1.
Chapman Stick
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The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can cover several of these musical parts simultaneously. A Stick looks like a version of the fretboard of an electric guitar. It is, however, considerably longer and wider than a guitar fretboard, unlike the electric guitar, it is usually played by tapping or fretting the strings, rather than plucking them. Instead of one hand fretting and the other hand plucking, both hands sound notes by striking the strings against the fingerboard just behind the appropriate frets for the desired notes. For this reason, it can sound many more notes at once than some other stringed instruments and this arrangement lends itself to playing many lines at once, and many Stick players have mastered performing bass, chords and melody lines simultaneously. Typically, the Chapman Stick is held via a belt-hook and a shoulder strap, the player hooks the instrument onto the belt and places the head and dominant arm through the shoulder strap. The instrument then settles into a position approximately 30 to 40 degrees from vertical, the player then hammers onto the strings with the fingertips in the same way that one would strike a piano key. The technique is similar to that of the piano inasmuch as the player covers both bass and melody notes together with both hands, and each note is struck with one finger of one hand. Typically, one plays the melody on the treble strings. In recent years, a playing position has become somewhat popular wherein a cross-member is laid upon the knees of the seated player. In 1969, jazz guitarist Emmett Chapman developed the two-handed tapping technique, at the time, Chapman was playing a 9-string long-scale guitar, but decided to design and develop a new instrument for use with free hands to use the methods full potential. The Chapman Stick took five years to design and develop, during which Chapman also opted to set up a business to launch it as a commercially produced instrument. The first production model of the Stick was shipped in 1974 – on October 10 of the same year, former Weather Report bassist Alphonso Johnson was among the first musicians to introduce the Chapman Stick to the public. He would also use it with Liquid Tension Experiment and in sessions for bands including Pink Floyd, recently, Levin formed the band Stick Men, consisting solely of one drummer and two Stick players. Recordings that have been influential on Stick players include the 1981 King Crimson album Discipline, amy Grants hit single Angels also featured a Stick solo. The piece being played in the scene is from Emmett Chapmans recording of his original song Back Yard from a cassette recording, wayne Lytle, creator of Animusic, commented that on his piece Stick Figures, his inspiration for the semi-anthropomorphic bass guitar was the Chapman Stick
2.
Luthier
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A luthier is someone who builds or repairs string instruments generally consisting of a neck and a sound box. The word luthier comes from the French word luth, which means lute, a luthier was originally a maker of lutes, but the term now includes makers of stringed instruments such as the violin or classical guitar. A luthier does not make harps or pianos, as these require different skills, the craft of making string instruments, or lutherie, is commonly divided into two main categories, makers of stringed instruments that are plucked or strummed, and those that are bowed. Since bowed instruments require a bow, the category includes a subtype known as a bow maker or archetier. Luthiers may also teach string-instrument making, either through apprenticeship or formal classroom instruction, Antonio Torres Jurado is credited with developing the form of classical guitar still in use today. Christian Frederick Martin of Germany developed a form evolved into the modern steel-string acoustic guitar. The American luthier Orville Gibson specialized in mandolins, and is credited with creating the archtop guitar, the important 20th-century American luthiers John DAngelico and Jimmy DAquisto made archtop guitars. Lloyd Loar worked briefly for the Gibson Guitar Corporation making mandolins and his designs for a family of arch top instruments are held in high esteem by todays luthiers, who seek to reproduce their sound. Concurrent with Fenders work, guitarist Les Paul independently developed an electric guitar. A company founded by luthier Friedrich Gretsch and continued by his son and grandson, Fred and Fred, Jr. originally made banjos, vintage guitars are often sought by collectors. Bowed instruments include, cello, crwth, double bass, erhu, fiddle, hudok, mouthbow, nyckelharpa, hurdy-gurdy, rabab, rebec, sarangi, viol, viola, viola da braccio, viola damore, the purported inventor of the violin is Andrea Amati. Amati was originally a maker, but turned to the new instrument form of violin in the mid-16th century. He was the progenitor of the famous Amati family of luthiers active in Cremona and his eldest was Antonio Amati, and the younger, Girolamo Amati. It is even possible Bartolomeo Cristofori, later inventor of the piano, gasparo da Salò of Brescia was another important early luthier of the violin family. About 80 of his instruments survive, and around 100 documents that relate to his work and he was also a double bass player and son and nephew of two violin players, Francesco and Agosti, respectively. Gasparo Duiffopruggar of Füssen, Germany, was incorrectly credited as the inventor of the violin. He was likely an important maker, but no documentation survives, da Salò made many instruments and exported to France and Spain, and probably to England. He had at least five apprentices, his son Francesco, a helper named Battista, Alexander of Marsiglia, Maggini inherited da Salòs business in Brescia
3.
Yuri Landman
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Yuri Landman started as a comic book artist and made his debut in the comics field in 1997 with Je Mag Alles Met Me Doen. In the follow-up, released in 1998, Het Verdiende Loon, for the second title he received the 1998 Breda Prize, an award for rising new comic artists in the Netherlands. Since then he has published no other comic books, together with Cees van Appeldoorn, he formed the lo-fi band Zoppo playing bass and prepared guitar in 1997. After 2 albums and several 7” singles, Landman left the band in 2000, Landman then formed the noise band Avec Aisance with drummer/producer Valentijn Höllander and released a CD, Vivre dans l’aisance in 2004. After quitting Avec-A in 2006, he focused mainly on instrument building, Landman is musically untrained and cannot play chords. While with Avec-A, Landman began creating and building several experimental string instruments, including electric zithers, electric Cymbalum, in the period between 2000-2005, Landman created 9 prototype instruments. In 2006 he changed his focus and stopped to perform. The Moodswinger was the first instrument Landman made for the band Liars, after the Moodswinger, he started making more instruments for other bands as well. From November 2006 to January 2007 Landman finished 2 copies of The Moonlander, the Springtime is an experimental electric guitar with seven strings and three outputs. The first prototype of this instrument, created in 2008, was made for guitar player Laura-Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes, afterwards he also made copies for Lou Barlow and dEUS Mauro Pawlowski. For John Schmersal of Enon he built the Twister guitar, a version of the Springtime. In 2009 he finished instruments for The Dodos, Liam Finn, HEALTH, Micachu, for The Dodos and Finn he created electric 24 string drum guitars called the Tafelberg and for Andrews an electric 17 string harp guitar called the Burner guitar. He also started to again after a Perpignan Festival hosted by Vincent Moon. Meanwhile, he continued to build instruments for such as These Are Powers, Women. For his own musical career he develops a 25-meter electric long-string instrument, the Moodswinger led to a research on harmonics theory. He published a clarifying 3rd Bridge diagram related to this subject in 2012, besides his output as an inventor and noise musician, he starts to focus on music education, and participatory art. At first Landman started giving lectures at venues, festivals. He published an extensive 8 chapter guide on how to prepare a guitar and his lectures and presentations with his instruments lead to a request in 2009 for a practical building workshop
4.
Bradford Reed
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Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of avant-garde band King Missile III. He is proficient at such instruments as drums, guitar, melodica, piano, in the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument. The pencilina is a string instrument that Reed invented in the 1980s. The instrument is a double neck 3rd bridge guitar, the divided strings can be then played separately, creating a tap harmonic-like tone. In addition, there are four bells – a fire bell, a door bell, the pencilina is played by striking its strings and bells with sticks. The strings may also be plucked or bowed, the Pencilina is described in the book Nice Noise by Bart Hopkin and Yuri Landman. Bradford Reeds homepage Bradford Reed on oddmusic. com
5.
Hans Reichel
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Hans Reichel was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer. Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany and he began to teach himself violin at age 7, playing in the school orchestra until age 15. Around age 15, he began to play guitar and became interested in music, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and later, Frank Zappa, Cream. Reichel played in groups before giving up music for a time while studying graphic design. He came back to music in the early 1970s, when he recorded a tape of guitar music and this recording was sent to the jury of the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, where he was asked to appear in a special concert for newcomers. Discussions with Jost Gebers, the founder of Free Music Production, led to release of Reichels music on the label, the majority of Reichels body of work consists of solo recordings, along with performances in smaller group settings. He recorded duets with a variety of musicians, including accordionist Rüdiger Carl, cellist Tom Cora, percussionist EROC. Reichel was also a member of the September Band, and also performed with larger ensembles led by the likes of saxophonist Thomas Borgmann and Butch Morris, due to the limited distribution of FMP, Reichels music has never much been heard, especially in the United States. Smaller, independent labels such as Rastascan, Table of the Elements, despite this limited exposure, Reichel was featured in Bart Hopkins Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones, a book and CD released in 1996, devoted to experimental musical instruments. He was also named among the 30 Most Radical Guitarists in a 1997 issue of Guitar Player magazine, Hans Reichel died in Wuppertal, aged 62, in November 2011. He should not be confused with the painter Hans Reichel, a friend of both Henry Miller and Alfred Perles, Reichel constructed and built several variations of guitars and basses, most of them featuring multiple fretboards and unique positioning of pickups and 3rd bridges. The resulting sounds exceeded the range of tuning and added unusual effects, from odd overtones to metallic noises. His Daxophone is a wooden blade fixed in a block containing a contact microphone
6.
