1.
Musical instrument classification
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Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, the oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and dates from the 3rd millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. However, the Chou-Li, an anonymous treatise compiled from sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order, metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan, attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, more usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced. The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion, the scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division, but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips, many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, however, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves. Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme, for example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa also recognized the three classes in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun, a treatise on the origin. The division pervades Tboli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. This scheme was taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Electrophones, such as the guitar or electric bass, which produce sound through electricity and is required to be plugged in to an amplifier. Later Sachs added a category, electrophones, such as theremins. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category, within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, in 1932, comparative musicologist André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments. The Kpelle of West Africa also use this system and they distinguish the struck, including both beaten and plucked, and the blown
2.
String instrument
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String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or piano, with bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a wheel that rubs the strings. Bowed instruments include the string instruments of the Classical music orchestra. All of the string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp, in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, in most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it, the vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, the development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country, Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four stringed precursor to the guitar and these instruments typically used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history, violins and guitars became more consistent in design, and were roughly similar to what we use in the 2000s. At the same time, the 19th century guitar became more associated with six string models. In big bands of the 1920s, the guitar played backing chords. The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier, the development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups, volume control knobs and an output jack, in the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called stacks
3.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
4.
Plucked string instrument
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Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate, plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the family, which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck. The zither family does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard, in the harp family, the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The harpsichord does not fit any of these categories but is also a string instrument. Bowed string instruments, such as the violin, can also be plucked in the known as pizzicato, however, as they are usually played with a bow. Struck string instruments can be plucked as an extended technique. Plucked string instruments are not a category in the Sachs-Hornbostel classification, as some of them are simple chordophones and others are composite
5.
Steel guitar
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Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. The term steel guitar is often used to describe any metal body resophonic guitar. Steel guitar can describe, The slide technique of playing guitar is generally by using a steel bar. Dobro is also a name of one of the leading manufacturers of resonator guitars. A specialized instrument built for playing in steel guitar fashion and these are of several types, Lap steel guitar, which may be, Lap slide guitar, with a conventional wooden guitar box. The square-necked variety of resonator guitar, the technique was invented and popularized in Hawaii. Thus, the lap steel guitar is known as the Hawaiian guitar, particularly in documents from the early 20th century. Steel guitar tunings tend to feature close intervals whereas slack key tunings more often contain 4ths and 5ths, dobro is a brand of resonator guitars, but the word is most often used to describe bluegrass instruments of several different brands. Bottleneck guitar may have developed from Steel guitar technique. The slide is almost never slanted, common bottleneck tunings are open D and E chords. A steel guitar is one designed to be played in steel-guitar fashion, historically, these have been of many types, but two dominate, Resonator guitars, particularly the square-necked variety which can be played only in steel guitar fashion. Electric instruments, starting with electric lap steel guitars and developing through the steel guitar to the pedal steel guitar. The lap steel guitar typically has 6 strings and may have various tunings, originally the standard EBGDAE tuning was changed to allow open i. e. major chord tunings to accommodate using the straight steel bar and not require changing string gauges. Hawaiian tunings evolved from A Major and E Major to E7, C sharp Minor, C sharp Minor 9th, F sharp Minor 9th, B11th and the popular E 13th. Jerry Byrd is credibly the originator of the C6+A7 tuning ECAGEC sharp which allows a wider ranging of chording for Hawaiian and it differs from a conventional or Spanish guitar in having a higher action and often a neck that is square in cross section. The frets, unused in steel style playing, may be replaced by markers, there are three main types, Lap slide guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have electric pickups for amplification in addition. Resonator guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have pickups for amplification in addition. Electric lap steel guitars, which are solid body
6.
Classical guitar
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The classical guitar is the member of the guitar family used in classical music. It is an acoustical wooden guitar with strings made of nylon, the traditional classical guitar has twelve frets clear of the body and is held on the left leg, so that the hand that plucks or strums the strings does so near the back of the soundhole. The modern steel string guitar, on the hand, usually has fourteen frets clear of the body and is commonly played off the hip. Examples of early guitars include the early romantic guitar. Classical guitar strings once made of catgut are now made of polymers as nylon. A guitar family tree may be identified, the flamenco guitar derives from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound. Todays modern classical guitar was established by the designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier. Cultural baroque court music, 19th century opera and its influences, 19th century folk songs, Latin American music, thus over recent decades we have become accustomed to specialist artists with expertise in the art of vihuela, lute, Baroque guitar, 19th-century guitar, etc. Different types of guitars have different sound aesthetics, e. g. different colour-spectrum characteristics, different response and these guitars in turn sound different from the Torres models used by Segovia, that are suited for interpretations of romantic-modern works such as Moreno Torroba. When considering the guitar from a perspective, the musical instrument used is just as important as the musical language. As an example, It is impossible to play a historically informed de Visee or Corbetta on a classical guitar. The reason is that the guitar used courses, which are two strings close together, that are plucked together. This gives baroque guitars an unmistakable sound characteristic and tonal texture that is an part of an interpretation. Additionally the sound aesthetic of the guitar is very different from modern classical type guitars. However, they are considered to emphasize the fundamental too heavily for earlier repertoire, Some attribute this to the popularity of Segovia, considering him the catalyst for change toward the Spanish design and the so-called modern school in the 1920s and beyond. Some people consider it to have been influence of Segovia. It was the 19th century classical guitarist Francisco Tárrega who first popularized the Torres design as a solo instrument. Vihuela, renaissance guitars and baroque guitars have a bright sound - rich in overtones -, later in Spain a style of music emerged that favored a stronger fundamental, With the change of music a stronger fundamental was demanded and the fan bracing system was approached
7.
