Drum kit
A drum kit — called a drum set, trap set, or drums — is a collection of drums and other percussion instruments cymbals, which are set up on stands to be played by a single player, with drumsticks held in both hands, the feet operating pedals that control the hi-hat cymbal and the beater for the bass drum. A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones – most cymbals, but can include the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some kits include electronic instruments. Both hybrid and electronic kits are used. A standard modern kit, as used in popular music and taught in music schools, contains: A snare drum, mounted on a stand, placed between the player's knees and played with drum sticks A bass drum, played by a pedal operated by the right foot, which moves a felt-covered beater One or more toms, played with sticks or brushes A hi-hat, played with the sticks and closed with left foot pedal One or more cymbals, mounted on stands, played with the sticksAll of these are classified as non-pitched percussion, allowing the music to be scored using percussion notation, for which a loose semi-standardized form exists for both the drum kit and electronic drums.
The drum kit is played while seated on a stool known as a throne. While many instruments like the guitar or piano are capable of performing melodies and chords, most drum kits are unable to achieve this as they produce sounds of indeterminate pitch; the drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section, used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. Other standard instruments used in the rhythm section include the piano, electric guitar, electric bass, keyboards. Many drummers extend their kits from this basic configuration, adding more drums, more cymbals, many other instruments including pitched percussion. In some styles of music, particular extensions are normal. For example, some rock and heavy metal drummers make use of double bass drums, which can be achieved with either a second bass drum or a remote double foot pedal; some progressive drummers may include orchestral percussion such as gongs and tubular bells in their rig. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, play small kits that omit elements from the basic setup.
Before the development of the drum set and cymbals used in military and orchestral music settings were played separately by different percussionists. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to enable them to play more than one instrument, but these devices would not be mass-produced for another 75 years. By the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set; the bass drum, snare drum and other percussion instruments were all struck with hand-held drum sticks. Drummers in musical theater shows and stage shows, where the budget for pit orchestras was limited, contributed to the creation of the drum set by developing techniques and devices that would enable them to cover the roles of multiple percussionists. Double-drumming was developed to enable one person to play the bass and snare with sticks, while the cymbals could be played by tapping the foot on a "low-boy". With this approach, the bass drum was played on beats one and three. While the music was first designed to accompany marching soldiers, this simple and straightforward drumming approach led to the birth of ragtime music when the simplistic marching beats became more syncopated.
This resulted in dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a "trap set", from the late 1800s to the 1930s, drummers were referred to as "trap drummers". By the 1870s, drummers were using an "overhang pedal". Most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05. Liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist; the bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would revolve. William F. Ludwig, Sr. and his brother, Theobald Ludwig, founded the Ludwig & Ludwig Co. in 1909 and patented the first commercially successful bass drum pedal system, paving the way for the modern drum kit. Wire brushes for use with drums and cymbals were introduced in 1912; the need for brushes arose due to the problem of the drum sound overshadowing the other instruments on stage.
Drummers began using metal fly swatters to reduce the volume on stage next to the other acoustic instruments. Drummers could still play the rudimentary snare figures and grooves with brushes that they would play with drumsticks. By World War I, drum kits were marching band-style military bass drums with many percussion items suspended on and around them. Drum kits became a central part of jazz Dixieland; the modern drum kit was developed in the vaudeville era during the 1920s in New Orleans. In 1917, a New Orleans band called "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band " recorded jazz tunes that became hits all o
Bass pedals
Bass pedals are an electronic musical instrument with foot-operated pedal keyboard with a range of one or more octaves. The earliest bass pedals from the 1970s consisted of a pedalboard and analog synthesizer tone generation circuitry packaged together as a unit. Since the 1990s, bass pedals are MIDI controllers, which have to be connected to a MIDI-compatible computer, electronic keyboard, or voice module to produce musical tones. Bass pedals serve the same function as the pedalboard on a pipe organ or an electric organ, produce sounds in the bass range. Bass pedals are used by keyboard players as an adjunct to their full-range manual keyboards, by performers of other instruments, or by themselves. Pedalboards have been a standard feature on pipe organs for centuries, since the 1930s, electromechanical organs such as the Hammond organ included pedalboards; as electronic organs became more compact and portable in the 1970s, some manufacturers began building pedals that could function separately from the organ console.
