1.
Percussion instrument
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A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater, struck, scraped or rubbed by hand, or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, the percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, percussive techniques can also be applied to the human body, as in body percussion. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony. Percussion is commonly referred to as the backbone or the heartbeat of an ensemble, often working in close collaboration with bass instruments. In jazz and other popular ensembles, the pianist, bassist, drummer. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, however, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments have been used, again generally sparingly. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music, in almost every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. In classic jazz, one almost immediately thinks of the rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word swing is spoken. Because of the diversity of instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed entirely of percussion. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are all represented in these ensembles, music for pitched percussion instruments can be notated on a staff with the same treble and bass clefs used by many non-percussive instruments. Music for percussive instruments without a pitch can be notated with a specialist rhythm or percussion-clef. The word percussion has evolved from Latin terms, percussio, as a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as the collision of two bodies to produce a sound. Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion, Most percussion instruments are classified as idiophones and membranophones.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks. 111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a mallet, such as the hang, gongs and the xylophone. 21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani, snare drum, (Included in most drum sets or 412. Stringed instruments played with such as the hammered dulcimer
2.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
3.
Xylophone
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The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. The term xylophone may be used generally, to all such instruments such as the marimba, balafon. The term is popularly used to refer to similar instruments of the lithophone and metallophone types. The bars of metal sound more high pitched than the wooden ones, the modern western xylophone has bars of rosewood, padauk, or various synthetic materials such as fiberglass or fiberglass-reinforced plastic which allows a louder sound. Some can be as small a range as 2½ octaves but concert xylophones are typically 3½ or 4 octaves, the xylophone is a transposing instrument, its parts are written one octave below the sounding notes. Xylophones should be played with hard rubber, polyball, or acrylic mallets. Sometimes medium to hard rubber mallets, very hard core, or yarn mallets are used for softer effects, lighter tones can be created on xylophones by using wooden-headed mallets made from rosewood, ebony, birch, or other hard woods. Concert xylophones have tube resonators below the bars to enhance the tone, frames are made of wood or cheap steel tubing, more expensive xylophones feature height adjustment and more stability in the stand. In other music cultures some versions have gourds that act as Helmholtz resonators, others are trough xylophones with a single hollow body that acts as a resonator for all the bars. Old methods consisted of arranging the bars on tied bundles of straw, ancient mallets were made of willow wood with spoon-like bowls on the beaten ends. The instrument has obscure, ancient origins, according to Nettl, it originated in southeast Asia and came to Africa c. AD500 when a group of Malayo-Polynesian speaking peoples migrated to Africa, one piece of evidence for this is the similarity between East African xylophone orchestras and Javanese and Balinese gamelan orchestras. This, however has been questioned by ethnomusicologist and linguist Roger Blench who posits an independent origin in Africa, the xylophone-like ranat was used in Hindu regions. Java and Bali use xylophones in gamelan ensembles and they still have traditional significance in Africa, Malaysia, Melanesia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, and regions of the Americas. The term marimba is also applied to traditional folk instruments such as the West Africa balafon. Early forms were constructed of bars atop a gourd, the wood is first roasted around a fire before shaping the key to achieve the desired tone. A skilled maker can produce startling amplification, the mallets used to play dibinda and mbila have heads made from natural rubber taken from a wild creeping plant. This usually doubles an already rapid rhythmic pulse that may also co-exist with a counter-rhythm, the Mbila is associated with the Chopi people of the Inhambane Province, in southern Mozambique
4.
Marimba
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The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with mallets to produce musical tones. Resonators suspended underneath the bars amplify their sound and this instrument is a type of idiophone, but with a more resonant and lower-pitched tessitura than the xylophone. The marimba was developed in Central America by African slaves, and descended from its ancestral balafon instrument, Marimba is now the national instrument of Guatemala and Costa Rica. Modern uses of the marimba include solo performances, woodwind and brass ensembles, marimba concertos, jazz ensembles, marching band, drum and bugle corps, contemporary composers have used the unique sound of the marimba more and more in recent years. A player of the marimba can be called a marimbist or a marimba player, xylophones are widely used in music of west and central Africa. The name marimba stems from Bantu marimba or malimba, xylophone, the instrument itself is present, but is called balafon or heri in Mali and/or Guinea, while its known as gyil among the Akan peoples in and around Ghana. The word marimba and derivative words is used widely in East, other sources credit the creation of the marimba and the kalimba to Queen Marimba of the Wakambi people, who live south of Lake Victoria. In the Swahili language imba means song, Marimba, is said to be the mother of song and the creator of all the instruments, including the marimba. Mama means mother in Kiswahili, so it makes sense that the word mother would be combined with the word for song. The karimba is also said to have created by Queen Marimba. In much of East & Central Africa the karimba is seen as a version of the marimba. Diatonic xylophones were introduced to Central America in the 16th or 17th century, the first historical record of Mayan musicians using gourd resonator marimbas in Guatemala was made in 1680, by the historian Domingo Juarros. It became more widespread during the 18th and 19th centuries, as Mayan, in 1821, the marimba was proclaimed the national instrument of Guatemala in its independence proclamation. The gourd resonators were later replaced by harmonic wooden boxes, variants with slats made of steel, glass or bamboo instead of wood appeared during the 19th century. In 1892, Corazón de Jesús Borras Moreno, a musician from Chiapas, expanded marimba to include the chromatic scale by adding another row of sound bars, the name marimba was later applied to the orchestra instrument inspired by the Latin American model. In the United States, companies like Deagan and Leedy company adapted the Latino American instruments for use in western music, metal tubes were used as resonators, fine-tuned by rotating metal discs at the bottom, lowest note tubes were U-shaped. The marimbas were first used for music and dance, such as Vaudeville theater. Clair Omar Musser was a proponent of marimba in the United States at the time
5.