National String Instrument Corporation
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The National String Instrument Corporation was a guitar company that formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars. National also produced resonator ukuleles and mandolins, in 1927, National produced the first resonator instruments and sold under their National brand. They had metal bodies and a resonator system, with three aluminium cones joined by a T-shaped aluminium spider. Wooden-bodied models soon followed, based on inexpensive plywood student guitar bodies supplied by Kay, Harmony, in 1928, Dopyera left National, and with four of his brothers formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company to produce a competing single resonator design, with the resonator cone inverted. John Dopyera continued to stock in National. The Dobro design was cheaper to produce and louder than the tricone. National soon introduced their own single resonator design, the biscuit, National also continued to produce tricone designs, which some players preferred. In their 1930 catalog, National list eight key associates, including Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp, Harry Watson, Paul Barth, in 1932, the Dopyera brothers secured a controlling interest in both National and Dobro, and merged the companies to form the National Dobro Corporation. In 1989 a new company in California named National Reso-Phonic Guitars began manufacturing reproductions of resonator instruments based on designs originated by John Dopyera
8.
Dobro
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The word Dobro is, in popular usage, the generic term for a wood-bodied, single cone resonator guitar. It is also an American brand of guitar, currently owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The Dobro was originally made by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company and their design, with a single inverted resonator, was introduced in competition to the patented Tricone and biscuit designs produced by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars, Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired the Dobro trademark in 1994. Although the name Dobro is generically associated with the single-inverted-cone design, the name originated in 1928 when the Dopyera brothers, John and Emil, formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. Dobro is both a contraction of Dopyera brothers and a word meaning goodness or goodwill in their native Slovak, an early company motto was Dobro means good in any language. The Dobro was the third resonator guitar design by John Dopyera, the inventor of the resonator guitar, unlike his earlier tricone design, the Dobro had a single resonator cone and it was inverted, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl shaped resonator, the Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce. In Dopyeras opinion, the cost of manufacture had priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players and his failure to convince his fellow directors at the National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single-cone version was part of his motivation for leaving. Since National had applied for a patent on the single cone, in the following years both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the Tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National director Adolph Rickenbacher, by 1934, the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, and they merged the companies to form the National-Dobro Corporation. From the outset, wooden bodies had been sourced from existing guitar manufacturers, Dobro had granted Regal a license to manufacture resonator instruments. By 1937, it was the manufacturer, and the license was officially made exclusive. Regal continued to manufacture and sell resonator instruments under many names, including Regal, Dobro, Old Kraftsman, however, they ceased all resonator guitar production following the United States entry into World War II in 1941. Emil Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959 under the brand name Doperas Original before selling the company, Moseley merged it with his Mosrite guitar company and manufactured Dobros for a time. Meanwhile, in 1967, Rudy and Emil Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, however, in 1970, they again acquired the Dobro name—Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation. The Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, along with the Dobro name and they renamed the company Original Acoustic Instruments and moved production to Nashville. Gibson now uses the name Dobro only for models with the design that the original Dobro Manufacturing Company used
9.
Resonator guitar
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A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by carrying string vibration through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones, instead of to the sound board. Resonator guitars were designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars. They became prized for their sound, however, and found life with several musical styles well after electric amplification solved the issue of inadequate guitar sound levels. The body of a guitar may be made of wood, metal. Typically there are two sound holes, positioned on either side of the fingerboard extension. In the case of models, the sound holes are either both circular or both f-shaped, and symmetrical. The older tricone design has irregularly shaped sound holes, cutaway body styles may truncate or omit the lower f-hole. Dopyera experimented with configurations of up to four resonator cones and with cones composed of different metals. In 1927, Dopyera and Beauchamp formed the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture guitars under the brand name National. The first models were metal-bodied, and featured three conical aluminum resonators joined by a T-shaped aluminum bar that supported the system called the tricone. National originally produced wooden-bodied Tricone models at their factory in Los Angeles and they called these models the Triolian, but made only 12 of them. They changed the body meant for tricones to single-cone models, and this system was cheaper to produce, and produced more volume than Nationals tricone. National countered the Dobro with its own single resonator model, which Dopyera had designed before he left the company and they also continued to produce the tricone design, which many players preferred for its tone. Both National single and tricone resonators remained conical, with their convex surfaces uppermost, single resonator models used a wooden biscuit at the cone apex to support the bridge. At this point, both companies sourced many components from Adolph Rickenbacher, including the aluminium resonators, after much legal action, the Dopyera brothers gained control of both National and Dobro in 1932, and subsequently merged them into the National Dobro Corporation. However, they ceased all resonator guitars production following the U. S. entry into World War II in 1941. Emile Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959, before selling the company and trademark to Semie Moseley, in 1967, Rudy and Emile Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, first branded Hound Dog. In 1970 they again acquired the Dobro trademark, Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation, the Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, and announced it would defend its right to exclusive use of the Dobro trademark—which many people commonly used for any resonator guitar
10.
Pickup (music technology)
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The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly, using a DI box or broadcast on the radio or television. Most electric guitars and electric basses use magnetic pickups, acoustic guitars, upright basses and fiddles often use a piezoelectric pickup. A magnetic pickup consists of a permanent magnet with a core of such as alnico or ferrite. The pickup is most often mounted on the body of the instrument, Magnetic pickups used with string basses can be attached to the bridge. The permanent magnet creates a field, the motion of the vibrating steel strings disturbs the field, changing magnetic flux. The pickup is then connected with a cable to an amplifier which amplifies the signal to a sufficient magnitude of power to drive a loudspeaker. A pickup can also be connected to recording equipment via a patch cable, there may also be an internal preamplifier device mounted in an acoustic guitar or in an external box. When a preamp is used in way, it is between the pickup and cable and can significantly reduce the equivalent impedance of the pickup coil. The output voltage of magnetic pickups varies between 100 mV rms to over 1 V rms for some of the higher output types, some high-output pickups achieve this by employing very strong magnets, thus creating more flux and thereby more output. This can be detrimental to the sound because the magnets pull on the strings can cause problems with intonation as well as damp the strings. Other high-output pickups have more turns of wire to increase the voltage generated by the strings movement, however, this also increases the pickups output resistance/impedance, which can affect high frequencies if the pickup is not isolated by a buffer amplifier or a DI unit. The turns of wire in proximity to each other have an equivalent self-capacitance that and this resonance can accentuate certain frequencies, giving the pickup a characteristic tonal quality. The more turns of wire in the winding, the higher the output voltage, the inductive source impedance inherent in this type of transducer makes it less linear than other forms of pickups, such as piezo-electric or optical. The tonal quality produced by this nonlinearity is, however, subject to taste, the external load usually consists of resistance and capacitance between the hot lead and shield in the guitar cable. The electric cable also has a capacitance, which can be a significant portion of the overall system capacitance and this arrangement of passive components forms a resistively-damped second-order low-pass filter. Single coil pickups act like an antenna and are prone to pick up mains hum along with the musical signal. Mains hum consists of a signal at a nominal 50 or 60 Hz, depending on local alternating current frequency. The changing magnetic flux caused by the mains current links with the windings of the pickup, the pickups also are sensitive to the electromagnetic field from nearby cathode ray tubes in video monitors or televisions
11.
