1.
Dulcimer (disambiguation)
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A dulcimer is a type of musical string instrument. It is a species of zither, among its forms are, Hammered dulcimer, free-standing, most frequently but not always trapezoidal in shape, with many strings struck by handheld hammers. This type of instrument is found in cultures, especially in England, in the British Isles. Most countries have their own name for the instrument, for instance in Thailand it is called a khim, being a struck string instrument, it is considered to be among the ancestors of the piano. Fretted, three or four strings, generally played on the lap by strumming, including Appalachian dulcimer, a folk instrument used in the Appalachian region of U. S. A
2.
Musical instrument classification
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Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, the oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and dates from the 3rd millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. However, the Chou-Li, an anonymous treatise compiled from sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order, metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan, attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, more usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced. The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion, the scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division, but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips, many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, however, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves. Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme, for example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa also recognized the three classes in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun, a treatise on the origin. The division pervades Tboli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. This scheme was taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Electrophones, such as the guitar or electric bass, which produce sound through electricity and is required to be plugged in to an amplifier. Later Sachs added a category, electrophones, such as theremins. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category, within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, in 1932, comparative musicologist André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments. The Kpelle of West Africa also use this system and they distinguish the struck, including both beaten and plucked, and the blown
3.
Plucked string instrument
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Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate, plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the family, which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck. The zither family does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard, in the harp family, the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The harpsichord does not fit any of these categories but is also a string instrument. Bowed string instruments, such as the violin, can also be plucked in the known as pizzicato, however, as they are usually played with a bow. Struck string instruments can be plucked as an extended technique. Plucked string instruments are not a category in the Sachs-Hornbostel classification, as some of them are simple chordophones and others are composite
4.
Fret
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A fret is a raised element on the neck of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the width of the neck. On most modern western fretted instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard, on some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework, on instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. Fret is often used as a verb, meaning simply to press down the string behind a fret, fretting often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Pressing the string against the fret reduces the length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the fingertip on a fretless fingerboard. Frets make it easier for a player to achieve an acceptable standard of intonation. Furthermore, a fretted fingerboard makes it easier to play chords accurately, a disadvantage of frets is that they restrict pitches to the temperament defined by the fret positions. A player may still influence intonation, however, by pulling the string to the side to increase string tension and this technique is often used by electric guitarists of all genres, and is an important part of sitar playing. On instruments with frets that are thicker off the fingerboard, string tension, sometimes a player can pull the string toward the bridge or nut, thus lowering or raising the string tension and pitch. However, except for instruments that accommodate extensive string pulling, like the sitar, since the intonation of most modern western fretted instruments is equal tempered, the ratio of the distances of two consecutive frets to the bridge is 212, or approximately 1.059463. Theoretically, the twelfth fret should divide the string in two exact halves, to compensate for the increase in string tension when the string is pressed against the frets, the bridge position is adjusted slightly so the 12th fret plays exactly in tune. Fan frets (also fanned frets, slanted frets, or multi-scale, Frets are generally perpendicular to the instruments neck centerline, on a fanned fretboard, the frets are angled with only one center fret perpendicular to the neck’s centerline. This gives the strings more length and the higher strings shorter length. The idea is to more accurate tuning and deeper bass. Some think that fanned frets might be more ergonomic, fanned frets first appeared on the 16th century Orpharion, a variant of the cittern, tuned like a lute. John Starrett revived the idea in the seventies on his innovative instrument
5.
Zither
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Zither is a class of stringed instruments. The word zither is a German rendering of the Latin word cithara, historically, it has been applied to any instrument of the cittern family, or an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body – similar to a psaltery. This article describes the second variety, like a guitar or lute, a zithers body serves as a resonating chamber, but, unlike guitars and lutes, a zither lacks a distinctly separate neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty, in modern common usage the term zither refers to three specific instruments, the concert zither, its variant the Alpine zither, and the chord zither. Concert and Alpine zithers are found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, France, north-western Croatia. Emigration from these areas during the 19th century introduced the concert, chord zithers similar to the instrument in the photograph also became popular in North America during the late 19th and early 20th century. These variants all use metal strings, similar to the cittern and it is not fully understood how zitter or zither came to be applied to the instruments in this article as well as German varieties of the cittern. The Hornbostel-Sachs system, an academic instrument classification method, also uses the term zither, pedal steel guitars, lap guitars, and keyboard instruments like the clavichord, harpsichord and piano also fall within this broad categorical use. The word has also used in conjunction with brand varieties of other string instruments. The earliest known surviving instrument of the family is a Chinese guqin. Increasing interest in music has brought wider recognition to these other zither family members. Many of these instruments have been sampled electronically, and are available in instrument banks for music synthesizers, some of these employed movable bridges similar to the Japanese koto, used for retuning the drone strings. The Alpine Scheitholt furnishes an example of this type of European zither. By the late 18th century, two varieties of European concert zither had developed, known as the Salzburg zither. Both styles are found in concert zithers today, although the Salzburg style has become by far the most common. The zither became a folk music instrument in Bavaria and Austria and. Viennese zitherist Johann Petzmayer became one of the outstanding virtuosi on these early instruments and his ideas were not, however, widely accepted until 1862, when luthier Max Amberger of Munich fabricated a new zither based on Weigels design. At this point the zither had reached something very close to its modern concert form, within a relatively short time the new design had largely replaced the old Volkszither throughout central Europe, particularly in the Alpine countries
6.
Range (music)
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In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range, the range of a musical part is the distance between its lowest and highest note. The terms sounding range, written range, designated range, duration range, a piccolo, for example, typically has a sounding range one octave higher than its written range. The designated range is the set of notes the player should or can achieve while playing, all instruments have a designated range, and all pitched instruments have a playing range. Timbre, dynamics, and duration ranges are interrelated and one may achieve registral range at the expense of timbre, the designated range is thus the range in which a player is expected to have comfortable control of all aspects. The duration range is the difference between the shortest and longest rhythm used, dynamic range is the difference between the quietest and loudest volume of an instrument, part or piece of music. Although woodwind instruments and string instruments have no upper limit to their range. Brass instruments, on the hand, can play beyond their designated ranges. Notes lower than the brass instruments designated range are called pedal tones, the playing range of a brass instrument depends on both the technical limitations of the instrument and the skill of the player. Classical arrangements seldom make woodwind or brass instruments play beyond their designed range, string musicians play the bottom of their ranges very frequently, but the top of a string instruments range is rather fuzzy, and it is unusual for a string player to exceed the designated range. It is quite rare for wind musicians to play the extremes of their instruments, the most common exception is that in many 20th century works, pedal tones are called for in bass trombones. This chart uses standard numberings for octaves where middle C corresponds to C4, in the MIDI language middle C is referred to as MIDI note number 60. The lowest note that an organ can sound is C−1. However, if acoustic combination counts, the lowest note is C−2, *This chart only displays down to C0, though some pipe organs, such as the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, extend down to C−1. Also, the frequency of the subcontrabass tuba is B♭−1
7.
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
8.
Epinette des Vosges
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The épinette has been attested as early as the 18th century in the Val-dAjol and Plombières-les-Bains regions of southern Vosges, whence comes its name. The earlier origins of the épinette des Vosges remain unknown, though some believe the instrument was introduced by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War and it is, however, also possible that it is descended from the medieval psaltery. Instruments of this family, formerly widespread throughout Europe, are now found in Norway, Iceland, Flanders, Hungary. A parallel instrument, the Appalachian dulcimer is found in mountain areas of the Eastern United States. This instrument is first attested in accounts dated 1730, the primitive version with four strings evolved into a five-string model. The Val-dAjol épinette is of size, between 50 and 60 cm, in the form of a parallelogram with a wide base. The frets, originally numbering fourteen, increased to seventeen in the 19th century, the fretting is diatonic, tuned to open C major. It is fretted with the fingers of the hand, or alternately with a small piece of smooth wood. The right hand strums with the thumb, a goose quill, the most prolific épinette luthier was Amé Lambert, who manufactured up to 500 épinettes per year. This instrument was first attested in 1723 and it is a simple instrument built by luthiers, or by the musicians themselves. The instrument fell out of vogue, and little is known about it until it was revived after 1945, the épinettes of Upper Vosges are large, approximately 80 cm. The number of strings varies from three to eight, with diatonic fretting, the épinette is diatonic, producing a heptatonic major scale. The number of frets increased from fourteen to seventeen during the 19th century, right-hand techniques, Strumming back and forth across all the strings or just the doubled melody strings with the pick, goose feather, or thumb. Fingerpicking, as with a guitar, using all but the right finger to pluck the strings. Striking the strings with a small stick Using a violin or bowed psaltery bow, left-hand techniques, Fretting the strings with a smooth stick or reed, called a noteur. This gives the music a sliding metallic sound with pronounced glissando, Fretting the strings with the first three fingers, or all five for more complex pieces or on chromatic instruments. This technique is less traditional but well-suited to playing more complex melodies, an épinette player usually plays sitting down. The épinette is placed on a table, or on the lap angling away from the player, unlike other forms of dulcimer, the épinette gives some separation between the melody strings and the drones
9.