Gittler guitar
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A Gittler Guitar is an experimental designed guitar created by Allan Gittler. He made 60 guitars in New York in the mid-1970s to early 1980s, in 1982, Gittler emigrated to Israel, settled in Hebron, changed his name to Avraham Bar Rashi, and licensed the design to a local company in Kiryat Bialik called Astron Engineer Enterprises LTD. They computer-machined around 300, Bar Rashi commented later to the effect that he was unhappy with the manufacturing, the first 60 are sometimes described as the Fishbone Gittler guitar. Three Gittler basses also exist, made in New York and numbered 1,2, during this period, he also made a portable, battery-powered amplifier, cylindrical in shape, with a long handle that allowed it to be rolled around like a grass-seed-roller. Rolling was necessary to transport it through the street, since it was heavy due to the large number of D batteries that powered it. He frequently used this set-up to play his guitar in a street adjoining Astor Place in lower Manhattan, the Gittler guitar has six strings. Each string has its own pickup, later versions have a plastic body. The six individual pickups can be routed to divided outputs via D-sub-9-pin, or be mixed to a 1/4 TS connector. The built in pre-amps are powered by a 9 V battery or via D-sub connector, the New York version came without a pre-amp section, the individual pickups signals were led into single cables, which could then be plugged into a mixing box or each separately amplified. The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA has one instrument in its collection, Gittler guitars can also be seen in several other museums and collections. The only left-handed Gittler guitar known to exist was made by Bar Rashi himself in 1995 or 1996 and it is a signed minimalist instrument, identical to the one he played in the later period of his life and made to order for a client in Jerusalem. There are only 12 separate parts in total and the frets are one long thread of nylon, official website Site entirely dedicated Gittler guitars and their customization and repair MoMA, The Collection, Allan Gittler
7.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
8.
Experimental rock
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Experimental rock is a subgenre of rock music which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. From its inception, rock music was experimental, but it wasnt until the late 1960s that rock artists began creating extended, in 1967, the genre was as commercially viable as pop music, but by 1970, most of its leading players had incapacitated themselves in some form. In Germany, the krautrock subgenre merged elements of improvisation and psychedelic rock with avant-garde, later in the 1970s, significant musical crossbreeding took place in tandem with the developments of punk and new wave, DIY experimentation, and electronic music. Funk, jazz-rock, and fusion rhythms became integrated into experimental rock music. The first wave of 1980s experimental rock groups had few precedents for their sound. Later in the decade, avant-rock pursued a psychedelic aesthetic that differed from the self-consciousness, during the 1990s, a loose movement known as post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock. As of the 2010s, the experimental rock has fallen to indiscriminate use, with virtually every modern rock band being categorized under prefixes such as post-, kraut-, psych-. Although experimentation had always existed in music, it wasnt until the late 1960s that new openings were created from the aesthetic intersecting with the social. In 1966, the boundaries between pop music and the avant-garde began to blur as rock albums were conceived and executed as distinct, self-taught rock musicians in the middle and late 1960s drew from the work of composers such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio. In addition, The Quietus Ben Graham described duos the Silver Apples, calling attention to the very recordedness of the album. This would also be reflected in contemporary experimental rock LPs, such as the Beach Boys Pet Sounds and Smile, the Whos The Who Sell Out and Tommy. The Velvet Underground were a group in experimental rock, according to Rosenberg. Peppers inspired a new consideration for experimental rock as commercially viable music, as progressive rock developed, experimental rock acquired notoriety alongside art rock. By 1970, most of the musicians which had been at the forefront of rock had incapacitated themselves. Groups such as Can, Faust, Neu, the ideas of minimalism and composers such as Stockhausen would be particularly influential. During this era, funk, jazz-rock, and fusion rhythms became integrated into experimental rock music, some groups who were categorized as post-punk considered themselves part of an experimental rock trajectory, with This Heat as one of the prominent players. Anderson claims that the no wave scene represented New York’s last stylistically cohesive avant-rock movement, steve Redhead noted the resuscitation of New Yorks avant-rock scene, including artists such as Sonic Youth and John Zorn, in the 1980s. In the late 1980s, avant-rock pursued a frazzled, psychedelia-tinged, blissed out aesthetic that differed from the self-consciousness, the UK shoegaze scene was seen by some as a continuation of an experimental rock tradition
9.
Free jazz
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For the Ornette Coleman album see Free Jazz, A Collective Improvisation. Though the music of jazz composers varied widely, a common feature was dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop. Often described as avant-garde, free jazz has also described as an attempt to return jazz to its primitive, often religious, roots. As its name implies, free jazz cannot be defined more than loosely, as many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms, and it was never completely distinct as a genre. Many free jazz musicians, notably Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane, used harsh overblowing or other techniques to elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments, Free jazz musicians created a progressive musical language which drew on earlier styles of jazz such as Dixieland jazz and African music. Typically this kind of music is played by groups of musicians. The music often swings but without regular meter, and there are frequent accelerandi and ritardandi, Free jazz is strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane. Other important pioneers include Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Joe Maneri, some of bassist Charles Minguss work was also important in establishing free jazz. Although today free jazz is the generally used term, many terms were used to describe the loosely defined movement, including avant-garde, energy music. During its early and mid-1960s heyday, much free jazz was released by established labels such as Prestige, Blue Note, keith Johnson of AllMusic describes a Modern Creative genre, in which musicians may incorporate free playing into structured modes -- or play just about anything. Defining the essence of jazz is complicated, many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms. Many individual musicians reject efforts at classification, regarding them as useless or unduly limiting, earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms with a set framework of chord changes. In free jazz, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is eliminated, Free jazz, especially during its inception, contains theme of both progressive musical language and gathering inspiration from the past. The rejection of the bop aesthetic was combined with a fascination with earlier styles of jazz such as Dixieland jazz with its collective improvisation. This includes Ed Blackwells use of the West African talking drum, typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians, although some examples use larger numbers. For example, John Coltranes 1965 album Ascension, uses eleven musicians, other forms of jazz use clear regular meters and strongly pulsed rhythms, usually in 4/4 or 3/4. Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation and often swings but without regular meter, despite all of this, it is still very often possible to tap ones foot to a free jazz performance, meter is more freely variable but has not disappeared entirely. Previous jazz forms used harmonic structures, and even when improvisation occurred it was founded on the notes in the chords, Free jazz almost by definition is free of such structures, but also by definition it retains much of the language of earlier jazz playing
10.
John Cage
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John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. The content of the composition is not four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, as is often assumed, the works challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the piano, for which he wrote numerous dance-related works. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes and his teachers included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cages major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, the I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cages standard composition tool for the rest of his life. Cage was born September 5,1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles and his father, John Milton Cage, Sr. was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia Harvey, worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times. The familys roots were deeply American, in a 1976 interview, John Milton Sr. taught his son that if someone says cant that shows you what to do. In 1944–45 Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents, Crete and Dad, the latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while Crete is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work. During high school, one of his teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon. By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer and he graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian, having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being hushed and silent, he said, we should have the opportunity to hear other people think. Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a major in 1928. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks, I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly, Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre, where he took a train to Paris, Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it and he then took up painting, poetry and music
11.
Prepared piano
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A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects on or between the strings. They must fit in the location inside the piano. They should not move from their location during playing, additionally, most preparations will change the timbre of the string in such a way that the original pitch of the string will no longer be perceptible, though there are occasional exceptions to this. He developed these techniques in such as Aeolian Harp and The Banshee. Although Cowells techniques dont call for placing objects inside the piano, the invention of the prepared piano, per se, is usually traced to John Cage. Cage first prepared a piano when he was commissioned to write music for Bacchanale, for some time previously, Cage had been writing exclusively for a percussion ensemble, but the hall where Fort’s dance was to be staged had no room for a percussion group. The only instrument available was a grand piano. After some consideration, Cage said that he realized it was possible “to place in the hands of a single pianist the equivalent of an entire percussion orchestra. With just one musician, you can really do a number of things on the inside of the piano if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard”. Ferrante & Teicher, were American piano duo who produced over an albums of light classical. Between 1950 and 1980 they included partially prepared pianos on a number of their tunes to add percussive effects, all Tomorrows Parties from The Velvet Underground & Nico, John Cale prepared his piano with a chain of paper clips. Since 1982, Roger Miller has fashioned his own take on prepared piano in his work, initially featured on Mission of Burmas 45 Trem II, Miller has since released many albums incorporating this technique. His concert hall compositions, from 2009 to present, often utilize prepared piano, on his 1973 album Another Green World, composer Brian Eno employed prepared piano on the track entitled Little Fishes. German band Tangerine Dream includes prepared piano on their 1975 album Rubycon, aphex Twin widely used prepared piano in his 2001 album Drukqs and 2015 Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 EP. Strictly speaking, a piano is not a prepared piano. The strings original pitches remain perceptible, although the tacks can be removed from the hammers, inserting them causes permanent damage to the felt, and for this and other reasons the use of tacks is generally discouraged by piano technicians. The Acoustisizer is a musical instrument built from a small grand piano with built in speakers, magnetic guitar pickups, PZMs. It was built as part of a thesis project at California State University Dominguez Hills by Bob Fenger
12.
Keith Rowe
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Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a member of both the influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M. I. M. E. O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowes paintings have featured on most of his own albums. After years of obscurity, Rowe has achieved a level of relative notoriety and he is seen as a godfather of EAI, with many of his recent recordings having been released by Erstwhile Records. Rowe began his playing jazz in the early 1960s—notably with Mike Westbrook. His early influences were guitarists like Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, eventually, however, Rowe grew tired of what he considered the forms limitations. Rowe began experimenting, slowly and gradually, an important step was a New Years resolution to stop tuning his guitar—much to Westbrooks displeasure. Rowe gradually expanded into jazz and free improvisation, eventually abandoning conventional guitar technique. This change in his approach to guitar, Rowe reports, was inspired by a teacher in one of his painting courses who told him, Rowe. Rowe reports that after considering this idea from a musical perspective, how could I abandon the technique. He has been known to objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips. A January 1997 feature in Guitar Player magazine described a Rowe performance as resemble a surgeon operating on a patient, Rowe sometimes incorporates live radio broadcasts into his performances, including shortwave radio and number stations. On AMMMusic, towards the end of the cacophonous Ailantus Glandolusa, prevost writes that during an AMM performance in Istanbul, Rowe located and integrated a radio broadcast of the pious intonation of a male Turkish voice. AMM of course, had no idea what the material was. Later, it was complimented upon the way that verses from The Koran had been introduced into the performance. This he does masterfully, mixing in random operatics and chance encounters with talkshow hosts to anchor the sound in humanity, amidst the abstraction. Discography, links, mp3 samples, A2001 Interview In Conversation with Richard Pinnell on the Audition Radio Show, Dublin,01.04.06 A2007 Interview
13.
