeroth and they were played in Solomons Temple around 3000 years ago. They were said to be used to blow down the walls of Jericho and they are still used on certain religious days. The Salpinx was a straight trumpet 62 inches long, made of bone or bronze, Salpinx contests were a part of the original Olympic Games. The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD300, the earliest trumpets were signaling instruments used for military or religious purposes, rather than music in the modern sense, and the modern bugle continues this signaling tradition. Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages, the natural trumpets of this era consisted of a single coiled tube without valves and therefore could only produce the notes of a single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument, the development of the upper, clarino register by specialist trumpeters—notably Cesare Bendinelli—would lend itself well to the Baroque era, also known as the Golden Age of the natural trumpet. During this period, a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters, the art was revived in the mid-20th century and natural trumpet playing is again a thriving art around the world. The melody-dominated homophony of the classical and romantic periods relegated the trumpet to a role by most major composers owing to the limitations of the natural trumpet. Berlioz wrote in 1844, Notwithstanding the real loftiness and distinguished nature of its quality of tone, there are few instruments that have been more degraded. The attempt to give the trumpet more chromatic freedom in its range saw the development of the keyed trumpet, the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and as late as Brahms, were still played on natural trumpets
9.
French horn
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The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras, a musician who plays any kind of horn is generally referred to as a horn player. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves, the backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound, in concert situations, in contrast to the more piercing quality of the trumpet. A horn without valves is known as a horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument. Pitch may also be controlled by the position of the hand in the bell, the pitch of any note can easily be raised or lowered by adjusting the hand position in the bell. Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, the more common double horn has a fourth valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B♭. Triple horns with five valves are made, tuned in F, B♭. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B♭ and alto F branches and this configuration provides a high-range horn while avoiding the additional complexity and weight of a triple. A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece, when playing higher notes, the majority of players exert a small degree of additional pressure on the lips using the mouthpiece. It is the goal of all serious brass musicians to develop their technique such that additional mouthpiece pressure is avoided altogether, or at the very least, the name French horn is found only in English, first coming into use in the late 17th century. At that time, French makers were preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns, as a result, these instruments were often called, even in English, by their French names, trompe de chasse or cor de chasse. The International Horn Society has recommended since 1971 that the instrument be simply called the horn, there is also a more specific use of French horn to describe a particular horn type, differentiated from the German horn and Vienna horn. In this sense, French horn refers to an instrument with three Périnet valves. It retains the narrow bell-throat and mouthpipe crooks of the orchestral hand horn of the late 18th century, and most often has an ascending third valve. This is a whole-tone valve arranged so that with the valve in the up position the valve loop is engaged, the horn is the third-highest-sounding instrument in the brass family, below the trumpet and the cornet. Horns are mostly tuned in B♭ or F, or a combination of both, in some traditions, novice players use a single horn in F, while others prefer the B♭ horn. The F horn is used more commonly than the B♭ horn, sound is produced by vibrating the players lips into the mouthpiece of the instrument. Different partials in the series can be played by adjusting the air pressure and lip tension
10.
Tuba
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The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced by moving air past the lips and it first appeared in the mid 19th-century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band. The tuba largely replaced the ophicleide, in America a person who plays the tuba is known as a tubaist or tubist. In the United Kingdom a person who plays the tuba in an orchestra is simply as a tuba player. Prussian Patent No.19 was granted to Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht, the original Wieprecht and Moritz instrument used five valves of the Berlinerpumpen type that were the forerunners of the modern piston valve. The first tenor tuba was invented in 1838 by Carl Wilhelm Moritz, the addition of valves made it possible to play low in the harmonic series of the instrument and still have a complete selection of notes. Prior to the invention of valves, brass instruments were limited to notes in the harmonic series, harmonics starting three octaves above the fundamental pitch are about a whole step apart, making a useful variety of notes possible. The ophicleide used a brass instrument mouthpiece but employed keys. Another forerunner to the tuba was the serpent, an instrument that was shaped in a wavy form to make the tone holes accessible to the player. Tone holes changed the pitch by providing an intentional leak in the bugle of the instrument, while this changed the pitch, it also had a pronounced effect on the timbre. By using valves to adjust the length of the bugle the tuba produced a tone that eventually led to its popularity. Adolphe Sax, like Wieprecht, was interested in marketing systems of instruments from soprano to bass, the instruments developed by Sax were generally pitched in E♭ and B♭, while the Wieprecht basstuba and the subsequent Cerveny contrabass tuba were pitched in F and C. Saxs instruments gained dominance in France, and later in Britain and America, as a result of the popularity and movements of instrument makers such as Gustave Auguste Besson and Henry Distin. Afterwards there have many other various types of the Tuba including some with different types of valves different numbers. An orchestra usually has a single tuba, though an additional tuba may be asked for and it serves as the bass of the orchestral brass section and it can reinforce the bass voices of the strings and woodwinds. It provides the bass of brass quintets and choirs and it is the principal bass instrument in concert bands, brass bands and military bands, and those ensembles generally have two to four tubas. It is also a solo instrument, tubas are used in marching bands, drum and bugle corps and in many jazz bands. In British style brass bands, two E♭ and two B♭ tubas are used and are referred to as basses, tubas are found in various pitches, most commonly in F, E♭, C, or B♭
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