Hummel (instrument)
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The hummel is an old Swedish stringed instrument similar to an older type of zither and is related to the Norwegian langeleik. The name is thought to come from the German word hummel, meaning bumblebee, the hummel is probably from the Middle Ages, when it was found all over Europe in slightly differing variants. The instrument was common in the Netherlands, Flanders, Northern Germany, the earliest evidence of the instrument in Swedish folk culture is from the 17th century, and it seems to have been most common in the southern parts of the country. During the 19th century, the hummel was considered to be a primitive peasant instrument, in Flanders, these instruments were popular with soldiers in the trenches during World War I, but by the 1930s they returned to obscurity. Some enthusiasts have taken up playing it again since the revival of the 1970s. The hummel is an instrument that exists in forms, with regards to appearance. Common to all varieties is a top and bottom. There are variations in the used, but it is always thin. On the top are one or more soundholes which can come in many forms, the strings vary in number but often include a smaller number of melody strings and a greater number of accompanying strings. It is not uncommon to have three strings, two tuned identically, and the third tuned one octave below the others. Under the melody strings, either directly on the body or attached to a fretboard, are about 17 frets, the body comes in two main forms, either a pear-shaped form with the strings in the middle, or a half-pear with the strings near the edge. The hummel is placed on a table like a zither, to amplify the sound, the melody strings are sounded by being plucked downwards, either with fingers or a plectrum. The identically tuned strings are often fretted in unison or so to create a major third. It is even possible to play a sixth interval, through using the octave string, the strings are played with a plectrum and are often all played at once. This is common because the accompaniment strings are tuned to a chord that is relatively open. The hummel is perfectly suited for accompanying tunes, thanks to the accompaniment strings. However, because of the limited range of the instrument for playing more intricate melodies and keys. The most famous player is probably Otto Malmborg or Ottar Hyll as his artist name was
10.
Langeleik
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The langeleik, also called langleik, is a Norwegian stringed folklore musical instrument, a droned zither. The langeleik has only one string and up to 8 drone strings. Under the melody string there are seven frets per octave, forming a major scale. The drone strings are tuned to a triad, the langeleik is tuned to about an A, though on score the C major key is used, as if the instrument were tuned in C. This is for simplification of both writing and reading, by circumventing the use of accidentals, since the instrument cannot play a chromatic scale nor be easily tuned to other pitches, it is very limited in its ability to play along with other instruments and/or more harmonically complex music. The combination of the melody string and the multiple drone strings gives the langeleik a distinctively rich sound. There exists a variety of box zithers in Europe, the German scheitholt and the Swedish Hummel have been suggested as the predecessor of the langeleik. However, in 1980 a langeleik dated as early as 1524 was uncovered on a farm in Vibergsroa, Gjøvik and this instrument predates any documented occurrences of the scheitholt, the hummel or any other similar instrument. The older Langeleik types were tuned after Pythagorean fashion, based on pure fifths and octaves, thus, the pitches could easily be moved between more sombre low intervals and the more bright major ones. The fixed Langeleik with a major scale is dated to after 1850. After this change in tonation, many players had to change their melodies, or find new ones, early langeleiks are basically rectangular in shape, and often have an open bottom. They usually have five or six strings and they often had unique traditional scales other than the modern major scale. Especially the third and seventh tend to be different, the third is often neutral, modern langeleiks are somewhat curved, being wider at the middle, as it is the experience of modern instrument makers that this makes the instrument sound louder. They are all tuned to a major scale, the right hand holds a long plectrum, and with this plectrum it strikes the beat, the basic rhythm. The left hand utilizes only its index, middle and ring finger, when a desired melody note is to be executed on the basic beat, the left hand only need to hold down the melody string, and the right hand will strike it with the plectrum. When a note is wanted in between the rhythm, the index or middle finger needs to hammer-on or pull-off the melody string. Norway has several areas of culture, amplified due to its mountains, valleys and fjords. Valdres and Vardal are the areas where the langeleik has a living tradition, with more melodies available, especially of the more recent, more complex kind
11.
Monochord
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A monochord, also known as sonometer, is an ancient musical and scientific laboratory instrument, involving one string. The term monochord is sometimes used as the class-name for any musical stringed instrument having only one string, according to the Hornbostel–Sachs system, string bows are bar zithers while monochords are traditionally board zithers. A string is fixed at both ends and stretched over a sound box, one or more movable bridges are then manipulated to demonstrate mathematical relationships among the frequencies produced. With its single string, movable bridge and graduated rule, the monochord straddled the gap between notes and numbers, intervals and ratios, sense-perception and mathematical reason, however, music, mathematics, and astronomy were inexorably linked in the monochord. For example, when a string is open it vibrates at a particular frequency. When the length of the string is halved, and plucked, it produces a pitch an octave higher, half of this length will produce a pitch two octaves higher than the original—four times the initial frequency —and so on. Standard diatonic Pythagorean tuning is easily derived starting from superparticular ratios, /n, constructed from the first four counting numbers, the mathematics involved include the multiplication table, least common multiples, and prime and composite numbers. A bichord instrument is one, having two strings in unison for each note, such as the mandolin, with two strings one can easily demonstrate how various musical intervals sound. Parts of a monochord include a tuning peg, nut, string, moveable bridge, fixed bridge, calibration marks, belly or resonating box, instruments derived from the monochord include the guqin, dan bau, koto, vina, hurdy-gurdy, and clavichord. A monopipe is the wind instrument version of a monochord, an open pipe which can produce variable pitches. End correction must be used with this method, to achieve accuracy, the monochord is mentioned in Sumerian writings, while some attribute its invention to Pythagorus. Dolge attributes the invention of the bridge to Guido of Arezzo around 1000 CE. In 1618, Robert Fludd devised a mundane monochord that linked the Ptolemaic universe to musical intervals, was it physical intuition or a Pythagorean confidence in the importance of small whole numbers. 1,5 &10, which is music that uses pitch ratios extended to higher partials beyond the standard Pythagorean tuning system. A modern playing technique used in rock as well as contemporary classical music is 3rd bridge. This technique shares the same mechanism as used on the monochord, a sonometer is a diagnostic instrument used to measure the tension, frequency or density of vibrations. They are used in medical settings to test both hearing and bone density, a sonometer, or audiometer, is used to determine hearing sensitivity, while a clinical bone sonometer measures bone density to help determine such conditions as the risk of osteoporosis. In audiology, the device is used to test for hearing loss, the audiometer measures the ability to hear sounds at frequencies normally detectable by the human ear
12.
Scheitholt
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The scheitholt or scheitholz is a traditional German stringed instrument and an ancestor of the modern zither. It falls into the category of drone zithers, the scheitholt may have derived from an ancient Greek instrument for theoretical education in music and physics, the so-called monochord. Scheitholt originally referred to firewood cut into logs, since the 16th century, the instrument was called by that name, presumably because it had a similar shape or size. The best known description of this instrument is by Michael Praetorius in 1619, a number of regional names for the instrument exist. In northern Germany the instrument is often called hummel, meaning bumble bee, other names include the Dutch noordse balk, French bûche or bûche de Meuse, Flemish vlier and Swiss German Hexenscheit. In the Bavarian/Austrian region, the scheitholt can be traced back to the 14th century, the Appalachian dulcimer, is a scheitholt fingerboard mounted on a larger sound box. The original scheitholt usually consisted of a wooden soundbox about 50 cm long and 5 cm wide, with a simple headstock, besides brass, these strings were often also made of simple materials such as animal hairs, gut or waxed linen. There is no fingerboard but there are wires which are set in the wood under the strings as frets, beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, the scheitholte had three to four strings. In the further development the size of the soundbox was increased, from the scheitholt with a change of form the kratzzither or scherrzither developed around the mid-18th century. The Scheitholt was played similarly to the modern zither, the scheitholt and/or hummel was played throughout the 19th century in the alpine regions in south Germany. Northern Germany, in the Erz Mountains of Saxony and in the Oberlausitz, hearts of the Dulcimer-Podcast - Episode 003, Scheitholt Part 2
13.
String instrument
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String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or piano, with bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a wheel that rubs the strings. Bowed instruments include the string instruments of the Classical music orchestra. All of the string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp, in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, in most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it, the vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, the development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country, Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four stringed precursor to the guitar and these instruments typically used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history, violins and guitars became more consistent in design, and were roughly similar to what we use in the 2000s. At the same time, the 19th century guitar became more associated with six string models. In big bands of the 1920s, the guitar played backing chords. The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier, the development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups, volume control knobs and an output jack, in the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called stacks
14.
Appalachia
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Appalachia is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people, sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes. While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long struggled, by 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream, but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators. Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been disagreement over what exactly the region encompasses. The most commonly used definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965. When the Commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, in 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland in which he modified Frosts map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of the region in the decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARCs definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey. The name was altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U. S. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutiérrez map of 1562, le Moyne was also the first European to apply Apalachen specifically to a mountain range as opposed to a village, native tribe, or a southeastern region of North America. The name was not commonly used for the mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In northern U. S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/, the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /æpəˈleɪʃə/, also /æpəˈleɪtʃə/, all with a third syllable like lay. In southern U. S. dialects, the mountains are called the /æpəˈlætʃənz/, and this pronunciation is favored in the core region in central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. The occasional use of the sh sound for the ch in the last syllable in northern dialects was popularized by Appalachian Trail organizations in New England in the early 20th century, Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, several other Archaic period archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee
15.