Fred Frith
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Jeremy Webster Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor. Probably best known for his work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre and he has also composed several long works, including Traffic Continues and Freedom in Fragments. Frith produces most of his own music, and has produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan. Frith is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels award-winning 1990 documentary Step Across the Border and he also appears in the Canadian documentary Act of God, which is about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. Frith has contributed to a number of publications, including New Musical Express and Trouser Press. Friths career spans four decades and he appears on over 400 albums. He still performs actively throughout the world, currently Frith is Professor of Composition in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California. He lives in the United States with his wife, German photographer Heike Liss, Frith was awarded the 2008 Demetrio Stratos Prize for his career achievements in experimental music. The prize was established in 2005 in honour of experimental vocalist Demetrio Stratos, of the Italian group Area, in 2010 Frith received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England in recognition of his contribution to music. Frith is the brother of Simon Frith, a critic and sociologist, and Chris Frith. Frith was born in Heathfield in Sussex, England into a family where music was considered a part of life. He started violin lessons at the age of five and became a member of his school orchestra, but at 13 he switched to guitar after watching a group imitating a popular instrumental band at the time, the Shadows. He decided to learn how to play guitar and get into a band, Frith taught himself guitar from a book of guitar chords and soon found himself in a school group called The Chaperones, playing Shadows and Beatles covers. Friths first public performances were in 1967 in folk clubs in the North of England, besides the blues, Frith started listening to any music that had guitar in it, including folk, classical, ragtime, and flamenco. He also listened to Indian, Japanese, and Balinese music and was drawn to East European music after a Yugoslav school friend taught him folk tunes from his home. Frith went to Cambridge University in 1967, where his musical horizons were expanded further by the philosophies of John Cage and Frank Zappas manipulation of rock music. Frith graduated from Christs College, Cambridge with a BA in 1970, Frith met Tim Hodgkinson, a fellow student, in a blues club at Cambridge University in 1968
14.
Prepared guitar
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A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instruments strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, with prepared guitars, however, one of the key goals in preparing the instrument is changing its timbre – the fundamental tone composition of the sound. This is typically achieved by placing objects on or under the strings, many of the sounds sound more or less like clocks, bells or Non Western musical instruments or even non string percussion instruments. The history of Norwegian composer and guitar player Bjørn Fongaard probably marks the first steps into prepared guitar and he started off by constructing a quarter tone guitar with adaption of the fretboard, but very early left this in favour of a diverse set of prepared guitar techniques. His first pieces in this came in the mid 60s. The method of preparing the guitar was developed in the late 1960s by Keith Rowe, in imitation of Jackson Pollocks painting method. He has been known to objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips. Another pioneer was Fred Frith who in 1974 released an album called Guitar Solos. The album comprises eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised music played on prepared guitars by Frith, the album was recorded using a modified 1936 Gibson K-11. Frith added an extra pickup over the strings at the nut and he then split the fretboard in two with a capo, effectively giving him two guitars, each amplified separately, that he could play independently with each hand. To split the sounds further he attached alligator clips at various positions on the strings, the net result was a guitar with multiple sound sources that could be channeled to a mixer and distributed across the stereo soundscape. In the 1980s Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth and other experimental art rockers also utilized prepared guitars, koka Nikoladze developed a preparation technique, which afterwards was named Nikoladze Preparation. In this case an acoustic guitar was prepared with a type of a light bulb. The beautiful demonstration of upper mentioned technique is the composition Starshine ~ for violin, prepared guitar, other contemporary prepared guitar composers/performers include, Dani Rabin of Marbin incorporated prepared guitar into the Jazz-Rock style in a non-avant-garde fashion. Duane Denison had used prepared guitar with The Jesus Lizard and Legendary Shack Shakers, koka Nikoladze Developed a guitar preparation technique with light bulb, he also did a lot in developing a standard acoustic guitar as the bowed instrument. Martín Irigoyen of Vernian Process and Erik Sanko, both of whom use electronic devices, hand ventilators, walkie-talkies, paper clips, aluminum foil, credit cards, nikita Koshkin, who uses cork, matches and foam mutes. Jacques Palinckx from the Netherlands uses vibrators, radio, toys, cor Fuhler uses multiple vibrators and 3rd bridge on acoustic guitar. Micachu, who uses unorthodox instruments which are sometimes customised or even homemade and these included a modified guitar played with a hammer action, called a chu
15.
Glenn Branca
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Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Branca started playing the guitar at age 15. He also created a number of sound art collage pieces for his own amusement. After attending York College in 1966–1967, he started the cover band The Crystal Ship with Al Whiteside. In the early 1970s, Branca studied theater at Emerson College in Boston, in 1973, he moved from Boston to London with his then girlfriend Meg English. After moving back to Boston in 1974, he met John Rehberger, while there, he began experimenting with sound as the founder of an experimental theater group called Bastard Theatre in 1975. Working out of a loft on Massachusetts Avenue they wrote and produced the music/theater piece Anthropophagoi for a two-week run, in 1976, The Bastard Theatres second production was What Actually Happened at a new loft in Central Square, Cambridge and later at The Boston Arts Group. Considering the unconventional and sometimes confrontational nature of the productions, the shows still received interested reviews from the Phoenix, all music for Bastard Theatre productions were original compositions by Branca or Rehberger and were performed live by the actor/musicians. In 1976 Branca moved to New York City to continue in experimental theater and he encountered the N. Dodo Band and watched their rehearsals in Chelsea, hoping to use the space for a theater production. Branca spent time with one of its members, Jeffrey Lohn, the two began forming a theater group when Branca decided he wanted to form a band, which he called the Static and later Theoretical Girls. Branca put up posters to recruit members, and after seeing one of the posters, lohns girlfriend Margaret De Wys joined the band as its bassist, and they borrowed drummer Mike Anthol from the N. Dodo Band. Artist Dan Graham booked the band at Franklin Furnace for its first performance, the group reformed in 1977 with Wharton Tiers as its drummer. In 1982, Branca launched his own label, Neutral Records, releasing Y Pants LP. In the early 1980s, he released his first album under his own name, in the same year, he composed several medium-length compositions for electric guitar ensembles, including The Ascension and Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses. The Ascension appeared on his second same titled album in 1981. 3, he began to compose for the harmonic series. In this project, Branca was initially influenced by the writings of Dane Rudhyar, Hermann von Helmholtz and he also built several electrically amplified instruments of his own invention, expanding his ensemble beyond the guitar. A few of these instruments were third bridge zithers he called harmonic guitars, in the early 1990s, David Baratier attempted to document Brancas teaching style in They Walked in Line
16.
Harry Partch
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Harry Partch was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, to play his music, Partch built a large number of unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from abstract music, ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced his music theatre. Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age, by fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations. He dropped out of the University of Southern Californias School of Music in 1922 over dissatisfaction with the quality of his teachers, in 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition. Partch frequently moved around the US, early in his career, he was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo, later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself. In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partchs music, Partch was born on June 24,1901, in Oakland, California. His parents were Virgil Franklin Partch and Jennie, the Presbyterian couple were missionaries, and served in China from 1888 to 1893, and again from 1895 to 1900, when they fled the Boxer Rebellion. Partch moved with his family to Arizona for his mothers health and his father worked for the Immigration Service there, and they settled in the small town of Benson. It was still the Wild West there in the twentieth century. Nearby, there were native Yaqui people, whose music he heard and his mother sang to him in Mandarin Chinese, and he heard and sang songs in Spanish and the Yaqui language. His mother encouraged her children to music, and he learned the mandolin, violin, piano, reed organ. His mother taught him to read music, the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1913, where Partch seriously studied the piano. He had work playing keyboards for silent films while he was in high school, by 14, he was composing for the piano. He early found an interest in writing music for dramatic situations, and often cited the lost composition Death, Partch graduated from high school in 1919. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1919 following the death of Partchs father, there, his mother was killed in a trolley accident in 1920. He enrolled in the University of Southern Californias School of Music in 1920 and he moved to San Francisco and studied books on music in the libraries there and continued to compose
17.
3rd bridge
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The timbre created with this technique is close to that of gamelan instruments like the bonang and similar Indonesian types of pitched gongs. Third bridge instruments can be custom-made by experimental luthiers, modified from a non-third bridge instrument, perhaps the best-known examples of this technique come from No Wave artists like Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth. The 3rd bridge technique has a connection with Pythagoras monochord. Many non-Western musical scales and musical instruments share these consonant just pitch relations, on a standard guitar, the string is held above the soundboard by two nodes, the nut and the bridge. A player sounding a note on a standard guitar vibrates a single portion of the string, in contrast, a third bridge divides the string into two pieces. When played at one part of a string, the part can resonate in a subharmonic of the struck part. On harmonic positions the created multiphonic tone is consonant and increases in volume, the sound is comparable with the sound of bells or clocks. In the 1930s, Harry Partch experimented with this technique on an instrument he called a Kithara that had movable glass rods. In the late 1960s, Keith Rowe made occasional use of third bridge guitars, inspiring a slew of experimental guitarists to use prepared guitars, from the 1970s, Hans Reichels self-made and modified acoustic guitars sometimes featured third bridges. From the late 1970s, Glenn Branca adopted Partchs theory and used amplified string tables for some of his symphonies, after being trained in the Branca orchestra, Sonic Youth applied their own guitars with screwdrivers, mainly in their early years. On their debut EP and the album Confusion is Sex this technique is often used, afterwards Bradford Reed developed the Pencilina. Reed plays mainly with drumsticks hitting the strings as well, the sound effect can be achieved without an additional 3rd bridge or extended tail piece. If the player presses on a fret and strums the string at the head side, again, on harmonic positions the result is much louder and clearer than on the inharmonic fret positions. The 5th, 7th, 12th and 19th fret generate low-frequency humming overtones with the complementary tone and this playing technique causes a smooth, round multiphonic sound. By muting the resonating part and letting it go after the pluck it sounds like an inverse recorded sound, on all other positions the tone is more undefined and comes with higher pitched lower volume overtones. With heavy distortion these tones can become more clear, the technique is widely used in many modern classical works on bowing instruments. The extended technique involves bowing the instrument on the afterlength, the length of string behind the bridge. The tone is high and squeaky
18.
