1.
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
2.
Music of Iran
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Music of Iran or Music of Persia, as evidenced by the archaeological records of the Fertile Crescent civilization of Elam, the most ancient culture in southwestern Iran, dates back thousands of years. In ancient Iran musicians held socially respectable positions and we know that the Elamites and the Achaemenid Empire certainly made use of musicians but we do not know what that music was like. During the Parthian era, troubadours or Gosans were highly sought after as entertainers, there are theories in Academia that perhaps the early Dari Poets of Eastern Iran like Roudaki were in fact Gosans. The history of performance in Sassanid Iran is however better documented than earlier periods. This is especially evident in the context of Zoroastrian ritual. By the time of Khosrau II the Sassanid royal court was the host of prominent musicians such as Ramtin, Bamshad, Nakisa, Azad, Sarkash, among these survived names, Barbad is remembered in much documents and has been named as remarkably high skilled. He has been credited to have given an organization of musical system consisting of seven Royal modes named Xosrovani, thirty derived modes named lahn and these numbers are in accordance with Sassanids calendar of number of days in a week, month, and year. The theories these modal systems were based on are not known, there are also some of a descriptive nature like roshan cheragh. The relief depicts two boats and the picture shows these boats at two successive moments within the same panel. Barbad may have invented the lute and the tradition that was to transform into the Maqam tradition. Even after Islam, Persian musicians did not disappear, Zaryab is often credited with being the greatest influence over Andalusian, Farabi and Avicenna were not only musical theorists but adept at the lute and the Ney, respectively. The position of a work of music often depends on the music genre. The academic Authentic Persian Music is strongly based on the theories of aesthetics as expounded by the likes of Farabi. It also preserves melodic formula that are attributed to the musicians of the Persian imperial court of Khosroe Parviz in the Sassanid Period. However, the influence of Dastgah cannot be underestimated as it is seen as the reservoir of authenticity that other forms of musical genres derive melodic and performance ideas, Persian classical music goes back a long way. Musicians like Barbad were legendary in the empire of the Sassanid era, until the early 20th century, musiqi-e assil was heard almost entirely at the royal courts of the monarchy. The renaissance brought popularity to the genre, Women were banned from singing as soloists for male audiences, though they were allowed to perform as soloists for female audiences, as instrumentalists and in choirs. For this reason some female singers, including Maryam Akhondy, left the Islamic Republic to work in exile, most notable living Iranian classical vocalists are, Sodeyf, Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri
3.
Music of Azerbaijan
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Azerbaijani music is the musical tradition of the Azeri people, from Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. It builds on folk traditions that reach back nearly 1,000 years, for centuries, Azer music has evolved under the badge of monody, producing rhythmically diverse melodies. Music from Azerbaijan has a branch system, where chromatisation of major and minor scales is of great importance. In 1920, Azerbaijani classical music had undergone a renaissance and Baku Academy of Music was founded to give classical musicians the same support as folk musicians, modern day advocates of Western classical music in Azerbaijani include Farhad Badalbeyli, Fidan Gasimova and Franghiz Alizadeh. Beginning in 1900, opera troupes toured Baku on a yearly basis, most songs recount stories of real life events and Azerbaijani folklore, or have developed through song contests between troubadour poets. Corresponding to their origins, folk songs are played at weddings, funerals. Regional folk music generally accompanies folk dances, which vary significantly across regions, the regional mood also affects the subject of the folk songs, e. g. folk songs from the Caspian Sea are lively in general and express the customs of the region. Songs about betrayal have an air of defiance about them instead of sadness, as this genre is viewed as a music of the people, musicians in socialist movements began to adapt folk music with contemporary sounds and arrangements in the form of protest music. Other instruments include the garmon, tutek, and daf, due to the cultural crossbreeding prevalent during the Ottoman Empire, the tutek has influenced various cultures in the Caucasus region, e. g. the duduks. The zurna and naghara duo is also popular in rural areas, Ashiqs are traveling bards who sing and play the saz, a form of lute. Their songs are semi-improvised around a common base and this art is one of the symbols of Azerbaijani culture and considered an emblem of national identity and the guardian of Azerbaijani language, literature and music. Since 2009 the art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, meykhana is a distinctive Azerbaijani literary and folk rap tradition, consisting of an unaccompanied song performed by one or more people improvising on a particular subject. Meykhana is distinct from spoken word poetry in that it is performed in time to a beat, performers also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Meykhana masters may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics, Mugham is one of the many folk musical compositions from Azerbaijan, contrast with Tasnif, Ashugs. It is a complex art form that weds classical poetry. Unlike Western modes, mugham modes are associated not only with scales but with an orally transmitted collection of melodies, Mugham is a compound composition of many parts. The choice of a particular mugham and a style of performance fits a specific event, the dramatic unfolding in performance is typically associated with increasing intensity and rising pitches, and a form of poetic-musical communication between performers and initiated listeners. Three major schools of mugham performance existed from the late 19th and early 20th centuries - the region of Garabagh, Shirvan, the town of Shusha of Karabakh was particularly renowned for this art
4.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
5.
Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
6.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
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.