Pedal steel guitar
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The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric steel guitar that is built on legs or a stand and is fitted with foot pedals and knee levers which change the pitch of certain strings. The word steel comes from a piece of polished steel held against the strings and moved back, like other electric guitars, the musical instrument produces sound by the vibration of its strings which are converted by magnetic pickup connected to an amplifier. Pedal steels may have one or two necks that typically have 10 strings each, but may have as many as 14, unlike most other guitars, pedal steel guitars have reference lines on the fretboard where frets would be, but no actual frets. The player changes the pitch of one or more strings by sliding a metal bar from one position to another or vibrating them with a mechanical device, Pedal steels are typically plucked with a thumb pick and fingers, or two or three fingerpicks. The distinctive feature of pedal steel guitars are the namesake pedals as well as knee levers. The pedals are mounted on a bar below the body. While there are fairly standard pedal assignments, many advanced players devise their own setups. The range of copedents that can be set up varies considerably from guitar to guitar, aftermarket modifications to make additional copedents possible are common. The pedal steel evolved from the steel guitar and lap steel guitar. Like the console steel, a pedal steel may have multiple necks, the pedal steel, with its smooth portamenti, bending chords and complex riffs, is one of the most recognizable and characteristic instruments of American country music. A pedal steel guitar is typically rectangular and has no specific resonant chamber or conventional guitar body and these are mounted on a stand and equipped with foot pedals and usually knee levers. Many models feature two necks, the nearer to the player most often using a C6 tuning and the farther away using an E9 tuning. The most common configuration is one or two necks of ten each, but eight-string and twelve-string necks are also popular. Three-neck instruments are less common than those with one or two, but are not unknown, the pedals and/or knee levers on the underside allow the performer to tighten or relax one or more strings in combination to specific tuned notes, changing the instruments tuning during performance. Several people have been credited with the innovation, the Hawaiian style of playing was very popular in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. To increase the volume of the guitar, a resonator cone was added by the Dopyera Brothers to create the resophonic guitar. By the 30s, the guitar body was abandoned for a flat slab of wood or metal and the addition of an electric pickup. It was the first electric guitar to achieve commercial success, several pioneering manufacturers of the electric guitar were first famous for their work on the then more popular electric steel guitar, among them Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby and Leo Fender
12.
Freddie Roulette
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Frederick Martin Freddie Roulette is an American electric blues lap steel guitarist and singer. He is best known as an exponent of the lap steel guitar and he is a member of the band Daphne Blue, and has collaborated with Earl Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Henry Kaiser, and Harvey Mandel. He has also released solo albums. One commentator described Roulette as an excellent musician, as of August 12,2013, VidStatsX, a video statistics company, reported that Roulettes work with Daphne Blue had approximately 55,000 views on the video sharing site YouTube. Roulettes family was originally from New Orleans, but he was born and raised in Evanston and he learned to play the steel guitar in high school. He started playing in clubs in Chicago in his teens, and in 1965 began work in Earl Hookers backing band, continuing to tour and perform with him until 1969. Hookers band, with pianist Pinetop Perkins, harmonica player Carey Bell, vocalist Andrew Odom, Roulette performed on several of Hookers singles, his 1967 album, The Genius of Earl Hooker, and the 1969 follow-up, Two Bugs and a Roach. Roulette later developed a friendship with Charlie Musselwhite and recorded him on the 1969 album Chicago Blue Stars. He toured with Musselwhite and backed him on the albums Tennessee Woman and Memphis, Tennessee, before relocating to the San Francisco, California and he played there in a band with Luther Tucker and recorded with Earl Hookers cousin, John Lee Hooker. Freddie released an album, ‘Daphne Blue, Legendary Blues Instrumentals’ which contains 15 excellent tracks, as of 2015, Freddie still plays with the San Francisco based ‘Daphne Blue’, with Blue Ray Bronner. In 1973, Roulette released his solo album, Sweet Funky Steel. Don Sugarcane Harris played on several tracks, over the next twenty years, Roulette continued to perform with other musicians and occasionally led his own band, while also working full-time as an apartment manager. On the 1996 album Psychedelic Guitar Circus, he worked in a group with Mandel, Kaiser and he recorded his 1997 solo album, Back in Chicago, Jammin with Willie Kent and the Gents, with Willie Kent and Chico Banks. The album won an award from Living Blues magazine as Best Blues Album of 1997, following that albums success, Roulette began performing widely at blues festivals and recorded the 1998 album Spirit of Steel, featuring the Holmes Brothers and produced by Kaiser. He also contributed to Kaisers album Yo Miles, a tribute to Miles Davis, Roulettes solo album Man of Steel featured guitar playing by Will Bernard and David Lindley, Kaiser also played guitar and produced the album. It was recorded in Fantasy Studios, in Berkeley, California, in the same year, Roulette played locally in a small combo including Mike Hinton. Roulette has played at music festivals over the years, including the Long Beach Blues Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival. He continues to play dates in the San Francisco area
13.