Vibraphone
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The vibraphone is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family. The vibraphone resembles the xylophone, marimba, and glockenspiel, each bar is paired with a resonator tube that has a motor-driven butterfly valve at its upper end. The valves are mounted on a shaft, which produces a tremolo or vibrato effect while spinning. The vibraphone also has a sustain pedal similar to that on a piano, with the pedal up, the bars are all damped and produce a shortened sound. With the pedal down, they sound for several seconds, the vibraphone is commonly used in jazz music, in which it often plays a featured role and was a defining element of the sound of mid-20th-century Tiki lounge exotica, as popularized by Arthur Lyman. It is the second most popular solo keyboard percussion instrument in music, after the marimba. It is an instrument in the modern percussion section for orchestras. The first musical instrument called vibraphone was marketed by the Leedy Manufacturing Company in the United States in 1921, however, this instrument differed in significant details from the instrument now called the vibraphone. The Leedy vibraphone achieved a degree of popularity after it was used in the novelty recordings of Aloha Oe and this popularity led J. C. Deagan, Inc. in 1927 to ask its Chief Tuner, Henry Schluter, to develop a similar instrument. Schluters design was more popular than the Leedy design, and has become the template for all instruments now called vibraphone, however, when Deagan began marketing Schluters instrument in 1928, they called it the vibraharp. The name derived from similar aluminum bars that were mounted vertically, since Deagan trademarked the name, others were obliged to use the earlier vibraphone for their instruments incorporating the newer design. The name confusion continues, even to the present, but over time vibraphone became significantly more popular than vibraharp, by 1974, the Directory of the D. C. Federation of Musicians listed 39 vibraphone players and 3 vibraharp players, the initial purpose of the vibraphone was to add to the large arsenal of percussion sounds used by vaudeville orchestras for novelty effects. This use was quickly overwhelmed in the 1930s by its development as a jazz instrument, the use of the vibraphone in jazz was pioneered by Paul Barbarin, the drummer with Luis Russells band. Bergerault, of Ligueil, France also began manufacturing vibraphones in the 1930s, Deagan struck endorsement deals with many of the leading players, including Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson. The Deagan company went out of business in the 1980s, its trademark, Yamaha continues to make percussion instruments based on Deagan designs. In 1948, the Musser Mallet Company was founded by Clair Omar Musser, the Musser company continues to manufacture vibraphones as part of the Ludwig Drum Company. The standard modern instrument has a range of three octaves, from the F below middle C, larger three-and-a-half or four octave models from the C below middle C are also becoming more common
6.
Piano
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The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word piano is a form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument. The first fortepianos in the 1700s had a sound and smaller dynamic range. An acoustic piano usually has a wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings. Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard causes a padded hammer to strike the strings. The hammer rebounds from the strings, and the continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air, when the key is released, a damper stops the strings vibration, ending the sound. Notes can be sustained, even when the keys are released by the fingers and thumbs and this means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, going from the deepest bass range to the highest treble. The black keys are for the accidentals, which are needed to play in all twelve keys, more rarely, some pianos have additional keys. Most notes have three strings, except for the bass that graduates from one to two, the strings are sounded when keys are pressed or struck, and silenced by dampers when the hands are lifted from the keyboard. There are two types of piano, the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical solos, chamber music and art song and it is used in jazz. The upright piano, which is compact, is the most popular type, as they are a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making. During the nineteenth century, music publishers produced many works in arrangements for piano, so that music lovers could play. The piano is widely employed in classical, jazz, traditional and popular music for solo and ensemble performances, accompaniment, with technological advances, amplified electric pianos, electronic pianos, and digital pianos have also been developed. The electric piano became an instrument in the 1960s and 1970s genres of jazz fusion, funk music. The piano was founded on earlier technological innovations in keyboard instruments, pipe organs have been used since Antiquity, and as such, the development of pipe organs enabled instrument builders to learn about creating keyboard mechanisms for sounding pitches
"Glockenspiel". Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). 1911.
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