Plectrum
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A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, in harpsichords, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism. A plectrum for electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars, the size, shape and width may vary considerably. Thin items such as coins, bread clips or broken compact discs. Banjo and guitar players may wear a metal or plastic thumb pick mounted on a ring, guitar picks are made of a variety of materials, including celluloid, metal, and rarely other exotic materials such as turtle shell, but today delrin is the most common. For other instruments in the day most players use plastic plectra but a variety of other materials, including wood. Many guitarists also use the pick and the remaining right-hand fingers simultaneously to combine some advantages of flat picking and this technique is called hybrid picking. A plectrum of the type is often called a pick. The plectra for the Japanese biwa and shamisen can be large. Plectra used for Chinese instruments such as the sanxian were formerly made of animal horn, click on the images to view them in full size. In a harpsichord, there is a plectrum for each string. These plectra are very small, often only about a long, about 1.5 millimeters wide. The plectrum is gently tapered, being narrowest at the plucking end, the top surface of the plectrum is flat and horizontal, and is held in the tongue of the jack, which permits it to pluck moving upward and pass almost silently past the string moving downward. In the historical period of harpsichord construction plectra were made of feather quills. In Italy, some makers used vulture quills, other Italian harpsichords employed plectra of leather. In late French harpsichords by the great builder Pascal Taskin, peau de buffle, modern harpsichords frequently employ plectra made with plastic, specifically the plastic known as acetal. Some plectra are of the variety of acetal, sold by DuPont under the name Delrin, while others are of the copolymer variety. Harpsichord technicians and builders generally use the names to refer to these materials
9.
Fingerstyle guitar
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Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term is used synonymously with fingerpicking, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues. Often, the guitarist will play the notes, interspersed with the melodys accompanying chords. Some fingerpicking guitarists also intersperse percussive tapping along with the melody, chords and this enables a single guitarist to provide all of these important song elements. This enables singer-guitarists to accompany themselves, and it enables smaller groups which have only a single guitarist to use one guitarist to provide all of these musical elements. Fingerpicking is a technique on the classical or nylon string guitar. Fingerpicking is less common on electric guitars, except in the metal music virtuoso style of lead guitar playing known as shred guitar. Because individual digits play notes on the rather than the hand working as a single unit. Deep bass notes, harmonic accompaniment, melody, and percussion can all be played simultaneously when playing Fingerstyle, players do not have to carry a plectrum, but fingernails may have to be maintained at the right length and in good condition. It is possible to play multiple non-adjacent strings at exactly the same time and this enables the guitarist to play a very low bass note and a high treble note at the same time. This enables the guitarist to play double stops, such as an octave, a fifth, (an exception to this may be found in the flamenco technique of rasgueado. It is easy to play arpeggios, but the techniques for tremolo and it is possible to play chords without any arpeggiation, because up to five strings can be plucked simultaneously. There is less need for fretting hand damping in playing chords, a greater variation in strokes is possible, allowing greater expressiveness in timbre and dynamics. A wide variety of strums and rasgueados are possible, less energy is generally imparted to strings than with plectrum playing, leading to lower volume when playing acoustically. Playing on heavier gauge strings can damage nails, fingerstyle is more suited to nylon strings or lighter gauge steel strings Nylon string guitars are most frequently played fingerstyle. The term Classical guitar music can refer to any kind of art music played on a nylon string guitar, or more narrowly to music of the classical period, as opposed to baroque or romantic music. The major feature of classical fingerstyle technique is that it enables solo rendition of harmony, the technique is intended to maximise the degree of control over the musical dynamics, texture, volume and timbral characteristics of the guitar. Careful attention is paid to the posture of the player
10.
Music of Greece
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The music of Greece is as diverse and celebrated as its history. Greek music separates into two parts, Greek traditional music and Byzantine music, with more eastern sounds, Music is a significant aspect of Hellenic culture, both within Greece and in the diaspora. Greek musical history extends far back into ancient Greece, since music was a part of ancient Greek theater. Later influences from the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire changed the form, in the 19th century, opera composers, like Nikolaos Mantzaros, Spyridon Xyndas and Spyridon Samaras and symphonists, like Dimitris Lialios and Dionysios Rodotheatos revitalized Greek art music. In ancient Greece, men usually performed choruses performed for entertainment, celebration, Instruments included the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara. Music was an important part of education in ancient Greece, due to Romes reverence for Greek culture, the Romans borrowed the Greek method of enchiriadic notation to record their music, if they used any notation at all. In his lexicographical discussion of instruments, the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih cited the lūrā as an instrument of the Byzantines along with the urghun, shilyani. These genres have certainly reached a degree of evolution. They were forms of a music that had many elements of ancient Greek origin but also. By the beginning of the 20th century, music-cafés were popular in Greek cities like Constantinople and Smyrna, the bands were typically led by a female vocalist and included a violin. The improvised songs typically exclaimed amán amán, which led to the name amanédhes or café-aman, Greek musicians of this period included Marika Papagika, Rosa Eskenazi and Rita Abatzi. This period also brought in the Rebetiko movement, which had local Smyrnaic, Greek folk traditions are said to derive from the music played by ancient Greeks. There are said to be two musical movements in Greek folk music, Acritic songs and Klephtic songs, akritic music comes from the 9th century akrites, or border guards of the Byzantine Empire. Following the end of the Byzantine period, klephtic music arose before the Greek Revolution, developed among the kleftes, Klephtic music is monophonic and uses no harmonic accompaniment. Many of the earliest recordings were done by Arvanites like Yiorgia Mittaki, instrumentalists include clarinet virtuosos like Petroloukas Halkias, Yiorgos Yevyelis and Yiannis Vassilopoulos, as well as oud and fiddle players like Nikos Saragoudas and Yiorgos Koros. Nisiotika is a term denoting folk songs from the Greek islands. Among the most popular types of them is Ikariótiko traghoúdhi, song from Ikaria, ikariótikos is a traditional type of dance, and also the name of its accompanying type of singing, originating in the Aegean island of Ikaria. At first it was a slow dance, but today Ikariotikos is a very quick dance