Fingerboard
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The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, the strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length and this is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, on some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique. The word fingerboard in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions, in particular, the direction sul tasto for bowed string instruments to play with the bow above the fingerboard. This reduces the prominence of upper harmonics, giving a more ethereal tone, a fingerboard may be fretted, having raised strips of hard material perpendicular to the strings, which the player presses the strings against to stop the strings. On modern guitars, frets are made of metal. Frets let the player stop the string consistently in the same place, as well, frets do not dampen string vibrations as much as fingers alone on an unfretted fingerboard. Frets may be fixed, as on a guitar or mandolin, or movable, fingerboards may also be unfretted, as they usually are on bowed instruments, where damping by the finger is of little consequence because of the sustained stimulation of the strings by the bow. Unfretted fingerboards allow a more control over subtle changes in pitch than fretted boards. Fingerboards may also be, though uncommon, a hybrid of these two, such a construction is seen on the sitar, where arched frets attach at the edges of a smooth fingerboard, unfrettable strings run inside the frets, while frettable ones run outside. A double dot or some other variation marks the 12th fret, variations on the standard dot shape can make a guitar more distinctive. Position markers are sometimes made luminescent to make more visible on stage. Position markers are sometimes repeated on the edge of the fingerboard for easy viewing. Over time, strings wear frets down, which can cause buzzing, fixing this occasionally requires replacing the frets—but more often they just need dressing. In fret dressing, a luthier levels and polishes the frets, stainless steel guitar frets may never need dressing, because of the density of the material. Not having frets carefully and properly aligned with the fingerboard can cause severe intonation issues, the ultimate way of determining the source of a buzz and detuning problem is to measure the levelness of the frets. A straightedge positioned on the neck in the lie of one of the strings should show nearly level frets, on bowed string instruments, the fingerboard is usually made of ebony, rosewood or other hardwood
14.
Console steel guitar
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The console steel guitar is a type of electric steel guitar intermediate between the lap steel guitar and the pedal steel guitar. Console steel guitars typically have multiple necks and/or more than six strings per neck and they are particularly favoured in Hawaiian music, especially the twin neck eight string per neck configuration. Don Helms played a Gibson Console with Hank Williams, also, Hank Williams IIIs steel guitar player Andy Gibson plays a Fender Dual Professional steel guitar. Kayton Roberts, who has played with Hank Williams III. Console steel guitars most commonly have eight strings per neck, with six or seven strings less common and mainly on older instruments. Up to four necks is not unusual, as without the benefit of pedals, the player has only as many tunings available as there are necks, but two necks are most common. As with the steel guitar, the neck closest to the player is most commonly C6 tuning. The line between electric lap steel guitar and console steel guitar is fuzzy, with a deal of overlap. Some makers and authorities do not use the console steel guitar at all. Aria Awtrey Fender George Boards Gibson Gretsch Epiphone Peavey Nova Remington Rickenbacker Steel guitar History of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar
15.
Kaki King
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Kaki King is an American guitarist and composer. King is known for her percussive and jazz-tinged melodies, energetic live shows, use of tunings on acoustic and lap steel guitar. In February 2006, Rolling Stone released a list of The New Guitar Gods, on which King was the sole woman, in addition to a 10-year career that includes six LP and two EP albums, King has also scored music for television and film. King was born the first of two daughters, while still a small child, her father noticed her natural musical ability, and encouraged her interest in music. She was introduced to the guitar at the age of four and played for several years, convinced that her break in music would come from drumming, King played in bands in high school with classmate Morgan Jahnig, who would later become the bassist of Old Crow Medicine Show. On graduating from The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in 1998, the two friends attended New York University, while there, King picked up the guitar again, and revisited the finger-style techniques that intrigued her as a child. While at NYU she studied with Dr. Bill Rayner, a professor of guitar. From there, King played a few gigs and busked in the New York City Subway. After signing with Velour Records in 2002, King began recording her debut album and she incorporated fingerstyle fanning, with both flamenco style percussion and fret tapping techniques, as well as using double open tunings, viola tunings, and traditional Russian guitar. On April 22,2003, Everybody Loves You was released to positive reviews, while her later work involves more of a band format, Everybody Loves You is Kings only fully acoustic guitar album, with the exception of light singing on the hidden bonus track, The Government. To support the album, King embarked on her first major tour in North America. After King appeared on Late Night with Conan OBrien, Sony Records offered her a deal with Epic records Red Ink label, from there, King headed back into the studio to work on her sophomore effort, Legs to Make Us Longer. Produced by David Torn, Legs to Make Us Longer was released on Epics Red Ink Imprint on October 5,2004 to strong reviews. In support of the album, King performed as an act for Eric Johnson during a leg of his 2005 tour, as well as completing her own nationwide. At the end of her tour for Legs to Make Us Longer in 2005 and she amicably parted ways with major label Sony/Epic and returned to her original label, Velour, to begin work on her third album. Until We Felt Red. Released August 8,2006, on Velour Records, the album features work by Tortoises John McEntire. With the prominence of electric guitar shoegazing and effect boxes on the new record, and the addition of a full band, club, called the sound a post-rock makeover. She supported the album by going on tour with Sarah Bettens from Ks Choice, in early 2007, Dave Grohl invited King to appear as a guitarist on the track Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners, a song penned by Grohl for an upcoming studio album by the Foo Fighters
16.
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
17.