Diatonic and chromatic
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They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900. These terms may mean different things in different contexts, very often, diatonic refers to musical elements derived from the modes and transpositions of the white note scale C–D–E–F–G–A–B. In some usages it includes all forms of scale that are in common use in Western music. Chromatic most often refers to structures derived from the chromatic scale, in ancient Greece there were three standard tunings of a lyre. These three tunings were called diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic, and the sequences of four notes that they produced were called tetrachords, a diatonic tetrachord comprised, in descending order, two whole tones and a semitone, such as A G F E. In the chromatic tetrachord the second string of the lyre was lowered from G to G♭, in the enharmonic tetrachord the tuning had two quarter tone intervals at the bottom, A G F E. For all three tetrachords, only the two strings varied in their pitch. The term cromatico was occasionally used in the Medieval and Renaissance periods to refer to the coloration of certain notes, in works of the Ars Nova from the 14th century, this was used to indicate a temporary change in metre from triple to duple, or vice versa. This usage became common in the 15th century as open white noteheads became the standard notational form for minims. These uses for the word have no relationship to the meaning of chromatic. The term chromatic began to approach its modern usage in the 16th century, Medieval theorists defined scales in terms of the Greek tetrachords. The gamut was the series of pitches from which all the Medieval scales notionally derive, the origin of the word gamut is explained at the article Hexachord, here the word is used in one of the available senses, the all-encompassing gamut as described by Guido dArezzo. The intervals from one note to the next in this Medieval gamut are all tones or semitones, recurring in a pattern with five tones. The semitones are separated as much as they can be, between alternating groups of three tones and two tones, here are the intervals for a string of ascending notes from the gamut. This would include the major scale, and the minor scale. There are specific applications in the music of the Common Practice Period, most, but not all writers, accept the natural minor as diatonic. Among such theorists there is no agreed general term that encompasses the major, inclusive usage Some writers consistently include the melodic and harmonic minor scales as diatonic also. For this group, every scale standardly used in common practice music, mixed usage Still other writers mix these two meanings of diatonic, and this can lead to confusions and misconceptions
16.
Hammered dulcimer
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The hammered dulcimer is a percussion instrument and stringed instrument with the strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who may sit cross legged on the floor or on a stool at a stand on legs. The player holds a small spoon shaped mallet hammer in hand to strike the strings. The Graeco-Roman dulcimer derives from the Latin dulcis and the Greek melos, the dulcimer, in which the strings are beaten with small hammers, originated from the psaltery, in which the strings are plucked. Various types of hammered dulcimers are traditionally played in Iraq, India, Iran, Southwest Asia, China, and parts of Southeast Asia, Central Europe, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The instrument is played in the United Kingdom and the U. S. where its traditional use in folk music saw a notable revival in the late 20th century. A dulcimer usually has two bridges, a bridge near the right and a treble bridge on the left side. The bass bridge holds up bass strings, which are played to the left of the bridge, the treble strings can be played on either side of the treble bridge. In the usual construction, playing them on the side gives a note a fifth higher than playing them on the right of the bridge. The dulcimer comes in sizes, identified by the number of strings that cross each of the bridges. A 15/14, for example, has 15 strings crossing the bridge and 14 crossing the bass bridge. The strings of a hammered dulcimer are usually found in pairs, each set of strings is tuned in unison and is called a course. A hammered dulcimer, like an autoharp, harp, or piano, requires a tuning wrench for tuning, the strings of the hammered dulcimer are often tuned according to a circle of fifths pattern. Typically, the lowest note is struck at the lower right-hand of the instrument, as a player strikes the courses above in sequence, they ascend following a repeating sequence of two whole steps and a half step. With this tuning, a scale is broken into two tetrachords, or groups of four notes. For example, on an instrument with D as the lowest note and this is the lower tetrachord of the D major scale. At this point the player returns to the bottom of the instrument and shifts to the strings to the right of the treble bridge to play the higher tetrachord. See the drawing on the left above, in which DO would correspond to D, the shift from the bass bridge to the treble bridge is required because the bass bridges fourth string G is the start of the lower tetrachord of the G scale
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Scotch-Irish Americans
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While an estimated 36 million Americans reported Irish ancestry in 2006, and 6 million reported Scottish ancestry, an additional 5.4 million identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry. The term Scotch-Irish is used primarily in the United States, with people in Great Britain or Ireland who are of a similar ancestry identifying as Ulster Scots people and these included 200,000 Scottish Presbyterians who settled in Ireland between 1608-1697. Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians, although the denomination is today most strongly identified with Scotland, when King Charles I attempted to force these Presbyterians into the Church of England in the 1630s, many chose to re-emigrate to North America where religious liberty was greater. Later attempts to force the Church of Englands control over dissident Protestants in Ireland were to lead to further waves of emigration to the trans-Atlantic colonies, the term Scotch-Irish is first known to have been used to refer to a people living in Northeastern Ireland. In a letter of April 14,1573, in reference to Ulster, Elizabeth I of England wrote, We are given to understand that a nobleman named Sorley Boy and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race. This term continued in usage for over a century before the earliest known American reference appeared in a Maryland affidavit in 1689/90, today, Scotch-Irish is an Americanism, rarely used in England, Ireland or Scotland. Smaller numbers of migrants came from Wales and the southeast of England, and others were Protestant religious refugees from Flanders, the German Palatinate. What united these different national groups was a base of Calvinist religious beliefs and that said, the large ethnic Scottish element in the Plantation of Ulster gave the settlements a Scottish character. Upon arrival in North America, these migrants at first usually identified simply as Irish, at first, the two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scots-Irish had become settled decades earlier, primarily in the backcountry of the Appalachian region. Many of the new Irish migrants also went to the interior in the 19th century, attracted to jobs on large-scale infrastructure projects such as canals, the usage Scots-Irish developed in the late 19th century as a relatively recent version of the term. The word Scotch was the favored adjective for things of Scotland, including people, until the early 19th century and it was never properly used as a noun. People in Scotland refer to themselves as Scots, as a noun, although referenced by Merriam-Webster dictionaries as having first appeared in 1744, the American term Scotch-Irish is undoubtedly older. An affidavit of William Patent, dated March 15,1689, in a case against a Mr. Matthew Scarbrough in Somerset County, Maryland and it was no more sin to kill me then to kill a dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg. Leyburn cites the following as early American uses of the term before 1744, another Church of England clergyman from Lewes, Delaware, commented in 1723 that great numbers of Irish have transplanted themselves and their families from the north of Ireland. The Oxford English Dictionary says the first use of the term Scotch-Irish came in Pennsylvania in 1744,1744 W. MARSHE Jrnl,21 June in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 177, The inhabitants are chiefly High-Dutch, Scotch-Irish, some few English families and its citations include examples after that into the late 19th century. In Albions Seed, Four British Folkways in America, historian David Hackett Fischer asserts and it is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster. Part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, Many scholars call these people Scotch-Irish
18.
