1.
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
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Barbat (lute)
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The barbat or barbud was a lute of possibly Central Asian origin. As a two-stringed lute, the barbat was an important instrument of the Arab Ghassanids in pre-Islamic times, many instruments such as the Arabic oud are derived from the barbat. The modern Persian Barbat is almost identical to the oud, although differences include a body, longer neck. The barbat is one of the oldest instruments in the world, according to Encyclopedia Iranica, this type of instrument could have been introduced by the Kushans and was later adopted by the Persians. By the 7th century, the barbat was developed by the Sassanid Persians into a rud which after the Islamic Conquest of Persia was Arabized into its current form, after the tanbur, it is the oldest string instrument in Iran. The instrument was abolished in the Safavid period for an unknown reason and it is possible that the earliest ouds were carved from a solid piece of wood in a similar manner to the barbat. By the time of the Moorish period in Spain, the body was in its characteristic staved wood vaulted back design. After the instrument was taken to the Arab world, the body became larger as a result of the new method of construction. In all matters of holding and playing it is recommended that the player use only the muscles needed for any task and to relax as much as possible. This will allow one to play longer, easier and to put the effort into creativity rather than mechanics. In the past many players sat cross-legged on a rug, but now most perform sitting, two methods of left hand fingering are in current usage. Hakki Obadia taught a fingering system that uses finger 1 for several notes, finger 2 for some, but not all strings and finger 3. Another important facet of left hand technique is the employment of the fingernail to help stop the string, giving a clearer tone and this is common to several other fretless instrument, among them the sarod, shamisen and san-xien. As mentioned the right hand employs a method for holding the quill-inspired pick called risha in Arabic. The long flexible pick puts the wrist at a particular angle, the traditional material was an eagle quill, but this is not practical, plastic makes a more durable and standard material for the risha. Players have used things like collar stays, plastic pieces from hardware stores, cut-up plastic bottles and these come in a thin, more-or-less pointed tip style made of lighter gauge translucent plastic and a round tip model made of heavier white opaque stock. The thinner ones are lovely sounding and play very delicately with subtle nuances, variations can be obtained by cutting a new tip on the thinner ones a bit further back where the plastic is a little thicker, adding volume to the attack. The rounded ones can be cut to a shape and thinned a fraction with fine sandpaper adding nuance to the heavier attack produced by this pick
5.
Biwa
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The biwa is a Japanese short-necked fretted lute, often used in narrative storytelling. The biwa is the instrument of Benten, goddess of music, eloquence, poetry. The origin of biwa is Chinese pipa and it arrived in Japan in two forms. Since that time, the number of types has more than quadrupled. Guilds supporting biwa players, particularly the biwa hoshi, helped proliferate biwa musical development for hundreds of years, Biwa hōshi performances overlapped with performances by other biwa players many years before heikyoko and continued until today. This overlap resulted in an evolution of the biwa and its usage. Yet, in spite of its popularity, the Onin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching, with the abolition of Todo in the Meiji period, biwa players lost their patronage. Furthermore, reforms stemming from the Meiji Restoration led to massive, Japan modeled its development on Europe and the US, praising everything Western and condemning everything native. Traditions identifiably Japanese became associated with terms like backwards or primitive, such associations even extended into areas like art and music, and the biwa. Japanese and foreign musicians alike have begun embracing traditional Japanese instruments, particularly the biwa, while blind biwa singers no longer dominate the biwa, many performers continue to use the instrument in traditional and modern ways. The biwa came to Japan in the 7th century and it was evolved from the Chinese instrument pipa and this type of biwa is called the gaku-biwa and was used in gagaku ensembles and is the most commonly known type. While the route is unclear, another type of biwa found its way to the Kyushu region, before long, as the Ritsuryō state collapsed, the court music musicians were faced with the reconstruction and sought asylum in Buddhist temples. There they assumed the role of Buddhist monks and encountered the mōsō-biwa, through the next several centuries, players of both traditions intersected frequently and developed new music styles and new instruments. By the Kamakura period, the heike-biwa had emerged as a popular instrument, the heike-biwa could be described as a cross between both the gaku-biwa and mōsō-biwa. It retained the shape of the gaku-biwa and was played with a large plectrum like the mōsō-biwa. The heike biwa was also small, like the mōsō-biwa and was used for similar purposes, not much seems to have been written about biwas from roughly the 16th century to the mid-19th century. What is known is that three main streams of biwa emerged during that time, zato, shifu, and chofu and these styles emphasized 琵琶歌 — vocalization with biwa accompaniment — and formed the foundation for 江戸歌 styles such as shinnai and kota. From these styles also emerged the two survivors of the biwa tradition, satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa
6.