Daxophone
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The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category. The first usage of the daxophone in a work was the release of Hans Reichels album The Dawn of Dachsman in 1987. Even with Hans Reichels second album featuring the daxophone, Shanghaied on Tor Road, The Worlds 1st Operetta Performed on Nothing but the Daxophone, the instrument had remained very obscure. Even today, the daxophone remains fairly obscure, and as such it has not been mass-produced, requiring any aspiring daxophonists to build their own. The daxophone consists of a piece called a tongue, approximately 330 mm in length,30 mm in width, and 5 mm in height, and fixed to a wooden block. This wooden block has a cavity which is carved with a chisel for the insertion of two microphones, and a snakewood soundboard laid on top with the contact microphones glued to it. A wide range of voice-like timbres can be produced, depending on the shape of the tongue, the tongue shape is made with a bandsaw or jigsaw. Denser woods such as ebony and oak produce a mellower sound than light woods and these sounds are notable for their comical, often human sounds. One side of the dax is fretted according to a random logarithmic succession, while the other is left unfretted and covered with a sheet of cardboard for a mellower sound, two large fingerholes are drilled through the sides. Reichel has documented the construction of the instrument in a way that a skilled woodworker could build his own. Plans are downloadable from his website, with a collection of shapes for the tongue delivered in the file format of a font. Vibrations then continue to the base, which in turn is amplified by the contact microphone therein. The timbre is adjusted by where it is bowed, and where along its length it is stopped with the dax, one side of the dax is fretted according to a randomly chosen logarithmic succession
19.
Washtub bass
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The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. The washtub bass was used in jug bands that were popular in some African American communities in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, British skiffle bands used a variant called a tea chest bass, variations on the basic design are found around the world, particularly in the choice of resonator. As a result, there are different names for the instrument including the gas-tank bass, barrel bass, box bass, bush bass, babatoni, tingotalango, tulòn, laundrophone. The hallmarks of the design are simplicity, very low cost and do-it-yourself construction. Ethnomusicologists trace the origins of the instrument to the ground harp - a version that uses a piece of bark or a skin stretched over a pit as a resonator. The washtub bass is used in a jug band, often accompanied by a washboard as a percussion instrument. Jug bands, first known as bands, were popular especially among African-Americans around 1900 in New Orleans. At about the time, European-Americans of Appalachia were using the instrument in old-timey folk music. A musical style known as gut-bucket blues came out of the jug band scene, according to Willie The Lion Smiths autobiography, the term gutbucket comes from Negro families who all owned their own pail, or bucket, and would get it filled with the makings for chitterlings. The term gutbucket came from playing a style of music. In English skiffle bands, Australian and New Zealand bush bands and South African kwela bands, before the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartneys band, The Quarrymen, featured a tea-chest bass, as did many young bands around 1956. A folk music revival in the U. S. in the early 1960s re-ignited interest in the washtub bass, bands included Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions which later became The Grateful Dead, and, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band featuring Fritz Richmond on bass. A tea chest bass is a variation of the bass that uses a tea chest as the resonator for an upright stringed bass. The instrument is made from a pole, traditionally a broomstick, one or more strings are stretched along the pole and plucked. In Europe, particularly England and Germany, the instrument is associated with skiffle bands, in Australia it was traditionally used to provide deep sounds for bush bands, though most such groups today use electric bass or double bass. It was commonly called a bush bass, Fritz Richmond has performed on numerous recordings from America and Japan. One of his washtub basses is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Donald Kachamba and Moya Aliya, one-string box players with the influential Malawi group Kachamba Brothers Band
20.
Les Claypool
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Leslie Edward Les Claypool is an American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, author and actor best known as the bassist and lead vocalist of the band Primus. Claypools playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends, Claypool has also self-produced and engineered his solo releases from his own studio, Rancho Relaxo. 2006 saw the release of a feature film Electric Apricot written. Claypool was born September 29,1963, in Richmond, California, Claypool decided to become a bass player, pursuing the instrument from the age of fourteen. Claypool has cited Larry Graham, Chris Squire, Tony Levin, Roger Waters, Geddy Lee, Paul McCartney, Geezer Butler, Bootsy Collins, Stanley Clarke and he went to school with and was a friend of guitarist Kirk Hammett, later of Metallica. For several years before forming Primus, Claypool worked as a carpenter, in 1986, after the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, Hammett encouraged Claypool to audition for Metallica as Burtons successor. Metallica frontman James Hetfield remarked that Claypool was not offered the job because he was too good, Claypool said later that he was unaware of Metallicas success and influence and auditioned mainly out of friendship with Hammett, and further stated he would not have fit in with the band. Claypool replaced them with guitarist Larry LaLonde and drummer Tim Alexander, Claypool is considered to be the leader of the band, as well as the driving force behind its blending of funk with other genres. Claypool frequently utilizes the technique, prominent in funk music. I guess people just have to categorize you, in 1991, the band was featured in the cult classic movie Bill and Teds Bogus Journey, performing Tommy the Cat live. Claypool and Tom Waits first recorded on each others records in 1991 and have continued to do so since, in 1997, Primus was asked to play and record the theme song for the animated television show South Park. In 1999, he allowed Activisions use of the song Jerry Was a Race Car Driver in the video game Tony Hawks Pro Skater. Primus went on hiatus in 2000, in mid-2003, Claypool reunited with former Primus drummer Tim Alexander and guitarist Larry LaLonde to record a DVD/EP called Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People. Primus continued touring into 2004, performing their 1990 release Frizzle Fry as their set, as documented on the DVD Hallucino-Genetics. The band toured in 2006 on their Primus, The Beat a Dead Horse Tour 2006, and played at a small number of festivals in 2008. In 2010, Alexander, who had left the band for the time due to lack of interest, was replaced by Jay Lane. The band subsequently resumed touring after the free June 2010 Rehearsal was released later that year, in 2013, Lane left Primus for the second time to focus on his other band RatDog, who were coming off hiatus at the time, and was replaced again by Alexander. In 1996, Claypool produced, engineered and released an album, Les Claypool
21.
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
22.
Linda Manzer
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Linda Manzer is a Canadian master luthier renowned for her archtop, flat top, and harp guitars. Manzer was a singer in high school and played guitar. Her career began when she wanted a dulcimer, but she couldnt afford to buy one and she attended two art colleges, where she studied painting and silkscreening. For the craft of making guitars by hand, she studied with Jean Larrivée and she went to New York and studied archtop building with Jimmy DAquisto. In addition to her standard models, she has designed and built by hand over 50 guitar prototypes, including guitars, baritone guitars, acoustic sitars. She has built almost 25 instruments for jazz musician Pat Metheny, including the Pikasso and he played the Pikasso on the albums Imaginary Day and Whats It All About, and he played her baritone guitar on the album One Quiet Night. Her custom designs include the 52-stringed Medusa owned by Danish musician Henrik Andersen, Pat Methenys request to Manzer in 1984 was to build a guitar that had as many strings as possible. Manzer came up with the Pikasso, a guitar with 42 strings, a hexagonic pickup enabled Metheny to access his Synclavier synthesizer, and thus play on guitar anything that could be played on his synthesizer, including samples and other instruments. The Pikasso contains two holes for mounting the guitar on a stand, allowing the guitarist to play the guitar without having to hold it, Metheny plays the Pikasso on Into the Dream, the first song on his album Imaginary Day. While building the Pikasso, Manzer invented the Manzer Wedge, because the Pikasso was much wider than a normal six-string guitar, it was difficult for the right hand to reach all the strings. Manzer also wanted Metheny to be able to see all the strings while looking down at the guitar and she wanted a solution that left the sound unchanged. She settled on a wedge, something that is wide at one end, the Pikasso introduced having the bass side of the guitar narrower than the treble side. Narrowing the body of the made the strings easier to reach. In the 1980s, she began adding the design to all the guitars she made. Custom-made instruments Official site Metheny-Manzer Signature 6 Guitar The Larrivee Tradition of Handmade Canadian Guitars The Canadian Encyclopedia
23.