Vogue (magazine)
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Vogue is an American fashion and lifestyle magazine made up of many components including fashion, beauty, culture, living, and runway. Vogue began as a newspaper in 1892 in the United States. The British Vogue was the first international edition launched in 1916, Turnures intention was to create a publication that celebrated the ceremonial side of life, one that attracts the sage as well as debutante, men of affairs as well as the belle. From its inception, the magazine targeted the new New York upper class, the magazine at this time was primarily concerned with fashion, with coverage of sports and social affairs included for its male readership. Despite the magazines content, it very slowly during this period. Condé Montrose Nast purchased Vogue in 1905 one year before Turnures death and he changed it to a bi-weekly magazine and started Vogue overseas in the 1910s. Under Nast, the magazine shifted its focus to women. The magazines number of publications and profit increased dramatically under Nasts management, by 1911, the Vogue brand had garnered a reputation that it continues to maintain, targeting an elite audience and expanding into the coverage of weddings. According to Condé Naste Russia, after the First World War made deliveries in the Old World impossible, the decision to print in England proved to be successful causing Nast to release the first issue of French Vogue in 1920. The magazines number of subscriptions surged during the Great Depression, during this time, noted critic and former Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield served as its editor, having been moved over from Vanity Fair by publisher Condé Nast. In July of 1932, American Vogue placed its first color photograph on the cover of the magazine, the photograph was taken by photographer Edward Steichen and portrays a woman swimmer holding a beach ball in the air. Nast was responsible for introducing color printing and the two-page spread and he greatly impacted the magazine and turned it into a successful business and the womens magazine we recognize today and greatly increased the sales volumes until his death in 1942. Toward this end, Vogue extended coverage to include East Village boutiques such as Limbo on St, marks Place, as well as including features of downtown personalities such as Andy Warhols Superstar Jane Holzers favorite haunts. Vogue also continued making household names out of models, a practice continued with Suzy Parker, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Lauren Hutton, Veruschka, Marisa Berenson, Penelope Tree. In 1973, Vogue became a monthly publication, under editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella, the magazine underwent extensive editorial and stylistic changes to respond to changes in the lifestyles of its target audience. Mirabella states that she was chosen to change Vogue because women werent interested in reading about or buying clothes that served no purpose in their changing lives and she was selected to make the magazine appeal to the the free, working, liberated woman of the seventies. She changed the magazine by adding text with interviews, arts coverage, when that type of stylihtic ceange f ell out of favor in the 1980s, Mirabella was brutally fired. Her take on it, For a magazine devoted to style, in July of 1988, after Vogue had began to lose ground to a three-year-old upstart Elle, Anna Wintour was named editor-in-chief
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Jean Ritchie
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Jean Ritchie was an American folk music singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player. Jean Ritchie was born to Abigail and Balis W. Ritchie of Viper, many of the Ritchies attended the Hindman Settlement School, a folk school, where people were encouraged to cherish their own backgrounds and where Sharp also found many of his songs. Jeans father Balis had printed up a book of old songs entitled Lovers Melodies, jeans forebears had fought in the Revolutionary War in 1776 before settling in Kentucky, and most of them later fought on the Confederate Side in the Civil War. Her grandfather Justice Austin Ritchie was 2nd Lieutenant of Company C of the 13th Kentucky Confederate Cavalry, Alan Lomax wrote that, They were quiet, thoughtful folks, who went in for ballads, big families and educating their children. Jeans grandmother was a mover in the Old Regular Baptist Church. Jeans Uncle Jason was a lawyer, who remembers the big ballads like Lord Barnard, jeans father taught school, printed a newspaper, fitted specs, farmed and sent ten of his fourteen children to college. As the youngest of 14 siblings, Jean was one of ten girls who slept in one room of the familys farm house. She was quick to memorize songs and, with Chalmers and Velma McDaniels, performed at dances and at county fairs, where they repeatedly won blue ribbons in Hazard. Jean recalls that when the family acquired a radio in the late 1940s they discovered that what they had been singing was hillbilly music, at college she participated in the glee club and choir and learned to play piano. During World War II, she taught in elementary school, after graduating she got a job as a social worker at the Henry Street Settlement, where she taught music to children. There she befriended Alan Lomax, who recorded her extensively for the Library of Congress and she joined the New York folksong scene and met Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, and Oscar Brand. In 1949 and 1950, she recorded several hours of songs, stories, elektra records signed her and released three albums, Jean Ritchie Sings, Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family and A Time for Singing. The Brooklyn-born Pickow, who had studied painting at Cooper Union and made training films for the Navy in World War II, went on to have a career as a professional photographer. His career also included an extensive documentation of his wifes work, Pickow and Ritchie met in 1948 at a square dance at the Henry Street Settlement. The following day, Pickow invited her to him on a photo shoot at the Fulton Fish Market. The result — Ms. Ritchie perched on the hood of a truck and they married in 1950 and had two sons, Peter and Jon. In 1952, Pickow accompanied his wife on a Fulbright Scholarship to collect folksongs in Britain, the result was the acclaimed 16-minute color film Oss Oss Wee Oss. In 1961, Pickow and Lomax collaborated on a film documentary about the Greenwich Village folk revival scene intended to be shown on the BBC
20.
Fingerboard
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The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, the strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length and this is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, on some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique. The word fingerboard in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions, in particular, the direction sul tasto for bowed string instruments to play with the bow above the fingerboard. This reduces the prominence of upper harmonics, giving a more ethereal tone, a fingerboard may be fretted, having raised strips of hard material perpendicular to the strings, which the player presses the strings against to stop the strings. On modern guitars, frets are made of metal. Frets let the player stop the string consistently in the same place, as well, frets do not dampen string vibrations as much as fingers alone on an unfretted fingerboard. Frets may be fixed, as on a guitar or mandolin, or movable, fingerboards may also be unfretted, as they usually are on bowed instruments, where damping by the finger is of little consequence because of the sustained stimulation of the strings by the bow. Unfretted fingerboards allow a more control over subtle changes in pitch than fretted boards. Fingerboards may also be, though uncommon, a hybrid of these two, such a construction is seen on the sitar, where arched frets attach at the edges of a smooth fingerboard, unfrettable strings run inside the frets, while frettable ones run outside. A double dot or some other variation marks the 12th fret, variations on the standard dot shape can make a guitar more distinctive. Position markers are sometimes made luminescent to make more visible on stage. Position markers are sometimes repeated on the edge of the fingerboard for easy viewing. Over time, strings wear frets down, which can cause buzzing, fixing this occasionally requires replacing the frets—but more often they just need dressing. In fret dressing, a luthier levels and polishes the frets, stainless steel guitar frets may never need dressing, because of the density of the material. Not having frets carefully and properly aligned with the fingerboard can cause severe intonation issues, the ultimate way of determining the source of a buzz and detuning problem is to measure the levelness of the frets. A straightedge positioned on the neck in the lie of one of the strings should show nearly level frets, on bowed string instruments, the fingerboard is usually made of ebony, rosewood or other hardwood
21.
Machine head
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A machine head is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses etc. and are located on the instruments headstock. Non-geared tuning devices that are used on violins, violas, cellos, lutes, older Flamenco guitars, friction pegs hold the string in tune by way of friction caused by their tapered shape and by the string pull created by the tight string. Some other commonly used names for guitar tuners are pegs, gears, machines, cranks, knobs. Traditionally, a machine head consists of a cylinder or capstan, mounted at the center of a pinion gear, a knob or button. The capstan has a hole through the far end from the gear, and the string is made to go through that hole, to complete the string installation, the string is tightened by turning the capstan using the tuning knob. The worm gear ensures that the capstan cannot turn without a movement on the knob, banjos usually employ a different mechanism using planetary gears - in this case the knob and the capstan both rotate on the same axis. A few guitars have used this design, the guitarist adjusts the tension of the various strings using the knobs so that they are correctly tuned, a higher tension yields a sharper pitch, a lower tension a flatter pitch. Typical tensions for steel-string acoustic guitars with light tension strings are 10.5 kgf to 13.8 kgf, normally, worm gears provide a gear ratio of 14,1. Versions with an 18,1 gear ratio also exist, trading better accuracy in fine tuning against slower initial string winding, vintage and vintage-reproduction guitars frequently have individual open-gear tuners, enclosed tuners not having become common until after WWII. Bass tuners generally feature larger knobs than guitar tuners as well, often these are distinctively shaped, gear ratios of 20,1 are used often. Exposed gears are more common in premium bass guitars than in six string non-bass instruments. Since the 1950s, guitar performance techniques evolved, and aggressive usage of a vibrato bar became widespread, however, the original machine heads couldnt withstand the rigors of constant string tension changing, and strings could go out of tune after using a vibrato mechanism several times. However, such machine heads reached limited success, mostly because of their price, as of 2006, many break strings when tension is increased while the mechanism is locked and later unlocked, which frequently happens in music stores. Note that on some guitars, such as those with Floyd Rose bridge, in this case, main machine heads at headstock may be missing entirely, as well as the headstock itself. Steinbergers and Hohners require specialist double-ball end strings, whereas the Washburn Bantam can take regular strings, certain instrumental families, most notably the Violin family have been actively resistant to the use of machine heads, insisting on the continued use of friction pegs. The fitting of them on instruments in these families is often regarded as blasphemous, the exact reasoning behind this resistance varies from case to case, with appearance, tradition, and simplicity, among others, being cited. This resistance remains despite the issues with friction pegs losing tuning, coming loose
22.
Bridge
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A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles without closing the way underneath such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. There are many different designs that each serve a particular purpose, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the origin of the word bridge to an Old English word brycg, of the same meaning. The word can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰrēw-. The word for the game of the same name has a different origin. The first bridges made by humans were probably spans of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support, some early Americans used trees or bamboo poles to cross small caverns or wells to get from one place to another. Dating to the Greek Bronze Age, it is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence, several intact arched stone bridges from the Hellenistic era can be found in the Peloponnese. The greatest bridge builders of antiquity were the ancient Romans, the Romans built arch bridges and aqueducts that could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy earlier designs. An example is the Alcántara Bridge, built over the river Tagus, the Romans also used cement, which reduced the variation of strength found in natural stone. One type of cement, called pozzolana, consisted of water, lime, sand, brick and mortar bridges were built after the Roman era, as the technology for cement was lost. In India, the Arthashastra treatise by Kautilya mentions the construction of dams, a Mauryan bridge near Girnar was surveyed by James Princep. The bridge was swept away during a flood, and later repaired by Puspagupta, the use of stronger bridges using plaited bamboo and iron chain was visible in India by about the 4th century. A number of bridges, both for military and commercial purposes, were constructed by the Mughal administration in India and this bridge is also historically significant as it is the worlds oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge. European segmental arch bridges date back to at least the Alconétar Bridge, rope bridges, a simple type of suspension bridge, were used by the Inca civilization in the Andes mountains of South America, just prior to European colonization in the 16th century. During the 18th century there were innovations in the design of timber bridges by Hans Ulrich Grubenmann, Johannes Grubenmann. The first book on bridge engineering was written by Hubert Gautier in 1716, a major breakthrough in bridge technology came with the erection of the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England in 1779. It used cast iron for the first time as arches to cross the river Severn, with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, truss systems of wrought iron were developed for larger bridges, but iron does not have the tensile strength to support large loads. With the advent of steel, which has a tensile strength, much larger bridges were built. In 1927 welding pioneer Stefan Bryła designed the first welded bridge in the world
23.