Slide guitar
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Slide guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. Instead of altering the pitch of the strings in the manner, an object called a slide is placed upon the string to vary its vibrating length. This slide can then be moved along the string without lifting, creating smooth transitions in pitch and allowing wide, Slide guitar is most often played, With the guitar in the normal position, using a slide on one of the fingers of the left hand. This same technique is used to play steel guitar and the Dobro resonator guitar used in Bluegrass music. The technique of using a slide on a string has been traced to one-stringed African instruments similar to a Diddley bow, the technique was made popular by African American blues artists. The first musician recorded using the style was Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two solo pieces Guitar Blues and Guitar Rag in 1923, Blues legend Muddy Waters was also very influential, particularly in developing the electric Chicago blues slide guitar from the acoustic Mississippi Delta slide guitar. Texas blues musician Johnny Winter developed his style through years of touring with Waters. Slide player Roy Rogers honed his skills by touring with blues artist John Lee Hooker. John Lees cousin Earl Hooker may have been the first to use wah-wah, the sound has since become commonplace in country and Hawaiian music. The Rolling Stones featured a guitar as early as their 1963 recording of the John Lennon/Paul McCartney song I Wanna Be Your Man. Guitarist Brian Jones played slide in a very blues-oriented style, Jones was also one of the first English guitarists to play slide and during the bands early years, he was considered one of the best slide guitarists in the music world. His successors Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood also displayed their own slide guitar skills while with the band, the album Let It Bleed features Keith Richards on slide guitar for the majority of the album, since the band were in-between guitarists during the making of the album. Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger has also played guitar on occasion. Canned Heats Alan Wilson also helped bring slide guitar to music in the late 1960s. George Harrison experimented with slide guitar during the half of The Beatles career, first using the technique on an early outtake recording of Strawberry Fields Forever. The 1965 songs Drive My Car, and Run For Your Life have slide guitar, Harrison later used slide extensively in his solo career, on songs such as My Sweet Lord, Give Me Love, This Is Love, and Cheer Down. He played slide in the Traveling Wilburys as well as on The Beatles 1995 and 1996 reunion singles Free as a Bird, slides may be used on any guitar, but slides generally and steels in particular are often used on instruments specifically made to play in this manner. Often, the strings are raised a little higher off the fingerboard than they would be for conventional guitar playing—especially if the player isnt going to use the fingers for fretting
18.
Chord (music)
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A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of pitches consisting of two or more notes that are heard as if sounding simultaneously. In everyday use by musical ensembles such as bands and orchestras, however, the notes of a chord do not have to be played together at the same time, arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, also constitute chords. Other chords with more than three notes include added tone chords, extended chords and tone clusters, which are used in classical music, jazz. Triads commonly found in the Western classical tradition are major and minor chords, the descriptions major, minor, augmented, and diminished are referred to collectively as chordal quality. Chords are also classified by their root note—for instance, a C major triad consists of the pitch classes C, E. While most chords have at least three notes, power chords, which are used in rock music, particularly in hard rock. An ordered series of chords is called a chord progression, one example of a widely used chord progression in Western traditional music and blues is the 12 bar blues progression, the simplest versions of which include tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. To describe this, Western music theory has developed the practice of numbering chords using Roman numerals which represent the number of steps up from the tonic note of the scale. Common ways of notating or representing chords in Western music include Roman numerals, figured bass, macro symbols, the chords in a song or piece are also given names which refer to their function. The chord built on the first note of a scale is called the tonic chord. The chord built on the note of a major scale is called the subdominant chord. The chord built on the degree of the major scale is called the dominant chord. There are names for the built on every note of the major scale. Chords can be played on instruments, including piano, pipe organ, guitar. Chords can also be performed when multiple musicians play together in an ensemble or when multiple singers sing in a choir. The English word chord derives from Middle English cord, a shortening of accord in the sense of agreement and later. A sequence of chords is known as a progression or harmonic progression. These are frequently used in Western music, a chord progression aims for a definite goal of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord
19.
Melody
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A melody, also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively and it may be considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody, melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches, pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, the true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubt, the means is subordinate to the end, given the many and varied elements and styles of melody many extant explanations confine us to specific stylistic models, and they are too exclusive. Paul Narveson claimed in 1984 that more than three-quarters of melodic topics had not been explored thoroughly, melodies in the 20th century utilized a greater variety of pitch resources than ha been the custom in any other historical period of Western music. While the diatonic scale was used, the chromatic scale became widely employed. Composers also allotted a structural role to the dimensions that previously had been almost exclusively reserved for pitch. Kliewer states, The essential elements of any melody are duration, pitch, and quality, texture, for example, Jazz musicians use the term lead or head to refer to the main melody, which is used as a starting point for improvisation. Rock music, melodic music, and other forms of popular music, indian classical music relies heavily on melody and rhythm, and not so much on harmony, as the music contains no chord changes. Balinese gamelan music often uses complicated variations and alterations of a melody played simultaneously. In western classical music, composers often introduce an initial melody, or theme, classical music often has several melodic layers, called polyphony, such as those in a fugue, a type of counterpoint. Often, melodies are constructed from motifs or short melodic fragments, richard Wagner popularized the concept of a leitmotif, a motif or melody associated with a certain idea, person or place. Appropriation Hocket Parsons code, a notation used to identify a piece of music through melodic motion—the motion of the pitch up. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. p. 517–19, the Art of Melody, p. xix–xxx. A Textbook of Melody, A course in functional melodic analysis, a History Of Melody, Barrie and Rockliff, London
20.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
21.
Part (music)
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A part is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice within a larger work. Parts may be referred to as a part or an inner part. Part-writing is the composition of parts in consideration of harmony and counterpoint, in the context of polyphonic composition the term voice may be used instead of part to denote a single melodic line or textural layer. The term is generic, and is not meant to imply that the line should necessarily be vocal in character, allen Forte defines a voice thus, By voice we mean the succession of notes performed by a single human voice or single-line instrument. Codex Calixtinus contains the earliest extant decipherable part music, part writing is derived from four-voice chorales written by J. S. The late baroque era composer wrote a total of 371 harmonized chorales, today most students reference Albert Riemenschneiders 1941 compilation of Bach chorales. Part writing is a technique that involves writing a piece of music for one or more parts. Briefly, it, may be defined as Part-writing and it has also been defined, happily, as the art of combining melodies. In other words, laws of combination, and laws of progression, individual, in musical forms, a part may refer to a subdivision in the structure of a piece. This is for example the case in the widely used ternary form, in this form the first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them. In this meaning of part, similar terms used are section, strain, or turn
22.