Pat Metheny
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Patrick Bruce Pat Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is involved in duets, solo works. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, Latin jazz, Metheny has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards and is the only person to win Grammys in ten different categories. He is the brother of jazz flugelhornist and journalist Mike Metheny, Metheny was born and raised in Lees Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. At age 15, he won a Down Beat scholarship to a jazz camp and was mentored by guitarist Attila Zoller. Zoller invited the young Metheny to New York City to see guitarist Jim Hall, following his graduation from Lees Summit High School, Metheny briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972, where he was offered a teaching position. He then moved to Boston to take a teaching assistantship at the Berklee College of Music with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton and he established a reputation as a prodigy when he was with Burton. In 1974 he made his debut on an album unofficially titled Jaco with pianist Paul Bley, bassist Jaco Pastorius. Metheny entered the jazz scene in 1975 when he joined Gary Burtons band. Metheny and Goodrick were interviewed together by Guitar Player magazine in 1975, Metheny released his official debut album, Bright Size Life with Jaco Pastorius on bass and Bob Moses on drums. His next album, Watercolors, was the first time he recorded with pianist Lyle Mays, the album also featured Danny Gottlieb, who became the drummer for the first version of the Pat Metheny Group. With Metheny, Mays, and Gottlieb, the member was bassist Mark Egan when the album Pat Metheny Group was released. When Pat Metheny Group album was released, the Group was a quartet comprising, besides Metheny, Danny Gottlieb on drums, Mark Egan on bass, and Lyle Mays on piano, autoharp, and synthesizer. All but Egan had played on Methenys album Watercolors, recorded a year before the first Group album, the second Group album, American Garage, reached number 1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossed over onto the pop charts. The song reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in 1985, both Rodby and Wertico were members of the Simon and Bard Group at the time and had played in Simon-Bard in Chicago before joining Metheny. First Circle was Methenys last album with ECM, he had been a key artist for the label but left following disagreements with the labels founder, still Life featured new Group members trumpeter Mark Ledford, vocalist David Blamires, and percussionist Armando Marçal. Aznar returned for vocals and guitar on Letter from Home, the group integrated new instrumentation and technologies into its work, notably Mays use of synthesizers. Metheny and Mays themselves refer to the next three Pat Metheny Group releases as a triptych, We Live Here, Quartet, and Imaginary Day
24.
Cubism
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Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century, the term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. The movement was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Andre Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris. A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of form in the late works of Paul Cézanne. The impact of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging, Cubism spread rapidly across the globe and in doing so evolved to a greater or lesser extent. In essence, Cubism was the origin of a process that produced diversity. In France, offshoots of Cubism developed, including Orphism, Abstract art, in other countries Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, De Stijl and Art Deco developed in response to Cubism. Other common threads between these movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization. Cubism began between 1907 and 1911, Pablo Picassos 1907 painting Les Demoiselles dAvignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braques 1908 Houses at L’Estaque prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to refer to bizarreries cubiques, Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first Cubist paintings. A second phase, Synthetic Cubism, remained vital until around 1919, english art historian Douglas Cooper proposed another scheme, describing three phases of Cubism in his book, The Cubist Epoch. Douglas Coopers restrictive use of terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris. Alternative interpretations of Cubism have therefore developed, wider views of Cubism include artists who were later associated with the Salle 41 artists, e. g. John Berger identifies the essence of Cubism with the mechanical diagram. The metaphorical model of Cubism is the diagram, The diagram being a symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearance but these too will be treated as not as imitations or recreations. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans were discovering African, Polynesian, Micronesian, artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures. Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when artists had recently acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art and African tribal masks. Picassos paintings of 1907 have been characterized as Protocubism, as seen in Les Demoiselles dAvignon
25.
Pablo Picasso
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Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso, was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, Picassos work is often categorized into periods. Much of Picassos work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style and his later work often combines elements of his earlier styles. Ruiz y Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López. His mother was of one quarter Italian descent, from the territory of Genoa, though baptized a Catholic, Picasso would later on become an atheist. Picassos family was of middle-class background and his father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts, Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were piz, piz, a shortening of lápiz, from the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was an academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork, the family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his sketch of a pigeon. In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his sister, Conchita. After her death, the moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home, Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, the student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented a room for him close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day. Picassos father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrids Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, at age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrolment
26.
Tritare
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Y-shaped strings can produce sounds which are harmonic integer multiples, but also nonharmonic sounds more akin to those produced by percussion instruments. When tuned correctly, the Y-strings create Chladni patterns, depending on how each note is played, Gaudet explains that non-harmonic ingredients can be included and offer a richer sound than a classical stringed instrument. The model uses 6 strings and was available for a short period. The sound effects achieved with the instrument are similar to the sounds that can be achieved with the 3rd bridge playing technique
27.
Moodswinger
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The Moodswinger is a twelve-string electric zither with an additional third bridge designed by Yuri Landman. The rod which functions as the third bridge divides the strings into two sections to cause an overtone multiphonic sound, one of the copies of the instrument is part of the collection of the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In March 2006 Landman was contacted by the noise band Liars to make an instrument for them, after 6 months he finished two copies of The Moodswinger, an electric 12-string 3rd-bridge overtone koto, one for guitarist/drummer Aaron Hemphill and one for himself. Although it closely resembles a guitar, it is actually a zither. The pickup and electronics are built into the neck instead of in the body like usual electric guitars, in 2008 the Moodswinger II was released as a serial product. Jessie Stein of The Luyas owns a copy, in 2009 Landman created a derivative version of the instrument called the Home Swinger, for workshops at festivals, where participants built their own copy within four hours. In 2010 the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix included a Moodswinger as well as a Home Swinger in their collection as two of the pieces of the Dutch section of musical instrument inventions, the 3rd bridge divides the strings into two segments with different pitches. Depending on where the string is played, a bell-like harmonic second tone is created, the string resonates more or less when the back side is struck, depending on the position of the 3rd bridge along the string. This can be explained by resonance and microtonality. At harmonic nodal positions, the string more than at other positions. For instance, dividing the string 1/3 + 2/3 creates a clear overtone, the color dotted scale indicates the simple-number ratios up to the 7 limit On these positions just intoned harmonic dyads occur. The Moodswinger is focused on a playing technique. A mathematical scale is added to specify 23 harmonic positions on the strings, because the instrument has 12 strings, tuned in a circle of fourths, it is always possible to play every note of the equal tempered scale. However some positions have a + or - indication, because the equal tempered scale is not a perfect well-tempered scale, the tuning of this instrument is a circle of fourths, E-A-D-G-C-F-A#-D#-G#-C#-F#-B, arranged in 3 clusters of 4 strings each to make the field of strings better readable. Because of this tuning all five neighbouring strings form a harmonic pentatonic scale and this allows a very easy fingerpicking technique without picking false notes, if the right key is chosen. On the Home Swinger the same color system occurs, the sound of a 3rd-bridged string is a combination of 3 tones. A soft-sounding attack tone of the string part hit at the body side, the diagram below shows the tone combinations of the overtone and the low tone of the counterpart. The attack tone is in most positions exact the same note as the overtone, exceptions are 3/4, 3/5, 3/7 and 5/7
28.
Sonic Youth
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Sonic Youth was an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. In their early career Sonic Youth were associated with the no wave art, the band is considered to be a pivotal influence on the alternative and indie rock movements. In 2011 Ranaldo announced that the band was ending for a following the separation of married couple Gordon. Thurston Moore updated and clarified the position in May 2014, Sonic Youth is on hiatus, the band is a democracy of sorts, and as long as Kim and I are working out our situation, the band can’t really function reasonably. Gordon refers several times in her 2015 autobiography Girl in a Band to the band having split up. Shortly after guitarist Thurston Moore moved to New York City in early 1977, he formed a group, Room Tone, with his roommates, after the breakup of the Coachmen, Moore began jamming with Stanton Miranda, whose band, CKM, featured Kim Gordon. Moore and Gordon formed a band, appearing under names like Male Bonding and Red Milk, the name came from combining the nickname of MC5s Fred Sonic Smith with Youth from reggae artist Big Youth. Gordon later recalled that as soon as Thurston came up with the name Sonic Youth, the band played Noise Fest in June 1981 at New Yorks White Columns gallery, where Lee Ranaldo was playing as a member of Glenn Brancas electric guitar ensemble. Their performance impressed Moore, who described them as the most ferocious guitar band that I had ever seen in my life, the new threesome played three songs at the festival later in the week without a drummer. Each band member took turns playing the drums, until they met drummer Richard Edson, Branca signed Sonic Youth as the first act on his record label Neutral Records. In December 1981 the group recorded five songs in a studio in New Yorks Radio City Music Hall, the material was released as the Sonic Youth that, while largely ignored, was sent to a few key members of the US press, who gave it uniformly favorable reviews. After their first release, Edson quit the group for a career and was replaced by Bob Bert. During their early days as part of the New York music scene, the bands came to share the same rehearsal space, and Sonic Youth embarked on its first tour, a two-week journey through the southern United States starting in November 1982, supporting Swans. During a second tour with Swans of the Midwest the following month, tensions ran high and Moore constantly criticized Berts drumming, Bert was fired afterwards and replaced by Jim Sclavunos, who played drums on the bands first studio album, 1983s Confusion Is Sex. Sonic Youth set up a tour of Europe for the summer of 1983. Sclavunos, however, quit after only a few months, the group asked Bert to rejoin, and he agreed, on the condition that he would not be fired again after the tours conclusion. Sonic Youth found themselves well received in Europe, but the New York press largely ignored the noise rock scene. After a substandard September concert in New York, another critic from The Village Voice panned it, Gordon wrote a scornful letter to the newspaper, criticizing it for not supporting its local music scene, to which Christgau responded by saying they are not obligated to support them
29.