These afforded the player great portability, flexibility in combining them with other instruments and electronic equipment. An early and popular bass pedal device was the Moog Taurus. Moog called this instrument a "Pedal Synthesizer" in their literature, explicitly pointed out that its five-octave range made it "more than a bass instrument".. Despite these efforts, most players used them for basslines, the term bass pedals stuck; the Taurus I and II models are no longer in production. In 2010, Moog introduced the Taurus III, in a limited run of 1000 units. Several progressive rock and hard rock groups and alternative rock groups such as U2 and The Police used bass pedals; the group's bass guitarist would play in a standing position, meaning that they could only use one foot at a time to play, rather than play sitting down with both feet, as organists traditionally had. However, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin used bass pedals while sitting down at a keyboard. Bass guitarists used Taurus pedals to hold down sustained, low-pitched pedal points while performing high-register melodic lines or percussive parts on the bass guitar.
In 1983, Phil Collins' song "I Don't Care Anymore" featured Taurus pedals, unusually played by hand. Bassist Mo Foster appears in the music video as the man behind the machine. Since the 1990s, most electronic pedalboards have been MIDI controllers, which do not perform any tone generation themselves; these pedalboards have to be connected to a MIDI-compatible computer, electronic keyboard or rack-mounted synthesizer to produce musical tones. Despite the fact that these pedalboards can control any kind of MIDI device, can therefore produce a unlimited range of musical pitches, ranging from a high-pitched melody to percussion sounds, they are still referred to as "bass pedals". Current manufacturers of these products, such as Hammond, Studiologic, R. W. Designs sell keyboards with 13-note keyboards, 17-note keyboards, or 25-note keyboards. Pedalboards with less than a 32-note range are used by jazz, rock, or popular music performers. To perform the Baroque church music repertoire, a 30-note keyboard is needed.
A smaller number of manufacturers, such as Classic Organworks, sell a MIDI controller in full-sized 32-note AGO layout that can be used to perform all the organ repertoire. In the art music and church music context, MIDI pedalboards and digitally sampled or synthesized pipe organ instruments are used either as practice instruments or as performance instruments; some universities and churches use MIDI pedalboards and digital organs as practice instruments, to allow a larger number of students to have practice time. Some churches use MIDI pedalboards to trigger digitally sampled sounds for the low register of the pipe organ; this has led to some controversy, because this mixes digitally sampled, electronically amplified sounds with the wind-driven pipe sound of the rest of the pipe organ. While bass pedals are used to perform basslines, MIDI-equipped pedals can be used for a range of other purposes; the different pedals can be assigned to perform different chords, which allows a one man band-style performer to perform chords with a single foot-press.
As well, MIDI pedals can be used with a keyboard workstation or an arranger keyboard to trigger different parts of sequenced song arrangements. For example, a performer could use the pedals to trigger the chorus and solo sections of a sequenced song. Another musical use of MIDI pedals would be to have each pedal linked to a different drum sound, such as a bass drum and cymbals. A MIDI-equipped pedalboard can be used for non-musical purposes: theatre lighting stage lighting in a rock club special effects sound design VJ-ing recording system synchronization audio processor control computer networking, as demonstrated by the early first-person shooter game MIDI Maze, 1987 animatronic figure control animation parameter control, as demonstrated by Apple Motion v2Such non-musical applications of the MIDI 1.0 protocol are possible because of its general-purpose nature. Any device built with a standard MIDI Out connector should in theory be able to control any other device with a MIDI In port, just as
Backing vocalist
Backing vocalists or backup singers are singers who provide vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. In some cases, a backing vocalist may sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used in a broad range of popular music, traditional music and world music styles. Solo artists may employ professional backing vocalists in studio recording sessions as well as during concerts. In many rock and metal bands, the musicians doing backing vocals play instruments, such as guitar, electric bass, drums, or keyboards. In Latin or Afro-Cuban groups, backing singers may play percussion instruments or shakers while singing. In some pop and hip-hop groups and in musical theater, the backing singers may be required to perform elaborately choreographed dance routines while they sing through headset microphones; the style of singing used by backing singers varies according to the type of song and the genre of music the band plays.