David Gilmour
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David Jon Gilmour, CBE is an English singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He joined the rock band Pink Floyd as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in 1968, effectively as a replacement for founder Syd Barrett. Pink Floyd subsequently achieved success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals. Following the departure of founder member, Roger Waters, Gilmour assumed leadership of Pink Floyd in 1985. As a member of Pink Floyd, he was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, in 2005, Gilmour was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to music. He was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards, in 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time. Additionally, Gilmour was voted number 36 in the greatest voices in rock by Planet Rock listeners in 2009 and he has married twice and is the father of eight children. David Jon Gilmour was born on 6 March 1946, in Cambridge, England. His father, Douglas Gilmour, eventually became a lecturer in zoology at the University of Cambridge. At the time of Gilmours birth they lived in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, but in 1956, after several relocations, Gilmours parents encouraged him to pursue his interest in music, and in 1954 he bought his first single, Bill Haleys Rock Around the Clock. His enthusiasm for music was stirred the following year by Elvis Presleys Heartbreak Hotel and he then borrowed one from his neighbour, but never gave it back. Soon afterward, he started teaching himself to using a book. At age 11, Gilmour began attending the Perse School on Hills Road, Cambridge, while there he met future Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett and bass guitarist Roger Waters, who attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, which was also situated on Hills Road. In 1962, Gilmour began studying A-Level modern languages at Cambridge Technical College, despite not finishing the course, he eventually learnt to speak fluent French. Barrett was also a student at the college, and he spent his lunchtimes practising guitar with Gilmour, in late 1962, Gilmour joined the blues rock band Jokers Wild. They recorded an album and a single at Regent Sound Studio, in west London. In August 1965, Gilmour busked around Spain and France with Barrett and some other friends and they were not very successful, getting arrested on one occasion and living a virtually hand-to-mouth existence, which resulted in Gilmour requiring treatment in a hospital for malnutrition. He and Barrett later trekked to Paris, where they camped outside the city for a week, during that time Gilmour worked in various places, most notably as the driver and assistant for fashion designer Ossie Clark
23.
Ben Keith
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Bennett Keith Schaeufele, better known by his stage name Ben Keith, was an American musician and record producer. Born in Fort Riley, Kansas, Keith later relocated to Bowling Green, keiths first big recording in Nashville was playing on Patsy Clines 1961 hit I Fall to Pieces. Keith first worked with Neil Young in 1971 on Youngs Harvest album, having been introduced by Elliot Mazer, the albums producer and this spawned a collaboration that would last nearly 40 years, as Keith went on to play with Young on over a dozen albums and numerous tours. Keith also played the role of Grandpa Green in the Neil Young feature-length movie Greendale and he also served as the producer of Jewels debut album Pieces of You, and worked as solo artist. He toured with Crosby Stills Nash & Young on their 2006 Freedom of Speech Tour, Keith died of a blood clot in his lung while at his home on Youngs ranch in Northern California on July 26,2010. To a Wild Rose Seven Gates, A Christmas Album by Ben Keith and Friends In Memory of Ben Keith,1937 –2010 Music Web Express 3000 interview with Ben Keith, http, //www. mwe3. com/reviews/NeilYoungAT/
24.
Joseph Kekuku
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Joseph Kekuku is regarded as the inventor of the steel guitar. Kekuku was born in Lāʻie, a village on the island of Oʻahu, as a boy, he would experiment with guitar technique, sliding ordinary household objects across the strings to see what sounds could be produced. By the time he was an adult, he had developed a style of playing. He traveled extensively, teaching and performing throughout the USA and Europe, Joseph Kekuku was born in 1874 in the small village of Laie on the windward side of Oahu, Hawaii. When Joseph was 15, he and his cousin, Sam Nainoa left for a school in Honolulu. In 1889 while attending the Kamahameha School for Boys, Kekuku accidentally discovered the sound of the steel guitar, as he picked it up, the bolt accidentally vibrated one of the strings and produced a new tone that was rather pleasing. In 1904 at the age of 30, Joseph left Hawaii and in his 58-years of life, but he would instead, bring his native islands, through his music, to the rest of the world. He started in the United States by performing in theaters from coast to coast. His group was Kekukus Hawaiian Quintet and were sponsored by a management group called The Affiliated, in 1919 at the age of 45, Kekuku left the U. S. for an eight-year tour of Europe traveling with The Bird of Paradise show. During this time, Kekuku played before Kings and Queens in many different countries, the Bird of Paradise show had been on Broadway with brilliant Hawaiian scenery, dazzling costumes, plus authentic Hawaiian music. The show traveled in Europe for eight years and was a total sellout, the Bird of Paradise show was so popular that it became a film in 1932 and again in 1951. The broadcasts from Waikiki Beach from 1935 to 1975 were carried by more than 750 radio stations around the world at its peak, in the 1930s the steel guitar went electric. Electrification attracted other musical forms such as western, big band, jazz, the electrified steel guitar made its greatest breakthrough into country music. Little Roy Wiggins was the first widely known electric steel guitar player to back a major Nashville artist, another influence was the rise in the use of the pedal steel guitar, where the player could produce a correct change in harmony by pushing a pedal or kneeing a lever. Kekuku returned to the United States and, at the age of 53, settled in Chicago and ran a popular, around 1930, he left Chicago and visited Dover, New Jersey. Some think he came to Dover as part of a musical troupe that appeared at the Baker Theater. Hawaiian groups on these vaudeville tours usually consisted of 5 or 6 musicians with the steel guitarist seated in the center, in 1932 Joseph Kekuku was living in Dover, New Jersey with his wife at 88 Prospect Street and giving Hawaiian guitar lessons. Around town, he was referred to as the Hawaiian
25.