Lee Ranaldo
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Lee Mark Ranaldo is an American musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, writer, visual artist and record producer, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its Greatest Guitarists of All Time list, in May 2012, Spin published a staff selected top 100 guitarist list, ranking Ranaldo and his Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore together at number 1. Ranaldo was born in Glen Cove, Long Island, studied art and he has three sons, Cody, Sage and Frey, and is married to the experimental artist Leah Singer. Ranaldo started his career in New York in several bands, in 1981, he and David Linton briefly joined the band Plus Instruments formed by Truus de Groot. With this line-up they recorded the album February - April 1981, after the release of the album, Ranaldo left the band and started Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon. In 1987, Ranaldo released his first solo album, From Here to Infinity, the second side of the album also featured an unplayable engraving by Savage Pencil. Among Ranaldos solo records are Dirty Windows, a collection of texts with music, Amarillo Ramp, pieces for the guitar. His books include several with art or photography by Leah Singer, including Drift, Bookstore, Road Movies, Ranaldo has also published Jrnls80s, as well as a book of poems, Lengths & Breaths, with photography by Cynthia Connolly. His most recent book of poetry, Against Refusing, was published by Water Row Press in April 2010 with cover artwork by Leah Singer. His visual and sound works have shown at galleries and museums in Paris, Toronto, New York, London, Sydney, Los Angeles, Vienna. After Sonic Youth went on hiatus in 2011, Ranaldo released Between the Times, the record was the first under his own name to feature comparatively straightforward, vocal pop rock songs. Contributors to the record include Jim ORourke, Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, former Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert, Wilcos Nels Cline, Alan Licht, John Medeski, in 2012, he performed a solo concert at La Maroquinerie, for which he was photographed by Jean-Pierre Domingue. To tour for the album, Ranaldo organized The Dust as his group, featuring Licht, Shelley. In 2013, his follow-up album Last Night on Earth was released, credited to Lee Ranaldo, Ranaldo has produced albums for artists including Babes in Toyland, You Am I, Magik Markers, Deity Guns, and Dutch art rock-ensemble Kleg. He has edited a volume of journals from the 1995 Lollapalooza tour written by himself, Thurston Moore, Beck, Stephen Malkmus, Courtney Love. Ranaldo has worked with jazz drummer William Hooker on improvised music and his main side projects are Drift and Text of Light. Drift is a duo with his wife Leah Singer, with whom he has performed many live installation pieces with improvised music, since then the pair have been performing a new piece entitled iloveyouihateyou, a combination installation and performance work that has been presented in the US and Europe. In 2005 Drift released a box set with a DVD and a book, Text of Light was founded in 2001 by Lee Ranaldo, Alan Licht, Ulrich Krieger, Christian Marclay and William Hooker
30.
Springtime (guitar)
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The Springtime is an experimental electric guitar with seven strings and three outputs. The instrument was created in 2008 by Dutch luthier Yuri Landman for guitar player Laura-Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes. The string set up of the guitar is 1 bass string,3 wound guitar strings for the chords, each group of strings has its own individual output for three amplifiers to preserve tonal interference. The sound simulates three musicians at once, a player, a rhythm guitarist and a solo guitarist or a Greek electric bouzouki. The instrument also is fitted with a so-called tailed bridge to increase overtone possibilities, the electronics contain switches to change the 3-way system to stereo or mono if fewer amplifiers are available. Landman handed over his prototype to Carter before their sold out gig on May 19,2008 in the venue Doornroosje in Nijmegen and this is the first guitar created by Landman which is put in serial production. The reproductions have a red or blank body, a few months after the first Springtime, Landman built the Springtime II on specifications made up by Lou Barlow. Barlows version has eight tuning pegs, two of them unused, but available for a seven or eight string set up. The other six employ the strings for the instruments in four positions similar to a bass guitar, because of this the instrument remains a six string guitar. Also the pickup configuration is different and four single coils are present instead of three, the lowest positioned pickup is left out and a regular bridge and neck pickup are placed aside of the rotated pickup duo. The velcro tape to mute undesired string resonance from the bridge is also not present on this version. Also other alternate versions of the Springtime exist, for Mauro Pawlowski of dEUS Landman made an alternate version with nine tuning pegs and an additional pick up in the tail to explore the possibilities of creating third bridge sounds. This pick up has a separate output, also a fifth pick up was added, similar to the bridge pick up present at Barlows version. Also a red version for Meric Long of The Dodos is made with an alternate pickup, a red version of the Springtime appears on the bonus DVD of Placebos Battle for the Sun deluxe edition, where Brian Molko is testing and discussing possibilities of the instrument with the cameraman. Article on myownmusicindustry. nl Article on The Dutch Rock & Pop Institute website Article on VPROs 3VOOR12 website www. hypercustom. nl
31.
Blood Red Shoes
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Blood Red Shoes are an alternative rock duo from Brighton, England consisting of Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell. They have released four albums, Box of Secrets, Fire Like This, In Time to Voices, and Blood Red Shoes as well as several EPs. In 2014, they founded their own label, Jazz Life, Blood Red Shoes formed in late 2004, after Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carters previous bands broke up and they decided to have a jam. The summer of 2007 saw the band playing several festival spots, including T in the Park, the inaugural Underage Festival, and the Electric Gardens festival. They also supported a range of bands, such as Biffy Clyro, Maxïmo Park, Panic. at the Disco, Lightning Bolt, The Gossip, Siouxsie Sioux. Following the sale of V2 to Universal Music Group, the bands début album Box of Secrets was released on Mercury Records on 14 April 2008 and it was leaked to private torrent trackers in November 2007, several months before its retail release date. Laura-Mary Carter from the band has designed the sleeve for every release by the band. They played a tour of the UK, in support of the album, followed by dates across mainland Europe. They played major festivals including Reading and Leeds, Summer Sonic, Pukkelpop, Lowlands. After their autumn-winter tour of 2008, which covered over 12 countries and they began touring again in March 2009, introducing new songs at every gig, sometimes including unfinished songs or those without lyrics. They opened for Foals in Brighton in 2009 to road-test some new material by playing all new songs except for Its Getting Boring by the Sea, on 17 May 2009, the band played All Tomorrows Parties, having been invited to play by The Breeders. The band recorded their album with Mike Crossey at the Motor Museum studio in Liverpool. They also contributed a track called Carry Knots on a compilation CD for Audioscope, in aid of the homeless charity Shelter. On 25 November 2009, the made a new track, Colours Fade. Independent music webzine The Music Magazine commented that the sound had been boosted. Author Jamie Smith wrote, It takes the tried and tested BRS formula and as they say, the albums first single Light It Up premiered on 5 January 2010 on Radio 1 by Huw Stephens filling in for Zane Lowe. The single was released on 22 February, one week before the release of their second album Fire Like This on 1 March 2010, further singles Dont Ask and Heartsink were released in May and August respectively, which was followed by a European and North American tour in October. In September 2010, the recorded a few new songs which they hope to release as an EP
32.
The Dodos
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The Dodos is an American indie rock band consisting of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber. Long self-released a solo EP titled Dodo Bird in March 2006, while they performed the songs from this release, Long and Kroeber met and started playing together. The duo released the 2006 album Beware of the Maniacs, which was self-released under the Dodo Bird moniker, in support of the album, Long and Kroeber toured relentlessly for most of 2007. The band began to receive attention and developed a growing fan base. Fans began referring to Dodo Bird simply as The Dodos, in December 2007, the Dodos were signed by Frenchkiss Records and they released their second album Visiter in March 2008, to critical acclaim. In an April 2008 interview in the L. A. Record, the reason it’s misspelled is because it’s from a drawing this kid gave us. We played a show for a bunch of kids in South Central L. A. —Dorsey High, a friend’s sister is a special-ed teacher there, so we went down there to her class and we played for the kids and it was super fun. Then it came to the kids asking us questions and then one of the kids came up to us, the drawing is the cover actually of the album, and just—I dunno we liked it. Actually we used all of the drawings that the kids made in the artwork on the album and it was definitely a fun, interesting venture for us. We’d never played for kids before—we didn’t know what to expect, in 2009, the song Fools, also from the Visiter album, was featured in an advertisement for Miller Chill. After the release of Visiter, the band included Joe Haener in its touring line-up, playing xylophone, toy piano and their album Time to Die was released for digital download on July 27,2009 in the UK and July 28,2009 in the US. The physical LP release was on August 31,2009 in the UK, Joe Haener was replaced by Keaton Snyder during live performances. Snyder became a member of the recording band during this time. Copies of Time To Die were sold at The Dodos August 14 performance in Seattle, the Dodos fourth album, No Color, was released on March 15,2011. It features vocal contributions from Neko Case, the decision was made for the band to return to a duo of Long and Kroeber. As of March 24,2011 the album has peaked at No.70 on the US charts, the band was chosen by Les Savy Fav to perform at the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival that they co-curated in December 2011 in Minehead, England. The Dodos fifth album, Carrier, was released August 27,2013 via Polyvinyl Record Co. on CD, LP, cassette, Carrier was also released in Canada via Dine Alone Records. The album was recorded in the hometown of San Francisco
33.
Micachu
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Mica Levi, known by her stage name Micachu, is an English singer, songwriter, composer, and producer. She is classically trained and since 2008 has released experimental pop music with her band Good Sad Happy Bad, in 2014, Levi branched out into film composing, creating the score for the Jonathan Glazer film Under the Skin. Her work was praised and Levi received a European Film Award for Best Composer. Her score for Pablo Larraíns Jackie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, Levi was born and raised in Surrey, England. The daughter of two musicians, she started writing and playing music at the age of four, Levi performed as a DJ in London, and released a mixtape titled Filthy Friends, which was posted on her official Myspace page. Following its release, Filthy Friends became sought after on the London club scene, while a student at Guildhall, Levi was commissioned to write an orchestral piece for the London Philharmonic Orchestra which was performed at the Royal Festival Hall in April 2008. Levi was an Artist-in-Residence at the Southbank Centre in London in 2010, Levi co-wrote and produced Tirzahs Im Not Dancing EP, which was released by Greco-Roman Records in August 2013, to critical acclaim. Levi formed a band called Micachu and The Shapes, which included Raisa Khan on keyboards, with the Shapes, Levis focus has been on experimental pop music. Despite these experimental leanings, the artist categorizes her output with The Shapes as pop music and their debut album, Jewellery, produced with influential electronic musician Matthew Herbert, was recorded around Micas composition studies at Guildhall School. Advance copies of the reached the press in early 2009. In the wake of this growing buzz, Micachu and the Shapes were signed to Rough Trade, drowned In Sound consequently hailed the record as thrillingly improbable pop made by a grade-A maverick. In 2009, the received a grant from the PRS for Music Foundation. Micachu and the Shapes toured widely throughout the UK in 2008, including performances at Bestival, the band played in the US at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City and SXSW in Austin, Texas. They also performed on the Main Stage of the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island in Brooklyn in July 2009, touring continued throughout Europe and North America in the summer and fall of 2009. In Spring of 2010, Micachu and the Shapes supported Spoon on tour throughout North America, the band performed with the London Sinfonietta at Kings Place, London in May 2010 and in March 2011 released the live recording as the album Chopped and Screwed. Unlike their previous effort, the recording largely avoids pop sensibilities in favor of a slower, hip-hop indebted style and repetitive, the band were chosen by Animal Collective to perform at the All Tomorrows Parties festival that they curated in May 2011 in Minehead, England. The follow-up to their debut, Never, was released on 23 July 2012, the band released the album Good Sad Happy Bad on 11 September 2015. In March 2016, the band announced on social media that they were changing their name to Good Sad Happy Bad, Levis first major film score was for Jonathan Glazers 2014 film Under the Skin
34.