Nut (string instrument)
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A nut, on a stringed musical instrument, is a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll. The nut marks one end of the length of each open string, sets the spacing of the strings across the neck. Along with the bridge, the nut defines the vibrating lengths of the open strings, the nut may be made of ebony, ivory, cow bone, brass, Corian or plastic, and is usually notched or grooved for the strings. The grooves are designed to lead the string from the fingerboard to the headstock or pegbox in a smooth curve, bowed string instruments in particular benefit from an application of soft pencil graphite in the notches of the nut, to preserve the delicate flat windings of their strings. The word may have come from the German Nut, meaning groove or slot, in French, the nut is known as a fr, sillet, which, like German, can also translate to mean saddle. The Italian term, capo tasto, is the origin of the capo, not all string instruments have nuts as described, The nuts on some instruments are notched deeply enough that they are just string spacers. These instruments use a zero fret—a fret at the beginning of the scale where a normal nut would be that provides the correct string clearance, the zero fret is often found on less expensive instruments, as it is easier to set up an instrument this way. However, a zero fret also makes the sound of the open string similar to fretted notes, a conventional nut can make open strings sound slightly different—and for this reason some high-end instruments use a zero fret. String slots in a nut without a zero fret must be cut to the depth to make string height correct. Strings that are too low at the nut can buzz against the frets, some fretted instruments have a compensated nut. This type of nut provides better intonation across the instrument, the principle, given that strings are different thicknesses and have different tensions, the temperament of each fret is not 100% accurate for an equal temperament instrument. This is especially evident on the first few frets of an electric guitar, many guitar players notice how open position chords never sound in tune with each other. A compensated nut aims to correct this, by staggering the starting position of each string according to thickness, while not a complete solution such as a true temperament fretboard, there is a noticeable difference in tuning within chords. Many guitar companies, such as Music Man, and ESP include compensated nuts as standard on most of their instruments, another type is a locking nut. This nut—usually used in conjunction with a vibrato system such as a Floyd Rose or Kahler—clamps the strings against the nut. This improves tuning stability when using the vibrato bar, a drawback however, is that the locking nut must be loosened using an Allen wrench to tune outside the range of the fine tuners on the bridge. The erhu does not use a hard nut to define the length of the open string, but rather a qiān jin, a loop of string, or, less commonly. Some guitars have a rolling nut, in this design, made popular by the Fender company, the strings sit on roller bearings instead of nut slots
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Zero fret
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A zero fret is a fret placed at the headstock end of the neck of a banjo, guitar, mandolin, or bass guitar. It serves one of the functions of a nut, holding the strings the correct distance above the frets on the instruments fretboard. A separate nut is still required to establish the correct string spacing when a zero fret is used, the zero fret is positioned at the location normally occupied by the nut. On a guitar having a zero fret, the nut is located behind the zero fret, the strings rest atop the zero fret, which can be higher than the other frets. It is claimed that with a fret, the sound of an open string more closely approximates the sound of a fretted string as compared to the open string sound on a guitar with no zero fret. Countering this claim are musicians who feel that a bone or even synthetic nut will enhance the tone of the instrument regardless of the string being played open or fretted. Since tone is so subjective, the two claims are likely to continue perpetually, some manufacturers that frequently use a zero fret are Gretsch, Kay, Selmer, Höfner, Mosrite, Framus, Vox, Vigier and bass guitar manufacturer MTD. Now very few manufacturers use this design and those who do list it as a feature,2015 model year Gibson guitars incorporate a zero fret in order to accommodate a brass adjustable nut, which the manufacturer claims causes better sustain and intonation. Low string action results from a zero fret when using same fingerboard fret wire size. On some guitars it may be necessary to raise the bridge saddle height for a small amount, a large number of different gauges of strings can be used. Strings reside on top of the zero fret regardless of thickness, if you have cut the grooves into the nut for thick strings, it may be necessary to change the nut out completely in order to go back to lighter gauge strings. On zero fret, this isnt needed, a conventional nut made of relatively soft plastic or bone will easily clamp the string and make fine tuning difficult. The clamping effect does not only result from too narrow nut slots and that effect is more prevalent with wire wound nylon strings than with steel strings. Using a zero fret relieves the pressure from the nut material, tuning is smooth and without sudden movement and intonation jumps. There are only a few manufacturers making metal conventional nuts which avoid the string clamping effect, when the zero fret is viewed as an extension of the fingerboard by adding one more fret wire before the nut, then the luthier would fit a fret wire of identical dimensions. This will decrease the action at the lower fret positions. To avoid this effect, luthiers often use a thicker fret wire at the zero fret position, while the straight and level zero fret improves the tuning accuracy along the lower frets the elevated fret keeps the string action higher and helps to avoid string buzz. A conventional nut or a zero fret will cause pitch errors on the lower frets due to the increased pressure on the strings
25.
Course (music)
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A course, on a stringed musical instrument, is two or more adjacent strings that are closely spaced relative to the other strings, and typically played as a single string. The strings in each course are tuned in unison or an octave. Course may also refer to a single string normally played on its own on an instrument with other multi-string courses, an instrument with at least one course is referred to as coursed, while one whose strings are all played individually is uncoursed. Eventually, however, they came to be employed to alter the characteristics of instruments as well. A typical piano, for example, contains courses with one, all members of the mandolin family, except some versions of the lowest-pitched, have courses each of two or three strings, most commonly eight strings in four courses. The exception is some varieties of mando-bass, which have four individual strings, the baroque guitar has five courses, with the bottom four always double strung, and the top string either double or single. There are also several patterns of modern ten-string guitar but all have ten single strings, the twelve-string guitar has twelve strings, in six courses. The lowest three courses are tuned at octaves, with the primary string uppermost and the octave below it. The G course is either unison or at octaves, on some electric twelve-string guitars, and most notably the Rickenbacker 360/12, the octave strings are below the primary strings. The national instrument of Columbia, the tiple Colombiano, has four courses of three strings each and its higher-pitched relative, the tiple requinto, is similarly triple-strung. The American tiple, a smaller instrument loosely derived from the Columbian tiple, the electric twelve-string bass has twelve strings in four triple courses. Basses have also built with six double courses and other configs
26.
Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
27.
John Bailey (luthier)
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John Bailey was a British luthier who made and repaired guitars and other stringed instruments during the 1960s revival of English folk music and beyond. Bailey lived in London until 1972 when he moved to Dartmouth in Devon and he continued to make instruments there into the 1990s. John was originally a teacher at a school in Hendon. George Lowden the Irish luthier has talked about the influence of Baileys book at the start of his career as a luthier,1973 – After a fair bit of prayer. I decided to make guitars professionally and armed with some wood, basic woodworking tools, I borrowed the guitars on my first album – Martin Carthy lent me his Martin 0028. The prestige of owning a Martin was just beginning then, later I had a hand-built guitar from John Bailey which I loved but which was stolen. Then after I left Pentangle I had a contract with Yamaha, I first played it on LA Turnaround, it got battered over the years, has burns on it and eventually I gave it to my son but retrieved it to get it restored. Having owned a John Bailey acoustic for a few months, Bert had recently acquired an experimental Bailey electric, for use with the band, and that particular twelve string guitar is now owned by Soren Venema, owner of Palm Guitars in Amsterdam. Gordon Giltrap, I like their guitars which sort of remind a little of my John Bailey that I used for SO many years on SO many albums. 22nd July 2011, It is with sadness that I received an e-mail from Maureen Bailey. John was without a one of THE great pioneers of guitar making here in Britain. I shall be writing a more detailed dedication to this man in next months news page. In the meantime we send our deepest condolences to his widow Maureen, although it had been many years since I had seen John, he was always a part of my life through the beautiful guitars he made. I still own the stunning twin neck that he made in the late 60s for guitarist, I bought the guitar in about 1975 and used it on stage, in the studio and featured it on album sleeves over the coming years. I guess the most iconic photograph of me with that guitar was on the sleeve of The Visionary album from 1976. I foolishly sold it in the early 80s via Bert Janschs guitar shop, in fact Bert re strung that very guitar to sell it to a Mr John Garvey. Many years later I was able to purchase it back from John and it made its last appearance on my Guitar Maestros DVD. I acquired my first Bailey guitar in the late 60s, brand new from the maker who I think took a shine to me, such was the generosity of John Bailey
28.