Chitarra Italiana
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Chitarra Italiana is a lute-shaped plucked instrument with 4 or 5 single strings, in a tuning similar to that of the guitar. It was common in Italy during the Renaissance Era and it is believed to have descended from Panduras, the Mediterranean lutes of Antiquity, and to be related to north African Quitra. Its bass variety was known as Chitarrone and he also said that in latter years, when the mandola was popular, the chitarrone was sometimes confused with the mandola. Cithara Italica Chitarra battente Mandore Gittern considered ancestral to Spanish guitar, kwitra, Also spelled kouitra, kaitara, and quitra. This is a North African 4 course lute, similar to the oud, da chitarra italiana a chitarrone, una nuova interpretazione. Enrico Radesca di Foggia e il suo tempo, Atti del Convegno di studi, strumenti della ricerca musicale collana della Società Italiana di Musicologia 5. Lucca, Italy, Libreria Musicale Italiana,2001, 37–57, the theorboed guitar - the Chitarrone Francese. London, Stephen Barber & Sandi Harris, Lutemakers, roberto Meucci recently wrote about small lutes, revealing that in Italy they were called chitarra, so as not to confuse them with the chitarra alla spagnola. Sources from the early 18th Century also declare that the chitarra italiana or chitarrino is in reality a small lute
7.
Lute
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The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an instrument, especially in vocal works. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, the words lute and oud possibly derive from Arabic al-ʿud. Recent research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests ʿud may in turn be an Arabized version of the Persian name rud and it has equally been suggested the wood in the name may have distinguished the instrument by its wooden soundboard from skin-faced predecessors. Gianfranco Lotti suggests the wood appellation originally carried derogatory connotations because of proscriptions of all music in early Islam. Lutes are made almost entirely of wood, the soundboard is a teardrop-shaped thin flat plate of resonant wood. In all lutes the soundboard has a single decorated sound hole under the strings called the rose. The sound hole is not open, but rather covered with a grille in the form of a vine or a decorative knot. Robert Lundberg, in his book Historical Lute Construction, suggests ancient builders placed bars according to ratios of the scale length. He further suggests the inward bend of the soundboard is an adaptation by ancient builders to afford the lutenists right hand more space between the strings and soundboard. Soundboard thickness varies, but generally hovers between 1.5 and 2 mm, some luthiers tune the belly as they build, removing mass and adapting bracing to produce desirable sonic results. The lute belly is almost never finished, but in cases the luthier may size the top with a very thin coat of shellac or glair to help keep it clean. After joining the top to the sides, a half-binding is usually installed around the edge of the soundboard, the half-binding is approximately half the thickness of the soundboard and is usually made of a contrasting color wood. The rebate for the half-binding must be precise to avoid compromising structural integrity. The back or the shell is assembled from strips of hardwood called ribs. There are braces inside on the soundboard to give it strength, the neck is made of light wood, with a veneer of hardwood to provide durability for the fretboard beneath the strings. Unlike most modern stringed instruments, the fretboard is mounted flush with the top
8.
Mandola
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The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin, the four courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola. The mandola, although now rarer, is the ancestor of the mandolin, the name mandola may originate with the ancient pandura, and was also rendered as mandora, the change perhaps having been due to approximation to the Italian word for almond. The instrument developed from the lute at a date, being more compact and cheaper to build. Historically related instruments include the mandore, mandole, vandola, bandola, bandora, however, significantly different instruments have at times and places taken on the same or similar names, and the true mandola has been strung in several different ways. The mandola has four courses of metal strings, tuned in unison rather than in octaves. The scale length is typically around 42 cm, the mandola is typically played with a plectrum. The double strings accommodate a sustaining technique called tremolando, an alternation of the plectrum on a single course of strings. The mandola is commonly used in folk music—particularly Italian folk music and it is sometimes played in Irish traditional music, but the instruments octave mandola, Irish bouzouki and modern cittern are more commonly used. It is tuned like a viola CGDA, like the guitar, the mandola can be acoustic or electric. Attila the Stockbroker, punk poet and frontman of Barnstormer, uses an electric mandola as his main instrument, alex Lifeson, guitarist of Rush, has also featured the mandola in his work. Mandolas are often played in orchestras, along with other members of the mandolin family, mandolin, mandocello. Sometimes the octave mandolin is included as well, Mandolin Mando-bass Octave mandola - Tuned an octave below the mandolin Mandocello - Tuned an octave below the mandola Irish bouzouki Troughton, John. Mandolin Manual, The Art, Craft and Science of the Mandolin, united States, Crowood Press, Limited, The. The Tenor Mandola Chord Bible, CGDA Standard Tuning 1,728 Chords, Chords for Mandolin, Irish Bango, Bouzouki, Mandola, Mamdocello. — A chord book featuring 20 pages of popular chords, the Mandolin Page theMandolinTuner, a mandolin site focusing on mandolin tuning, chords and tabs