Snare drum
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The snare drum or side drum is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick. Snare drums are used in orchestras, concert bands, marching bands, parades, drumlines, drum corps. It is one of the pieces in a drum set, a collection of percussion instruments designed to be played by a seated drummer. Snare drums are played with drum sticks, but the use of other beaters such as the brush or the rute can be used to achieve very different sounds. The snare drum is a versatile and expressive percussion instrument due its sensitivity, the snare drum originates from the tabor, a drum first used to accompany the flute. The tabor evolved into more modern versions, such as the kit snare, marching snare, tarol snare, each type presents a different style of percussion and size. The snare drum that one might see in a music concert is usually used in a backbeat style to create rhythm. In marching bands, it can do the same but is used mostly for a front beat, in comparison with the marching snare, the kit snare is generally smaller in length between the two heads, while the piccolo is the smallest of the three. The snare drum is easily recognizable by its loud cracking sound when struck firmly with a stick or mallet. The depth of the sound varies from snare to snare because of the different techniques, some of these qualities are head material and tension, dimensions, and rim and drum shell materials and construction. The snare drum is constructed of two heads—both usually made of plastic—along with a rattle of metal wires on the head called the snares. The wires can also be placed on the top, as in the tarol snare, the top head is typically called the batter head because that is where the drummer strikes it, while the bottom head is called the snare head because that is where the snares are located. The tension of each head is constant by tension rods. Tension rod adjustment allows the pitch and tonal character of the drum to be customized by the player, the strainer is a lever that engages or disengages contact between the snares and the head, and allows snare tension adjustment. If the strainer is disengaged, the sound of the drum resembles a tom because the snares are inactive. The rim is the ring around the batter head, which can be used for a variety of things. The drum can be played by striking it with a stick or any other form of beater, including brushes, rute and hands. When using a stick, the drummer may strike the head of the drum, when the top head is struck, the bottom head vibrates in tandem, which in turn stimulates the snares and produces a cracking sound
35.
Appalachian dulcimer
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The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings. Its origins are in the Appalachian region of the United States, the body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic. The Appalachian dulcimer has many variant names, most often it is simply called a dulcimer. The instrument has also acquired a number of nicknames, harmonium, hog fiddle, music box, harmony box, because of this, and a dearth of written records, the history of the Appalachian dulcimer has been, until fairly recently, largely speculative. The organological development of the divides into three periods, transitional, pre-revival or traditional, and revival or contemporary. Charles Maxson, an Appalachian luthier from Volga, West Virginia, speculated that settlers were unable to make the more complex violin in the early days because of lack of tools. This was one of the factors which led to the building of the dulcimer and he too cited the langleik, scheitholt and épinette des Vosges as ancestor instruments. Few true specimens of the mountain dulcimer exist from earlier than about 1880, the instrument became used as something of a parlor instrument, as its modest sound volume is best-suited to small home gatherings. But for the first half of the 20th century the mountain dulcimer was rare, virtually no audio recordings of the instrument exist from earlier than the late 1930s. But Wyman preferred singing with the more robust support of the piano, in the early 1960s, Ritchie and her partner George Pickow began distributing dulcimers made by her Kentucky relative Jethro Amburgey, then the woodworking instructor at the Hindman Settlement School. They eventually began producing their own instruments in New York City, meanwhile, the American folk musician Richard Fariña was also bringing the Appalachian dulcimer to a much wider audience, and by 1965 the instrument was a familiar presence in folk music circles. In addition to Amburgey, by winding down his production, influential builders of mid-1960s included Homer Ledford, Lynn McSpadden. In 1969 Michael and Howard Rugg formed a company called Capritaurus, as well as being the first to mass-produce the instrument, they made design changes to make the instrument easier to produce and to play. The body was larger, and they installed metal friction or geared tuners, rather than traditional wooden pegs, to making tuning easier. Organologically, the Appalachian dulcimer is a plucked box-zither, it is considered to be a folk instrument, more recently guitar aesthetics and construction ideals have been applied, with a tone wood such as spruce or cedar preferred for the top of the soundbox. A harder wood, such as mahogany or rosewood, will be used for the back, sides, and neck, and a hardwood such as rosewood, maple, or ebony is used for the fingerboard. As the modern dulcimer arose in America, and the bulk of them are made there, American hardwoods such as walnut, oak, cherry. The general format has a long narrow soundbox, with the neck centered in the soundbox, typical instruments are 70–100 cm long, 16–19 cm wide at the widest bout, and the soundbox has a uniform depth of about 5–6 cm
36.
Appalachian Mountains
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. 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 US. 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 Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole 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 U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
37.
Fiddle
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Fiddle is another name for the bowed string musical instrument more often called a violin. It is also a term for the instrument used by players in all genres. Fiddle playing, or fiddling, refers to various styles of music, Fiddle is also a common term among musicians who play folk music on the violin. The fiddle is part of traditional styles of music which are aural traditions. There are few distinctions between violins and fiddles, though more primitively constructed and smaller violins are more likely to be considered fiddles. In order to produce a tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings. Among musical styles, fiddling tends to produce rhythms focused on dancing, with associated quick note changes, whereas classical music tends to contain more vibrato and it is less common for a classically trained violinist to play folk music, but today, many fiddlers have classical training. The medieval fiddle emerged in 10th-century Europe, deriving from the Byzantine lira, lira spread widely westward to Europe, in the 11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lira interchangeably when referring to bowed instruments. During the Renaissance the gambas were important and elegant instruments, they eventually lost ground to the viola da braccio family. The etymology of fiddle is uncertain, the Germanic fiddle may derive from the same early Romance word as does violin, the name seems however to be related to Icelandic Fiðla and also Old English fiðele. A native Germanic ancestor of fiddle may even be the ancestor of the early Romance form of violin, historically, fiddle also referred to a predecessor of todays violin. Like the violin, it tended to have four strings, another family of instruments that contributed to the development of the modern fiddle are the viols, which are held between the legs and played vertically, and have fretted fingerboards. Violins, on the hand, are commonly grouped in sections. The difference was likely compounded by the different sounds expected of violin music, historically, the majority of fiddle music was dance music, while violin music had either grown out of dance music or was something else entirely. Violin music came to value a smoothness that fiddling, with its dance-driven clear beat, in situations that required greater volume, a fiddler could push their instrument harder than could a violinist. In the very late 20th century, a few artists have attempted a reconstruction of the Scottish tradition of violin and big fiddle. Notable recorded examples include Iain Fraser and Christine Hanson, Amelia Kaminski and Christine Hansons Bonnie Lasses and Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas Fire and Grace. In Hungary, a three stringed viola variant with a bridge, called the kontra or háromhúros brácsa makes up part of a traditional rhythm section in Hungarian folk music
38.
Jacques Dudon
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Jacques Dudon is a French just intonation composer and instrument builder. He is best known for developing a series of photosonic disk instruments in the 1980s that produced sound from modulated light, the production of synthetic sound in this manner has been used in optosonic instruments since the early 20th century. In the 1970s, he created 150 water instruments called aquaphones, including a flutabullum, the aquavina was an experimental musical instrument created by Jacques Dudon. It was essentially a variant of the Appalachian dulcimer, but with a metal resonator body partially filled with water, the player would agitate the instrument while playing, resulting in a constant acoustic phasing effect within the instruments harmonics. Aquavina at Windworld. com WaveLoom, logiciel daide à la création de disques photosoniques, recherche. ircam. fr
39.
Bazantar
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The bazantar is a custom made string instrument invented by musician Mark Deutsch, who worked on the design between 1993 and 1997. The Bazantar is an acoustic bass, fitted with an additional twenty-nine sympathetic strings. The instrument possesses a range of over five octaves. The inventor intends this to create an interplay between melodic, sympathetic, and drone strings to produce a resonant sound than a conventional upright bass. In the late 1980s, Mark Deutsch began exploring North Indian classical music, the subtlety of this style, combined with his pursuits on the sitar, inspired him to delve deeper into the study of music. He started exploring the mathematics of sound, particularly musics underlying frequency structure, in 1993, Mark began work on the first prototype of the Bazantar, an acoustic bass with additional sympathetic and drone strings. His intent was to create an instrument that would take advantage of these nonlinear mathematical patterns, the difficulty lay in engineering a design that would be able to withstand the tension of the additional strings. He devised the solution of constructing a separate housing that would contain both the sympathetic strings and their resultant tension, which would then be mounted onto the instrument. After much experimentation, a version was completed in October 1997. In the finalized version, the strings are positioned outside the Bazantars lowest melody string on a bass bridge. The torque these strings create is contained within this housing, because none of this torque is transferred to the instruments body, the stress to its structure is greatly decreased, allowing for increased flexibility throughout the entire design. The Bazantars engineering strategy enables it to maintain more strings at higher tensions than conventional approaches dictate and this distinguishes its tonal character and contributes to its powerful and complex sound
40.