Diatonic scale
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This pattern ensures that, in a diatonic scale spanning more than one octave, all the half steps are maximally separated from each other. The word diatonic comes from the Greek διατονικός, meaning progressing through tones, the seven pitches of any diatonic scale can be obtained using a chain of six perfect fifths. Musical keyboards are designed to play notes, and hence diatonic scales. A diatonic scale can be described as two tetrachords separated by a whole tone. The term diatonic originally referred to the genus, one of the three genera of the ancient Greeks. In musical set theory, Allen Forte classifies diatonic scales as set form 7–35 and this article does not concern alternative seven-note diatonic scales such as the harmonic minor or the melodic minor. Western music from the Middle Ages until the late 19th century is based on the diatonic scale, there is one claim that the 45, 000-year-old Divje Babe Flute uses a diatonic scale, but there is no proof or consensus it is even a musical instrument. There is evidence that the Sumerians and Babylonians used some version of the diatonic scale and this derives from surviving inscriptions that contain a tuning system and musical composition. Despite the conjectural nature of reconstructions of the known as the Hurrian songs from the surviving score. The scales corresponding to the medieval Church modes were diatonic, one of these, the one starting on B, has no pure fifth above its reference note, it is probably for this reason that it was not used. Of the six remaining scales, two were described as corresponding to two others with a B♭ instead of a B♮, A–B–C–D–E–F–G–A was described as D–E–F–G–A–B♭C–D and C–D–E–F–G–A–B–C as F–G–A–B♭–C–D–E–F, as a result, medieval theory described the Church modes as corresponding to four diatonic scales only. Heinrich Glarean considered that the modal scales including a B♭ had to be the result of a transposition, by the beginning of the Baroque period, the notion of musical key was established, describing additional possible transpositions of the diatonic scale. Major and minor scales came to dominate until at least the start of the 20th century, some Church modes survived into the early 18th century, as well as appearing occasionally in classical and 20th-century music, and later in modal jazz. Glareans six natural scales could be transposed not only to include one flat in the signature, of these six scales, three are major scales, three are minor. To these may be added the seventh diatonic scale, with a fifth above the reference note. Transposing each of seven scales on the twelve degrees of the chromatic scale results in a total of eighty-four diatonic scales. The modern musical keyboard originated as a keyboard with only lower keys. The major scale, for instance, can be represented as T–T–S–T–T–T–S or 2–2–1–2–2–2–1 The major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales and it is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth that duplicates the first an octave higher
29.
Chromatic scale
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The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone above or below another. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the semitones have the same size, in other words, the notes of an equal-tempered chromatic scale are equally spaced. An equal-tempered chromatic scale is a nondiatonic scale having no tonic because of the symmetry of its equally spaced notes, the most common conception of the chromatic scale before the 13th century was the Pythagorean chromatic scale. Due to a different tuning technique, the twelve semitones in this scale have two different sizes. Thus, the scale is not perfectly symmetric, many other tuning systems, developed in the ensuing centuries, share a similar asymmetry. Equally spaced pitches are provided only by equal temperament tuning systems, the term chromatic derives from the Greek word chroma, meaning color. Chromatic notes are understood as harmonically inessential embellishments, shadings. The chromatic scale may be notated in a variety of ways, ascending and descending, The chromatic scale has no set spelling agreed upon by all. Its spelling is, however, often dependent upon major or minor key signatures, the images above, therefore, are only examples of chromatic scale notations. As an abstract entity, the chromatic scale is usually notated such that no scale degree is used more than twice in succession. The ancient Chinese chromatic scale is called Shí-èr-lǜ, however, it should not be imagined that this gamut ever functioned as a scale, and it is erroneous to refer to the Chinese chromatic scale, as some Western writers have done. The series of twelve known as the twelve lü were simply a series of fundamental notes from which scales could be constructed. The Indian solfège, i. e. sargam, makes up the notes of the chromatic scale with respective sharps. The total chromatic is the set of all pitch classes. An array is a succession of aggregates and these are 19-EDO just intonation approximations. In Pythagorean tuning the chromatic scale is tuned as follows, with higher than their enharmonic flats. The 12 golden notes of music Hewitt, Michael
30.
Mixolydian mode
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The modern diatonic mode is the scale forming the basis of both the rising and falling forms of Harikambhoji in Carnatic music, the classical music form of southern India. The idea of a Mixolydian mode comes from the theory of ancient Greece. The invention of the ancient Greek Mixolydian mode was attributed to Sappho, however, what the ancient Greeks thought of as Mixolydian was very different from the modern interpretation of the mode. The term Mixolydian was originally used to one of the traditional harmoniai of Greek theory. It was appropriated later by 2nd-century theorist Ptolemy to designate his seven tonoi or transposition keys, four centuries later, Boethius interpreted Ptolemy in Latin, still with the meaning of transposition keys, not scales. When chant theory was first being formulated in the 9th century, a commentary on that treatise, called the Nova expositio, first gave it a new sense as one of a set of eight diatonic species of the octave, or scales. The name Mixolydian came to be applied to one of the eight modes of medieval church music and this medieval theoretical construction led to the modern use of the term for the natural scale from G to G. The seventh mode of church music is an authentic mode based on and encompassing the natural scale from G to G, with the perfect fifth as the dominant. This modern scale has the series of tones and semitones as the major scale. Therefore, the scale degree becomes a subtonic, rather than a leading-tone. The Mixolydian mode is called the dominant scale, because it is the mode built on the fifth degree of the major scale. The flattened seventh of the scale is an away from the mediant of the key. It is common in non-classical harmony, such as jazz, funk, blues, the order of tones and semitones in a Mixolydian scale is TTSTTST, while the major scale is TTSTTTS. Some examples, The G Mixolydian mode The C Mixolydian mode The D Mixolydian mode The E Mixolydian mode The A Mixolydian mode and this scale applies to the bagpipes in name only. The tonic note of bagpipes, A, is pitched in between B♭ and B without special adaptation of the instrument. In the Mixolydian mode, the tonic, subdominant, and subtonic triads are all major, the triads built on the remaining three scale degrees are minor. Moloch scale is the used by Klezmer musicians for the Mixolydian scale. In Klezmer, it is transposed to C, where the main chords used are C, F
31.
Tonic (music)
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The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord in these styles of music. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced, scales are named after their tonics, thus the tonic of the scale of C is the note C. Simple folk music and traditional songs may begin and end on the tonic note, in very much conventionally tonal music, harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of the primary harmonies, tonic, dominant, and subdominant, and especially the first two of these. The tonic is often confused with the root, which is the note of a chord. The root of a chord is different from the tonic, because different types of chords have root notes. It is also represented with the Roman numeral I, two parallel keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C, however, relative keys have different tonics. For example, C major and A minor share a key signature that feature no sharps or flats, thus a pitch center may function referentially or contextually in an atonal context, often acting as axis or line of symmetry in an interval cycle. Pitch centricity was coined by Arthur Berger in his Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky
32.
Major scale
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The major scale or Ionian scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales, like many musical scales it is made up of seven notes, the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note. In Carnatic music, it is known as Dheerasankarabharanam, and in Hindustani classical music it is known as Bilaval, a major scale is a diatonic scale. The sequence of intervals between the notes of a scale is, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half where whole stands for a whole tone. A major scale may be seen as two tetrachords separated by a whole tone. Each tetrachord consists of two whole tones followed by a semitone, whole, whole, half, seven sharps or flats make major keys that may be more conveniently spelled with five flats or sharps. The term major scale is used in the names of some other scales whose first, third. The harmonic major scale has a minor sixth and it differs from the harmonic minor scale only by raising the third degree. The melodic major scale is the mode of the jazz minor scale. It is the Ionian scale with a sixth and minor seventh. The combined scale that goes as Ionian ascending and as melodic major descending is also called melodic major, the double harmonic major scale has a minor second and a minor sixth. It is the mode of the Hungarian minor scale. Ionian mode Major and minor Listen to and download harmonised Major scale piano MP3s The major scale for guitar in one position, with derivation
33.
Interval (music)
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In music theory, an interval is the difference between two pitches. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale, the smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones and they can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some of the very smallest ones are called commas, and describe small discrepancies, observed in some tuning systems, Intervals can be arbitrarily small, and even imperceptible to the human ear. In physical terms, an interval is the ratio between two sonic frequencies, for example, any two notes an octave apart have a frequency ratio of 2,1. This means that successive increments of pitch by the same result in an exponential increase of frequency. For this reason, intervals are often measured in cents, a derived from the logarithm of the frequency ratio. In Western music theory, the most common naming scheme for intervals describes two properties of the interval, the quality and number, examples include the minor third or perfect fifth. These names describe not only the difference in semitones between the upper and lower notes, but also how the interval is spelled, the importance of spelling stems from the historical practice of differentiating the frequency ratios of enharmonic intervals such as G–G♯ and G–A♭. The size of an interval can be represented using two alternative and equivalently valid methods, each appropriate to a different context, frequency ratios or cents, the size of an interval between two notes may be measured by the ratio of their frequencies. When a musical instrument is tuned using a just intonation tuning system, Intervals with small-integer ratios are often called just intervals, or pure intervals. Most commonly, however, musical instruments are tuned using a different tuning system. As a consequence, the size of most equal-tempered intervals cannot be expressed by small-integer ratios, for instance, an equal-tempered fifth has a frequency ratio of 2 7⁄12,1, approximately equal to 1.498,1, or 2.997,2. For a comparison between the size of intervals in different tuning systems, see section Size in different tuning systems, the standard system for comparing interval sizes is with cents. The cent is a unit of measurement. If frequency is expressed in a scale, and along that scale the distance between a given frequency and its double is divided into 1200 equal parts, each of these parts is one cent. In twelve-tone equal temperament, a system in which all semitones have the same size. Hence, in 12-TET the cent can be defined as one hundredth of a semitone
34.