In pop and country songs, backing vocalists may perform vocal harmony parts to support the lead vocalist. In hardcore punk or rockabilly, other band members who play instruments may sing or shout backing vocals during the chorus section of the songs. Alternative terms for backing vocalists include backing singers, backing vocals, additional vocals or in the United States and Canada, backup singers or sometimes background singers or harmony vocalists. While some bands use performers whose sole on-stage role is performing backing vocals, it is common for backing singers to have other roles. Two notable examples of band members who sang back-up are The Beatles; the Beach Boys were well known for their close vocal harmonies with all five members singing at once such as "In My Room" and "Surfer Girl". All five members would sing lead, although most Brian Wilson or Mike Love would sing lead with guitarists Carl Wilson and Al Jardine and drummer Dennis Wilson singing background harmonies; the Beatles were known for their close style of vocal harmonies – all Beatles members sang both lead and backing vocals at some point John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who supported each other with harmonies with fellow Beatle George Harrison joining in.
Ringo Starr, while not as prominent in the role of backing singer as his three bandmates due to his distinctive voice, can be heard singing backing vocals in such tracks as "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" and "Carry That Weight". Examples of three-part harmonies by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison include "Nowhere Man", "Because", "Day Tripper", "This Boy"; the members of Crosby, Nash & Young and Bee Gees all each wrote songs and sang back-up or lead vocals and played various instruments on their albums and various collaborations with each other. Former guitarist John Frusciante and current guitarist Josh Klinghoffer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers sing nearly all backing vocals singing some parts without accompaniment from lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis; the band's bassist Flea filled in for additional vocals. Frusciante sang one song by himself during concerts. Another example is "No Frontiers" by The Corrs, sung by Sharon and Caroline. Other backing vocalists include rhythm guitarist Sebastien Lefebvre & bass guitarist David Desrosiers of pop punk band Simple Plan, guitarist John Petrucci of Dream Theater, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett & bass guitarist Robert Trujillo of Metallica, guitarists Zacky Vengeance & Synyster Gates and of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold.
In the recording studio, some lead singers record their own backing vocals by overdubbing with a multitrack recording system. A multitrack recording system enables the record producer to add many layers of recordings over top of each other. Using a multitrack system, a lead vocalist can record his or her own backing vocals, record the lead vocal part over top; some lead vocalists prefer this approach because the sound of their own harmonies will blend well with their main vocal. One famous example is Freddie Mercury of Queen singing the first part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" himself by overdubbing. Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Tom DeLonge of Angels and Airwaves, Wednesday 13 in his own band and Murderdolls, Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran and Brad Delp of Boston recorded lead and backing vocals for their albums. With the exception of a few songs on each album, Dan Fogelberg, Eddie Rabbitt, David Bowie and Richard Marx sing all of the background vocals for their songs. Robert Smith of the Cure not only sings his own backing vocals in the studio, but doesn't perform with backing vocalists when playing live.
Many metalcore and some post-hardcore bands, such as As I Lay Dying, Haste the Day and Silverstein feature a main vocalist who performs using harsh vocals, whilst the backing vocalist sings harmonies during choruses to create a contrast. Some bands, such as Hawthorne Heights and Finch have the backing singers do harsh vocals to highlight specific lyrics. Pop and R&B vocalists such as Diana Ross, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé Knowles, Faith Evans, D'Angelo, Mary J. Blige and Amerie have become known for not only recording their own backing vocals, but for arranging their own multi-tracked vocals and developing complex harmonies and arrangements; when they perform live, they may have backing vocalists. Some bands use backing vocals in order to contrast with the lead singer who may be performing an unusual vocal technique. For example, Brian "Head" Welch, the lead guitarist of the band Korn, performed backin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is plucked with a plectrum or "pick". It has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five and six course versions exist; the courses are tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the carved-top mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin; the round-back has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued together into a bowl. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a much shallower, arched back, an arched top—both carved out of wood; the flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, braced on the inside for strength in a similar manner to a guitar. Each style of instrument is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in traditional music. Carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music.