Double bass
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The double bass, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. It is an instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than sounding to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths, rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2. The instruments exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, the double bass is a standard member of the orchestras string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango. The double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings, in orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, Classical music uses just the natural sound produced acoustically by the instrument, so does traditional bluegrass. In jazz, blues, and related genres, the bass is typically amplified with an amplifier and speaker, the double bass stands around 180 cm from scroll to endpin. However, other sizes are available, such as a 1⁄2 or 3⁄4 and these sizes do not reflect the size relative to a full size, or 4⁄4 bass, a 1⁄2 bass is not half the size of a bass but is only slightly smaller. It is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top and it is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, like other violin and viol-family string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed, in jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, except for some solos and also occasional written parts in modern jazz that call for bowing. In classical pedagogy, almost all of the focus is on performing with the bow and producing a good bowed tone, some of these articulations can be combined, for example, the combination of sul ponticello and tremolo can produce eerie, ghostly sounds. Classical bass players do play pizzicato parts in orchestra, but these parts generally require simple notes, vibrato is used to add expression to string playing. In general, very loud, low-register passages are played with little or no vibrato, mid- and higher-register melodies are typically played with more vibrato. The speed and intensity of the vibrato is varied by the performer for an emotional and musical effect, in jazz, rockabilly and other related genres, much or all of the focus is on playing pizzicato. In jazz and jump blues, bassists are required to play extremely rapid pizzicato walking basslines for extended periods, as well, jazz and rockabilly bassists develop virtuoso pizzicato techniques that enable them to play rapid solos that incorporate fast-moving triplet and sixteenth note figures. In jazz and related styles, bassists often add semi-percussive ghost notes into basslines, to add to the rhythmic feel and to add fills to a bassline
41.
Sympathetic string
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Sympathetic strings or resonance strings are auxiliary strings found on many Indian musical instruments, as well as some Western Baroque instruments and a variety of folk instruments. They are typically not played directly by the performer, only indirectly through the tones that are played on the main strings, sympathetic strings are used to enhance the sound of an instrument. Some instruments have only a few sympathetic strings such as the Hardanger fiddle, other instruments which have more include the sitar and sarod with 15 sympathetic strings, and the sarangi which has a total of 37 sympathetics. These were generally called viola damore, another example is the baryton. In keyboard instruments like the piano, the dampers can be raised to produce this effect. Strings or parts of strings may resonate at their fundamental or harmonic frequencies when other strings are sounded, in general, non-played strings respond in sympathy to other strings being played. Two tones of the pitch will give maximum sympathetic resonance as all harmonics of both strings will overlap. Other harmonic combinations will cause sympathetic resonance at the fifth, fourth, for example, an A string at 440 Hz will cause an E string at 330 Hz to resonate, because they share an overtone of 1320 Hz
42.
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
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Octave
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In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. It is defined by ANSI as the unit of level when the base of the logarithm is two. The octave relationship is a phenomenon that has been referred to as the basic miracle of music. The most important musical scales are written using eight notes. For example, the C major scale is typically written C D E F G A B C, two notes separated by an octave have the same letter name and are of the same pitch class. Three commonly cited examples of melodies featuring the perfect octave as their opening interval are Singin in the Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. The octave has occasionally referred to as a diapason. To emphasize that it is one of the intervals, the octave is designated P8. The octave above or below a note is sometimes abbreviated 8a or 8va, 8va bassa. For example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, the ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2,1. Further octaves of a note occur at 2n times the frequency of that note, such as 2,4,8,16, etc. and the reciprocal of that series. For example,55 Hz and 440 Hz are one and two away from 110 Hz because they are 1⁄2 and 4 times the frequency, respectively. After the unison, the octave is the simplest interval in music, the human ear tends to hear both notes as being essentially the same, due to closely related harmonics. Notes separated by a ring together, adding a pleasing sound to music. For this reason, notes an octave apart are given the note name in the Western system of music notation—the name of a note an octave above A is also A. The conceptualization of pitch as having two dimensions, pitch height and pitch class, inherently include octave circularity, thus all C♯s, or all 1s, in any octave are part of the same pitch class. Octave equivalency is a part of most advanced cultures, but is far from universal in primitive. The languages in which the oldest extant written documents on tuning are written, leon Crickmore recently proposed that The octave may not have been thought of as a unit in its own right, but rather by analogy like the first day of a new seven-day week
44.
Hurdy-gurdy
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The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch, like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board to make the vibration of the strings audible. Most hurdy-gurdies have multiple strings, which give a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody. Many folk music festivals in Europe feature music groups with hurdy-gurdy players, the most famous has been held since 1976 at Saint-Chartier in the Indre département in Central France. In 2009, it relocated nearby to the Château dArs at La Châtre, the hurdy-gurdy is generally thought to have originated from fiddles in either Europe or the Middle East some time before the eleventh century A. D. The first recorded reference to fiddles in Europe was in the 9th century by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih describing the lira as an instrument within the Byzantine Empire. One of the earliest forms of the hurdy-gurdy was the organistrum, an instrument with a guitar-shaped body. The organistrum had a melody string and two drone strings, which ran over a common bridge, and a relatively small wheel. Due to its size, the organistrum was played by two people, one of whom turned the crank while the other pulled the keys upward, pulling keys upward is cumbersome, so only slow tunes could be played on the organistrum. The pitches on the organistrum were set according to Pythagorean temperament, another 10th century treatise thought to have mentioned an instrument like a hurdy-gurdy is an Arabic musical compendium written by Al Zirikli. Later on, the organistrum was made smaller to let a player both turn the crank and work the keys. The solo organistrum was known from Spain and France, but was replaced by the symphonia. At about the time, a new form of key pressed from beneath was developed. These keys were more practical for faster music and easier to handle. Medieval depictions of the show both types of keys. During the Renaissance, the hurdy-gurdy was a popular instrument and the characteristic form had a short neck. It was around this time that buzzing bridges first appeared in illustrations, the buzzing bridge is an asymmetrical bridge that rests under a drone string on the sound board
45.
Kaisatsuko
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The kaisatsuko is a mechanical experimental musical instrument invented by Yuichi Onoue of Tokyo, Japan. The instrument consists of two strings on a fretless neck, a crank is affixed to a small nylon wheel mounted on the body. The player turns the crank, causing the wheel to spin and this concept is similar to that employed by the hurdy-gurdy. Unlike most hurdy-gurdies, Onoues instrument has no keybox, but is fingered along the neck and this detail is similar to the dulcigurdy, a hurdy-gurdy variant recorded by Michael Praetorius. Besides the Kaisatsuko Onoue also developed a 24-TET quarter tone tuning on his guitar as well as a deeply scaloped electric guitar for microtonal playing techniques
46.
Microtonal music
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Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, which are also called microintervals. It may also be extended to any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. Microtonal music can refer to any music containing microtones, therefore it is important to comprehend what a microtone is, the words microtone and microtonal were coined before 1912 by Maud MacCarthy Mann in order to avoid the misnomer quarter tone when speaking of the srutis of Indian music. Prior to this time the quarter tone was used, confusingly, not only for an interval actually half the size of a semitone. 1998, Wallon 1980,13, Whitfield 1989,13, microinterval is a frequent alternative in English, especially in translations of writings by French authors and in discussion of music by French composers. In English, the two terms microtone and microinterval are synonymous, microtone is also sometimes used to refer to individual notes, microtonal pitches added to and distinct from the familiar twelve notes of the chromatic scale, as enharmonic microtones, for example. In English the word microtonality is mentioned in 1946 by Rudi Blesh who related it to microtonal inflexions of the blues scales. It was used earlier by W. McNaught with reference to developments in modernism in a 1939 record review of the Columbia History of Music. The term microinterval is used alongside microtone by American musicologist Margo Schulter in her articles on medieval music, the term microtonal music usually refers to music containing very small intervals but can include any tuning that differs from Western twelve-tone equal temperament. Microtonal variation of intervals is standard practice in the African-American musical forms of spirituals, blues, many microtonal equal divisions of the octave have been proposed, usually in order to achieve approximation to the intervals of just intonation. Terminology other than microtonal has been used or proposed by some theorists, in 1914, A. H. Fox Strangways objected that heterotone would be a better name for śruti than the usual translation microtone. Modern Indian researchers yet write, microtonal intervals called shrutis, a similar term, subchromatic, has been used recently by theorist Marek Žabka. Ivor Darreg proposed the term xenharmonic, another Russian authors use more international adjective microtonal and rendered it in Russian as микротоновый, but not microtonality. However are used микротональность and микротоника also, some authors writing in French have adopted the term micro-intervallique to describe such music. Italian musicologist Luca Conti dedicated two his monographs to microtonalismo, which is the term in Italian, and also in Spanish. The analogous English form, microtonalism, is found occasionally instead of microtonality. At the time when serialism and neoclassicism were still incipient a third movement emerged, the term macrotonal has also been used for musical form. The Hellenic civilizations of ancient Greece left fragmentary records of their music—e. g, ancient Greek intervals were of many different sizes, including microtones
47.
Warr Guitar
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The Warr Guitar is an American-made touch guitar, a type of instrument that combines both bass and melodic strings on a single fretboard. It is related to the Chapman Stick, another two-handed tapping instrument, the Warr Guitar is designed for either two-handed tapping or strumming. Warr Guitars have between seven and 14 strings, perhaps the best known Warr Guitar players are Trey Gunn, formerly of the progressive rock band King Crimson, and Colin Marston of Behold