Ionian mode
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Ionian mode is a musical mode or, in modern usage, a diatonic scale also called the major scale. This octave species is essentially the same as the mode of tonal music. Medieval Church Modes, in his Music Theory, The Fundamental Concepts of Tonal Music, Including Notation, Terminology, Barnes & Noble Outline Series 137. New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London, Barnes & Noble Books, Toronto, ISBN 0-06-460137-4 ISBN 0-06-467168-2 OCLC834716 Powers, Harold S. 2001a. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition,29 vols, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell,12. London, Macmillan Publishers, New York, Groves Dictionaries of Music, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition,29 vols. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell,16, London, Macmillan Publishers, New York, Groves Dictionaries of Music. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition,29 vols, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell,12, 37–38. London, Macmillan Publishers, New York, Groves Dictionaries of Music, bilawal, the equivalent scale in Indian classical music Ionian mode for guitar at GOSK. com
35.
Minor scale
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This includes the natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. A minor scale differs from a scale in that the third degree in a major scale is a major third above the first degree. In other words, the degree in a major scale is one semitone higher than in a minor scale. The natural minor scale, also known as Aeolian scale, taken by itself, when a major scale and a natural minor scale have the same key signature, they are relative keys. A natural minor scale has the notes as its relative major scale. The functional fusion of minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. A harmonic minor scale differs from a minor scale in that the seventh note is raised one semitone both ascending and descending. Melodic minor scales raise both the sixth and seventh notes one semitone when ascending, and descends like the minor scale. In this case the scale is called A-minor, and this minor scale has no accidentals. A-minor is called the minor of C. Every major key has a minor, which starts on the sixth scale degree or step. For instance, the degree of F major is D. The relative natural minor of a major key always shares the notes, for example, F major consists of F, G, A, B♭, C, D, and E, while D natural minor consists of D, E, F, G, A, B♭. The natural minor scale can also be represented by the notation,12 ♭345 ♭6 ♭78 Each degree of the scale and their difference from the major scale is shown. Thus a number without a sharp or flat represents a major interval, a number with a flat represents a minor interval, and a number with a sharp represents an augmented interval. In this example, the mean, 1=unison, 2=major second, ♭3=minor third, 4=perfect fourth, 5=perfect fifth, ♭6=minor sixth, ♭7=minor seventh. In rock and popular examples of songs in Minor Keys include The Moody Blues Nights in White Satin, Blondies Call Me. The notes of the minor scale are the same as the natural minor except that the seventh degree is raised by one semitone
36.
Capo
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It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. The word derives from the Italian capotasto which means the nut of a stringed instrument, the earliest known use of the term capotasto is by Giovanni Battista Doni who, in his Annotazioni of 1640, uses it to describe the nut of a viola da gamba. The first patented capo was designed by James Ashborn of Wolcottville, musicians commonly use a capo to raise the pitch of a fretted instrument so they can play in a different key using the same fingerings as playing open. In effect, a capo uses a fret of an instrument to create a new nut at a higher note than the actual nut. There are several different capo designs, but most commercial capos consist of a bar that clamps to the instruments neck in some way to hold down the strings. Capos come in different sizes and shapes for different instruments and fretboard curvatures, all types of capo should be applied after a fresh tuning by laying the barre, descending from above, and directly behind the fret, so that all of the strings have uniform position and pressure. If the strings are bent or mispositioned, the instrument will sound out of tune in the new key, some types of capo can mar the neck of the guitar if applied incorrectly. Musicians use capos on many stringed instruments, guitars, mandolins, mandolas, banjos, capos exist for square-necked resonator guitars, some of which do not contact the neck, but clamp above and below the strings. Song arrangements often cite capo position, just as they cite alternate tunings, when referencing fingerings for a song that uses a capo, the player must determine whether the chart references absolute finger positions, or positions relative to the capo. For example, in tablature, a note played on the fret of an instrument capoed at the second fret can be listed as 5 or 3. Similarly, a D-shaped chord can be referred to as D, neither method strongly prevails over the other. For this reason, the phrase chord-shape is commonly used to clarify that the fingering shape, in this manner, the two guitars create a fuller sound than they would playing in unison. Playing with a capo creates the musical effect as retuning all strings up the same number of steps. However, using a capo only affects the open note of each string, every other fret remains unaffected, and thus a performer does not need to adjust for or relearn the entire fretboard as they might with retuning. The scale length of the strings of an instrument affects the timbre of the strings, musicians also use capos to bring a guitar tuned below standard up to standard tuning. Manufacturers sometimes recommend tuning a guitar a whole-step or more below standard to offset the additional stress of the additional strings. A capo can raise it to standard tuning, however, improved manufacturing techniques have allowed many modern 12-strings to be tuned to standard pitch. In many cases, they have extended its use past the traditional purpose of changing the key, an example of using a partial capo to produce alternative sounds can be heard from guitar artist Antoine Dufour
37.
Dorian mode
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The Dorian mode is named after the Dorian Greeks. Applied to an octave, the Dorian octave species was built upon two tetrachords separated by a whole tone, running from the hypate meson to the nete diezeugmenon. In the enharmonic genus, the intervals in each tetrachord are quarter-tone–quarter-tone–major third, in the genus, semitone-semitone-minor third, in the diatonic genus. Placing the single tone at the bottom of the scale followed by two conjunct tetrachords, produces the Hypodorian octave species, A | B C D E | F G A. Placing the two together and the single tone at the top of the scale produces the Mixolydian octave species. Originally used to one of the traditional harmoniai of Greek theory. Four centuries later, Boethius interpreted Ptolemy in Latin, still with the meaning of transposition keys, when chant theory was first being formulated in the 9th century, these seven names plus an eighth, Hypermixolydian, were again re-appropriated in the anonymous treatise Alia Musica. A commentary on that treatise, called the Nova expositio, first gave it a new sense as one of a set of eight species of the octave. In medieval theory, the authentic Dorian mode could include the note B♭ by licence, the same scalar pattern, but starting a fourth or fifth below the mode final D, and extending a fifth above, was numbered as mode 2 in the medieval system. This was the plagal mode corresponding to the authentic Dorian, and was called the Hypodorian mode. It may be considered an excerpt of a major scale played from the pitch a whole tone above the scales tonic. The resulting scale is, however, minor in quality, because, as the D becomes the new tonal centre, when a triad is built upon the tonic, it is a minor triad. Examples of the Dorian mode include, The D Dorian mode, the G Dorian mode, which contains all notes the same as the F major scale starting on G. The A♭ Dorian mode, which all notes the same as the G♭ major scale starting on A♭. The B Dorian mode, which all notes the same as the A major scale starting on B. The Dorian mode is a scale, meaning that the pattern of whole. The modern Dorian mode is equivalent to the minor scale. The modern Dorian mode resembles the Greek Phrygian harmonia in the diatonic genus, the only difference between the Dorian and Aeolian scales is whether or not the sixth is major
38.
Atwater-Donnelly
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Atwater-Donnelly is a Rhode Island folk music group consisting of Aubrey Atwater, Elwood Donnelly, and occasionally other musicians and dancers. They have toured throughout the United States and internationally, playing guitar, banjo, Appalachian dulcimer, tin whistle, limberjack, in recent years, they have also performed as The Atwater-Donnelly Trio, with Cathy Clasper-Torch. Atwater and Donnelly met as volunteers at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse in Rhode Island in early 1987 and they specialize in traditional American music and Celtic folk music, but write and play their own songs as well. Their performances have featured on All Songs Considered and Fiona Ritchies The Thistle & Shamrock on public radio. They were one of the musical groups to be on the web. They have released 11 albums, several books of poetry, Atwater was selected to serve as Artist-in-residence at the Grand Canyon National Park in May–June 2011. It explores their biographies and shows their effect on others, Atwater-Donnelly home page AllMusic. com page Jerimoth Hill - Going Up Home on YouTube - photo and video montage from the recording of The Halfway Ground and its release concert McGaw, Jim. We came home to our music
39.