Flat-backed instruments are used in Irish and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature an extra fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course. Other mandolin varieties differ in the number of strings and include four-string models such as the Brescian and Cremonese, six-string types such as the Milanese and the Sicilian and 6 course instruments of 12 strings such as the Genoese. There has been a twelve-string type and an instrument with sixteen-strings. Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard. Pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, which exert more pressure than the gut strings; the modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections.
There is one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic f. A round or oval sound hole may be bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling. Mandolins evolved from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, the deep bowled mandolin, produced in Naples, became common in the 19th century. Dating to c. 13,000 BC, a cave painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow, a hunting bow used as a single-stringed musical instrument. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed. In turn, this led to being able to play chords. Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute; this picture of musical bow to harp bow has been contested. In 1965 Franz Jahnel wrote his criticism stating that the early ancestors of plucked instruments are not known, he felt that the harp bow was a long cry from the sophistication of the 4th-century BC civilization that took the primitive technology and created "technically and artistically well made harps, lyres and lutes."
Musicologists have put forth examples of that 4th-century BC technology, looking at engraved images that have survived. The earliest image showing a lute-like instrument came from Mesopotamia prior to 3000 BC. A cylinder seal from c. 3100 BC or earlier shows. From the surviving images, theororists have categorized the Mesopotamian lutes, showing that they developed into a long variety and a short; the line of long lutes may have developed into pandura. The line of short lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria and Northwest India, shown in sculpture from the 2nd century BC through the 4th or 5th centuries AD. Bactria and Gandhara became part of the Sasanian Empire. Under the Sasanians, a short almond shaped lute from Bactria came to be called the barbat or barbud, developed into the Islamic world's oud or ud; when the Moors conquered Andalusia in 711 AD, they brought their ud along, into a country that had known a lute tradition under the Romans, the pandura. During the 8th and 9th centuries, many musicians and artists from across the Islamic world flocked to Iberia.
Among them was Abu l-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Nafi‘, a prominent musician who had trained under Ishaq al-Mawsili in Baghdad and was exiled to Andalusia before 833 AD. He taught and has been credited with adding a fifth string to his oud and with establishing one of the first schools of music in Córdoba. By the 11th century, Muslim Iberia had become a center for the manufacture of instruments; these goods spread to Provence, influencing French troubadours and trouvères and reaching the rest of Europe. Beside the introduction of the lute to Spain by the Moors, another important point of transfer of the lute from Arabian to European culture was Sicily, where it was brought either by Byzantine or by Muslim musicians. There were singer-lutenists at the court in Palermo following the N
English Electric Part One
English Electric Part One is the seventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Big Big Train. It was released on 3 September 2012, by English Electric Recordings and GEP. Nick D'Virgilio – drums, backing vocals Dave Gregory – electric guitar, voice of the court usher, mellotron David Longdon – lead vocals, vibes, banjo, melodica, acoustic guitar, mandolin and bees Andy Poole – keyboards, acoustic guitar, backing vocals, baritone bee Gregory Spawton – bass guitar, electric guitar, slow moog, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards Danny Manners - keyboards, double bassGuest musiciansAbigail Trundle - cello Andy Tillison - organ, keyboards Ben Godfrey - cornet, piccolo trumpet Daniel Steinhardt - electric guitar Dave Desmond - trombone Eleanor Gilchrist - violin Geraldine Berreen - violin Jan Jaap Langereis - recorders Jon Truscott - tuba John Storey - euphonium, trombone Lily Adams - backing vocals Martin Orford - backing vocals Rachel Hall - violin Sue Bowran - violin Teresa Whipple - viola Verity Joy - backing vocals Violet Adams - backing vocals The photos on the cover and the booklet were made by Matt Sefton at Tanfield Railway, Co.