Fad
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Fads are things or behaviors that have achieved short-lived popularity, but fade away. Fads are often seen as sudden, quick spreading, and short-lived, Fads could include diets, clothing, hairstyles, toys, and more. Some popular fads throughout history are toys such as yo-yos, hula hoops and dances such as the Macarena, more current fads might include memes, planking, and Tebowing. Fads often fade quickly when the perception of novelty is gone, the specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including unusual language usage, distinctive clothing, fad diets or frauds such as Pyramid schemes. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by marketing, emotional blackmail, peer pressure. Fads may also be set by popular celebrities, e. g. the highly popularizing effect of Oprahs Book Club, in economics, the term is used in a similar way. Fads are mean-reverting deviations from intrinsic value caused by social or psychological forces similar to those that cause fashions in political philosophies or consumerisation, sometimes people use the words “fad” and “trend” interchangeably. Fads can be distinguished from trends in three ways, their reason for rise, their period and life span, and their scope. Trends have explainable rises, and are driven by functional needs and they reflect deep-rooted human desires and needs, while fads are generally driven by the emotional need to purchase. This emotional need can come from the hype that surrounds the product, trends rise slowly over time, but fads’ popularity spike quickly and they end up dying out just as quickly. Fads might last for just weeks or months, a trend encompasses several brands and products which can reach a large variety of people. A fad typically encompasses just one brand, or product, with limited appeal, an example of a fad would be Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies do not meet many needs of humans, their hype is what helped to bring in more customers. Fads tend to have a surge in popularity, and then disappear. Beanie Babies became very popular for a few years in the 1990s, but then their popularity quickly dropped, Beanie Babies were made by one company and had a narrow scope. Some more examples of fads include pole sitting, dancing the Shake, an example of a trend would be handbags. Trends are driven by functional needs, and handbags were created for functionality, trends tend to rise in popularity more slowly. The demand for handbags has steadily increased over the years, as for their scope, different types of people use handbags for different reasons, to carry things such as money, personal items, clothes, children’s things, and more
26.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
27.
Rickenbacker
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Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. In 1932, the became the worlds first to produce electric guitars and eventually produced a range of electric guitars. The company was founded in 1931 as the Ro-Pat-In Corporation by Adolph Rickenbacher and these instruments had been designed by Beauchamp, assisted at the National String Instrument Corporation by Paul Barth and Harry Watson. They chose the brand name Rickenbacher, though early examples bear the brand name Electro, nicknamed frying pans because of their long necks and circular bodies, the instruments were the first solid-bodied electric guitars, though they were a lap-steel type. They had a pickup with a steel cover that arched over the strings. By the time production ceased in 1939, several thousand frying pans had been produced, Electro String also sold amplifiers to go with their electric guitars. A Los Angeles radio manufacturer named Van Nest designed the first Electro String production-model amplifier, shortly thereafter, design engineer Ralph Robertson further developed the amplifiers, and by the 1940s at least four different Rickenbacker models were made available. Lansing of the Lansing Manufacturing Company designed the speaker in the Rickenbacker professional model, during the early 1940s, Rickenbacker amps were sometimes repaired by Leo Fender, whose repair shop evolved into the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company. Their next collaboration involved experiments with mounting three conical-shaped aluminum resonators into the body of the guitar beneath the bridge and these efforts produced an instrument which so pleased Beauchamp that he told Dopyera that they should go into business to manufacture them. After further refinements, Dopyera applied for a patent on the so-called tri-cone guitar on April 9,1927, thereafter, Dopyera and his brothers began to make the tri-cone guitars in their Los Angeles shop, calling the new guitars Nationals. Adolph Rickenbacher was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1887 and emigrated to the United States to live with relatives after the death of his parents, sometime after moving to Los Angeles in 1918, he changed his surname to Rickenbacker. In 1925, Rickenbacker and two formed the Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company and incorporated it in 1927. Adolph became a shareholder in National and, with the assistance of his Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company, patent infringement disagreements between National and Dobro led to a lawsuit in 1929 with Dobro suing National for $2,000,000 in damages. By the late twenties, the idea for electrified string instruments had been around for some time, George Beauchamp had himself been experimenting with electric amplification as early as 1925, but his early efforts involving microphones did not produce the effects he desired. Along the way Beauchamp also built a one-string test guitar made out of a 2X4 piece of lumber and it was nicknamed the frying pan because of its shape, though Rickenbacker liked to call it the pancake. The final design Beauchamp and Barth developed was an electric pickup consisting of a pair of horseshoe-shaped magnets that enclosed the pickup coil and these instruments constitute the origin of the electric guitar by virtue of their string-driven electro-magnetic pick-ups. In 1933 the Ro-Pat-In companys name was changed to Electro String Instrument Corporation, in 1934 the name of Rickenbacher was added in honor of the companys principal partner, Adolph Rickenbacker. Both models had been experimental, produced as early as 1932, the Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts Model was subject to a limited production of forty-six
28.
Frying pan (guitar)
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The frying pan in 1931/1932 was the first electric lap steel guitar ever produced, and one of the earliest electric guitar, along with the Stromberg Electro in 1928. George Beauchamp created the instrument in 1931, and it was manufactured by Rickenbacker Electro. The instrument—officially the Rickenbacker Electro A-22—earned its nickname because its circular body and it was designed to cash in on the popularity of Hawaiian music in the 1930s. The instrument was made of cast aluminum, and featured a pickup that incorporated a pair of magnets that arched over the strings. In the 1930s, Hawaiian music enjoyed widespread popularity in the United States, however, Hawaiian music featured the guitar as the main melodic instrument, and the volume of acoustic guitars was insufficient for large audiences. Beauchamp had helped develop the Dobro resonator guitar, and co-founded the National String Instrument Corporation, through these businesses, he was acquainted with Rickenbacker, who owned the machine company that manufactured the aluminum resonators and brass bodies for the instruments. With Rickenbackers help, Beauchamp designed a lap steel guitar with an aluminum body. Rickenbacker produced the instruments from 1932 to 1939, National Public Radio, The Electric Guitar - Present at the Creation Rickenbacker, The Earliest Days of the Electric Guitar
29.