Drone (music)
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In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. Burden also refers to a part of a song that is repeated at the end of each stanza, the term comes from the French bourdon, a staff, or a pipe made in the form of a staff. The drone does not take its name from the bee and it is a far older word, sharing an Indo-European root with the Sanskrit dhran, the Greek thren-os, and the English thrum, drum, and dream. Of all harmonic devices, it is not only the simplest, a drone effect can be achieved through a sustained sound or through repetition of a note. It most often establishes a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built, a drone can be instrumental, vocal or both. Drone can be placed in different ranges of the texture, in the lowest part, in the highest part. The drone is most often placed upon the tonic or dominant, a drone on the same pitch as a melodic note tends to both hide that note and to bring attention to it by increasing its importance. A drone differs from a pedal tone or point in degree or quality. A pedal point may be a form of tone and thus required to resolve unlike a drone, or a pedal point may simply be considered a shorter drone. The systematic use of drones originated in instrumental music of ancient Southwest Asia, and spread north and west to Europe, east to India and it is a key component of much Australian aboriginal music through the didgeridoo. It is used in Indian music and is played with the tanpura and other Indian drone instruments like the ottu, the ektar, the dotara, the surpeti, the surmandal and the shank. Most of the types of bagpipes that exist worldwide have up to three drones, making one of the first instruments that comes to mind when speaking of drone music. In America, most forms of the African-influenced banjo contain a drone string, since the 1960s, the drone has become a prominent feature in drone music and other forms of avant-garde music. In vocal music drone is particularly widespread in traditional cultures, particularly in Europe. Drones are not uncommon in primitive music, but neither are they characteristic of it and it is also present in some isolated regions of Asia. Drone is also the term for the part of a musical instrument intended to produce the drone effects sustained pitch, different melodic Indian instruments contain a drone. For example, the sitar features three or four resonating drone strings, and Indian notes are practiced to a drone, bagpipes feature a number of drone pipes, giving the instruments their characteristic sounds. A hurdy-gurdy has one or more drone strings, the bass strings of the Slovenian drone zither also freely resonate as a drone
40.
Equal temperament
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An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which the frequency interval between every pair of adjacent notes has the same ratio. In equal temperament tunings, the interval is often found by dividing some larger desired interval, often the octave. That resulting smallest interval, 1⁄12 the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step, the standard pitch has not always been 440 but has varied and generally risen over the past few hundred years. For example, some music has been written in 19-TET and 31-TET, in Western countries, when people use the term equal temperament without qualification, they usually mean 12-TET. To avoid ambiguity between equal temperaments that divide the octave and ones that divide some other interval, the equal division of the octave. According to this system, 12-TET is called 12-EDO, 31-TET is called 31-EDO. Other instruments, such as wind, keyboard, and fretted instruments, often only approximate equal temperament. Some wind instruments that can easily and spontaneously bend their tone, most notably trombones, use tuning similar to string ensembles, the two figures frequently credited with the achievement of exact calculation of equal temperament are Zhu Zaiyu in 1584 and Simon Stevin in 1585. Kenneth Robinson attributes the invention of equal temperament to Zhu Zaiyu, Zhu Zaiyu is quoted as saying that, in a text dating from 1584, I have founded a new system. I establish one foot as the number from which the others are to be extracted, altogether one has to find the exact figures for the pitch-pipers in twelve operations. Kuttner disagrees and remarks that his claim cannot be considered correct without major qualifications, kuttner proposes that neither Zhu Zaiyu or Simon Stevin achieved equal temperament, and that neither of the two should be treated as inventors. The origin of the Chinese pentatonic scale is traditionally ascribed to the mythical Ling Lun, allegedly his writings discussed the equal division of the scale in the 27th century BC. However, evidence of the origins of writing in this period in China is limited to rudimentary inscriptions on oracle bones, an approximation for equal temperament was described by He Chengtian, a mathematician of Southern and Northern Dynasties around 400 AD. He came out with the earliest recorded approximate numerical sequence in relation to equal temperament in history,900849802758715677638601570536509.5479450, historically, there was a seven-equal temperament or hepta-equal temperament practice in Chinese tradition. Zhu Zaiyu, a prince of the Ming court, spent thirty years on research based on the equal temperament idea originally postulated by his father and he described his new pitch theory in his Fusion of Music and Calendar 乐律融通 published in 1580. An extended account is given by Joseph Needham. Similarly, after 84 divisions the length was divided by a factor of 128,84 =27 =128, according to Gene Cho, Zhu Zaiyu was the first person to solve the equal temperament problem mathematically. Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit in China recorded this work in his personal journal, in 1620, Zhus work was referenced by a European mathematician
41.
Autoharp
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The autoharp is a trademark for a string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, debate exists over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia, Charles F. Zimmermann, was awarded US257808 in 1882 for a design for an instrument that included mechanisms for muting certain strings during play. He named his invention the autoharp, unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical, and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings instead of vertically. It is not known if Zimmermann ever commercially produced any instruments of this early design, karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany, built a model that he called a Volkszither, which most resembles the autoharp played today. Gütter obtained a British patent for his instrument circa 1883–1884, Zimmermann, after returning from a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design in 1885, but with his own design patent number and catchy name. Gütters instrument design became popular, and Zimmermann has often been mistaken as the inventor. A stylized form of the term Autoharp was registered as a trademark in 1926, the word is currently claimed as a trademark by U. S. Music Corporation, whose Oscar Schmidt division manufactures Autoharps, the USPTO registration, however, covers only a Mark Drawing Code WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM and has expired. In litigation with George Orthey, it was held that Oscar Schmidt could only claim ownership of the lettering of the word Autoharp. Modern autoharps have 36 or 37 strings, although examples with as many as 47 strings. They are strung in either diatonic or chromatic scales, standard models have 15 or 21 chord bars, or buttons, available, a selection of major, minor, and dominant seventh chords. These are arranged for historical or systemic reasons, as for example, A variety of chord bar layouts exist, although the autoharp is often thought of as a rhythm instrument for playing chordal accompaniment, modern players can play melodies on the instrument. Diatonic players are able to play fiddle tunes using open-chording techniques, skilled chromatic players can perform a range of melodies. Diatonically strung single-key instruments from modern luthiers, such as Orthey, Fladmark, Hollandsworth, DAigle, Baker, Daniels and this is accomplished by doubling the strings for individual notes. Since the strings for notes not in the diatonic scale need not appear in the string bed, until the 1960s, no pickups were available to amplify the autoharp other than a rudimentary contact microphone, which had a poor-quality, tinny sound. Eventually, a bar magnetic pickup was designed by Harry DeArmond, pinkertons Assorted Colours used the instrument on their 1966 single Mirror, mirror. In the 1970s, Oscar Schmidt came out with their own magnetic pickup, shown at the right is a 1930 refinished Oscar Schmidt Inc. Model A
42.
Arpeggio
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A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord, an arpeggio is a type of broken chord where the notes that compose a chord are played or sung in a rising or descending order. An arpeggio may also more than one octave. The word arpeggio comes from the Italian word arpeggiare, which means to play on a harp, even though the notes of an arpeggio are not played or sung all together at the same time, listeners hear the sequence of notes as forming a chord. When an arpeggio also contains passing tones that are not part of the chord, Arpeggios enable composers writing for monophonic instruments that play one note at a time, to voice chords and chord progressions in musical pieces. Arpeggios and broken chords are used to help create rhythmic interest. A notable example of which is the Alberti bass figuration which was used in piano music from the Classical music period. With an Alberti bass, rather play the notes of a chord all at once. An arpeggio is a group of notes which are played one after the other, executing an arpeggio requires the player to play the sounds of a chord individually to differentiate the notes. The notes all belong to one chord, the chord may, for example, be a simple chord with the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the scale in it. An arpeggio for the chord of C major going up two octaves would be the notes, an arpeggio is a type of broken chord. Other types of broken chords play chord notes out of sequence or more than one note, Arpeggios can rise or fall for more than one octave. Students of musical instruments and singers learn how to play and sing scales and they are often a requirement for music examinations. An arpeggiated chord means a chord which is spread, i. e. the notes are not played at the same time, arpeggiated chords are often used in harp and piano music. An arpeggiated chord may be written with a vertical line in front of the chord. It is spread from the lowest to the highest note, occasionally, composers such as Béla Bartók have asked for them to be played from top to bottom. This is shown by adding an arrow pointing down, some ostinato figures consist of arpeggios. Any instrument may employ arpeggiation, but the instruments use arpeggios most often
43.
Old-time music
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Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as dancing, clogging. It is played on instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle. Reflecting the cultures that settled North America, the roots of music are in the traditional musics of the British Isles, Ireland. In some regions French and German sources are also prominent, while many dance tunes and ballads can be traced to European sources, many others are of purely North American origin. As a label, however, it dates only to 1923. Fiddlin John Carson made some of the first commercial recordings of traditional American country music for the Okeh label, the term thus originated as a euphemism, but proved a suitable replacement for other terms that were considered disparaging by many inhabitants of these regions. It remains the term preferred by performers and listeners of the music and it is sometimes referred to as old-timey or mountain music by long-time practitioners. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries tunes originating in minstrel, Tin Pan Alley, gospel and other music styles were adapted into the old-time style. While similar music was played in all regions of the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, important revivalists include Mike Seeger and Pete Seeger, who brought the music to New York City as early as the 1940s. The New Lost City Ramblers in particular took the revival across the country, the band was originally Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Tom Paley. When Tom left the band, he was replaced by Tracy Schwarz, New Lost City Ramblers sparked new interest in old-timey music. Old-time music is played using a variety of stringed instruments. The instrumentation of a group is often determined by what instruments are available. The most common instruments are string instruments. Historically, the fiddle was nearly always the melodic instrument, and in many instances dances were accompanied only by a single fiddler. By the early 19th century, the banjo had become a partner to the fiddle. The banjo used in music is typically a 5-string model with an open back
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Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
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