Durham. Big Big Train saw a picture from him on Flickr, that Matt Sefton described: "English Electric: Side panel of a railway crane, Tanfield Railway sidings, County Durham. Great name for a band and an album cover - if it doesn't exist I'm claiming it!“ Gregory Spawton commented, "My band is working on an album called English Electric at the moment. We're prog / post rock. Great pictures, thanks for uploading them." So Matt Sefton and BBT had contact and sometimes a dealing. The pictures in the booklet are from Co.. Durham“ by Matt Sefton. Liner Notes RadioShow: The European Perspective #161
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that has six strings. It is played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or the finger/fingernails of one hand, while fretting with the fingers of the other hand; the sound of the vibrating strings is projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar, or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker. 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; the modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, the archtop guitar, sometimes called a "jazz guitar"; the tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber.
The classical guitar is played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive finger-picking technique where each string is plucked individually by the player's fingers, as opposed to being strummed. The term "finger-picking" can refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the United States; the acoustic bass guitar is a low-pitched instrument, one octave below a regular guitar. Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier and a loudspeaker that both makes the sound of the instrument loud enough for the performers and audience to hear, given that it produces an electric signal when played, that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone using an equalizer and a huge variety of electronic effects units, the most used ones being distortion and reverb. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but solid wood guitars began to dominate during the 1960s and 1970s, as they are less prone to unwanted acoustic feedback "howls"; as with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of electric guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars, which are used in rock music.
The loud, amplified sound and sonic power of the electric guitar played through a guitar amp has played a key role in the development of blues and rock music, both as an accompaniment instrument and performing guitar solos, in many rock subgenres, notably heavy metal music and punk rock. The electric guitar has had a major influence on popular culture; the guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, country, folk, jota, metal, reggae, rock and many forms of pop. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, a flat back, most with incurved sides." The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and in the Americas. A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from Babylonia show people playing an instrument that has a strong resemblance to the guitar, indicating a possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.
The modern word guitar, its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German Gitarre, the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic قيثارة and the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek κιθάρα. Which comes from the Persian word "sihtar"; this pattern of naming is visible in setar and sitar. The word "tar" at the end of all of these words is a Persian word that means "string". Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the development of the earliest "guitars" is lost in the history of medieval Spain, two instruments are cited as their most influential predecessors, the European lute and its cousin, the four-string oud. 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 rounded back, wide fingerboard, several sound holes.
The guitarra Latina had a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, these two cordophones were referred to as guitars; the Spanish vihuela, called in Italian the "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, is considered to have been the single most important influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a cut waist, it was larger than the contemporary four-course guitars. By the 16th century, the vihuela's construction had more in common with the modern guitar, with its curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, more like a larger version of the contemporary four-course guita
English Electric Part Two
English Electric Part Two is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Big Big Train. It was released on 4 March 2013, by English Electric Recordings and GEP. All tracks written by Greg Spawton, except where noted.. Nick D'Virgilio – drums, backing vocals Dave Gregory – electric guitar, mellotron David Longdon – lead vocals, vibes, banjo, melodica, acoustic guitar and bees, mandolin Danny Manners - keyboards, double bass Andy Poole – keyboards, acoustic guitar, backing vocals, baritone bee Gregory Spawton – bass guitar, electric guitar, slow moog, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboardsGuest musiciansAbigail Trundle - cello Andy Tillison - organ, keyboards Ben Godfrey - cornet,trumpet,piccolo trumpet Daniel Steinhardt - electric guitar Dave Desmond - trombone Eleanor Gilchrist - violin Geraldine Berreen - violin Jan Jaap Langereis - recorders Jon Truscott - tuba John Storey - euphonium, trombone Lily Adams - backing vocals Martin Orford - backing vocals Rachel Hall - violin Sue Bowran - violin Teresa Whipple - viola Verity Joy - backing vocals Violet Adams - backing vocals Liner Notes RadioShow: The European Perspective #161