Theremin
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The theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the thereminist. It is named after the Westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, the electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. The theremin was used in soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsas Spellbound, The Lost Weekend. It has also used in theme songs for television shows such as the ITV drama Midsomer Murders. This has led to its association with eerie situations, Theremins are also used in concert music and in popular music genres such as rock. The theremin was originally the product of Soviet government-sponsored research into proximity sensors, the instrument was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergeyevich Termen in October 1920 after the outbreak of the Russian Civil War. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin moved to the United States, subsequently, Theremin granted commercial production rights to RCA. Although the RCA Thereminvox, was not a success, it fascinated audiences in America. Clara Rockmore, a well-known thereminist, toured to wide acclaim, performing a repertoire in concert halls around the United States. In 1938, Theremin left the United States, though the circumstances related to his departure are in dispute. Many accounts claim he was taken from his New York City apartment by NKVD agents, taken back to the Soviet Union and made to work in a sharashka laboratory prison camp at Magadan, in any case, Theremin did not return to the United States until 1991. However, a niche interest in the theremin persisted, mostly among electronics enthusiasts, one of these electronics enthusiasts, Robert Moog, began building theremins in the 1950s, while he was a high-school student. Moog subsequently published a number of articles about building theremins, Moog credited what he learned from the experience as leading directly to his groundbreaking synthesizer, the Moog. Since the release of the film Theremin, An Electronic Odyssey in 1994, even though many theremin sounds can be approximated on many modern synthesizers, some musicians continue to appreciate the expressiveness, novelty, and uniqueness of using an actual theremin. The film itself has garnered excellent reviews, both theremin instruments and kits are available from manufacturers such as Moog Music Inc. Burns Theremins, Harrison Instruments, Inc. Theremaniacs LLC, PAiA Corporation USA, and Jaycar Electronics, the theremin is distinguished among musical instruments in that it is played without physical contact. The thereminist stands in front of the instrument and moves his or her hands in the proximity of two metal antennas, the distance from one antenna determines frequency, and the distance from the other controls amplitude. Higher notes are played by moving the hand closer to the pitch antenna, louder notes are played by moving the hand away from the volume antenna
30.
Western swing
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Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the regions Western string bands. The movement was an outgrowth of jazz, and similarities with gypsy jazz are often noted, the electrically amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel guitar, give the music a distinctive sound. Later incarnations have also included overtones of bebop, Western swing differs in several ways from the music played by the nationally popular horn-driven big swing bands of the same era. In Western bands, even fully orchestrated bands, vocals, additionally, although popular horn bands tended to arrange and score their music, most Western bands improvised freely, either by soloists or collectively. Contemporary groups include Asleep at the Wheel and The Hot Club of Cowtown, when it escapes in all its musical glory, my friend, you have Western swing. Western swing in its beginnings was just dance music, the term swing, meaning big band dance music, wasnt used until after the 1932 hit It Dont Mean a Thing. Most of the big Western dance bandleaders simply referred to themselves as Western bands and their music as Western dance music, Bob Wills and others believed the term Western swing was used for his music while he and his band were still in Tulsa, Oklahoma between 1939 and 1942. The Los Angeles-area Wilmington Press carried ads for an unidentified Western Swing Orchestra at a nightspot in April 1942. That winter, influential LA-area jazz and swing disc jockey Al Jarvis held a radio contest for top popular band leaders, the winner would be named the King of Swing. When Spade Cooley unexpectedly received the most votes, besting Benny Goodman and Harry James, on the other hand, The Billboard, in its January 29,1944 issue, reported Cooley came fourth in the orchestra section, behind Sammy Kaye, Freddie Martin, and Jimmy Dorsey. Around 1942, Cooleys promoter, disc jockey Foreman Phillips, began using Western swing to advertise his client, Music is not the true Western type. Dancers can foxtrot or do a slow jitter to it, a more widely known first use was an October 1944 Billboard item mentioning a forthcoming songbook by Cooley titled Western Swing. This, however was preceded by this item on page 11 of the May 6,1944 Billboard, Spade Cooley, who moved in with his Western swing boys several months ago, has released the Breakfast Club. Cooley moved up from Phillips County barn dances at Venice, Calif. ballroom, after that, the music was known as Western swing. During its early development, scores of groups from San Antonio to Shreveport to Oklahoma City played different songs with the basic sound. Fred Papa Calhoun recalled that around 1930, he played in a band in Decatur and we also liked Red Nichols and Bix Beiderbecke. After ending his partnership with Vernon Dalhart, country music trailblazer Carson Robison formed Carson Robisons Madcaps. Their recording of Nonsense in September 1929 was an uptempo, pioneering example of Western swing, in the early 1930s, Bob Wills and Milton Brown co-founded the string band that became the Light Crust Doughboys, the first professional band in this genre
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Milton Brown
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Milton Brown was an American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, the birthplace of Browns upbeat hot-jazz hillbilly string band sound was developed at the Crystal Springs Dance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas from 1931 to 1936. Browns music inspired the great string jazz musicians from Europe, Django Reinhardt, along with Bob Wills, with whom he performed at the beginning of his career, Brown developed the sound and style of Western swing in the early 1930s. For a while, he and his band, the Musical Brownies, were more popular than Bob Wills, Browns career was cut short in 1936 when he died following a car accident, just as he was poised to break into national stardom. Born in Stephenville, Texas in 1903, Brown moved to Fort Worth, after graduating from Fort Worths Arlington Heights High School in 1925, he worked as a cigar salesman, but he lost his job when the Great Depression hit in the late 20s. Brown began his career in 1930, when he met Bob Wills at a local Fort Worth house dance. The Wills Fiddle Band was a band made up of Wills on fiddle. They were performing at a local Fort Worth dance and Brown joined the group on a chorus of St. Louis Blues, Wills was impressed with Browns voice and immediately asked him and his guitarist brother, Derwood, to join the band. In early 1931, the group was hired by the Light Crust Flour Company—which was run by Burrus Mill, the company, which was managed by W. Lee ODaniel who hosted the radio shows, had the group rename themselves the Light Crust Doughboys. The Doughboys were an instant success, and soon ODaniel moved them first to radio station. The Doughboys were playing songs, jazz, blues. In February 1932, they recorded a single for Victor under the name the Fort Worth Doughboys, the band was playing dance music and wanted to play at dances, but ODaniel was reluctant to let the group play outside of their radio shows. He also was hesitant to pay them money, which greatly angered Brown. In September 1932, in need of money to support his aging parents. After leaving the Light Crust Doughboys, Brown formed the worlds first Western swing band in Fort Worth, Texas, the first incarnation of the Brownies featured Brown, guitarist Derwood Brown, bassist Wanna Coffman, Ocie Stockard on tenor banjo, and fiddle player Jesse Ashlock. Shortly afterward, pianist Fred “Papa” Calhoun and fiddle player Cecil Brower joined the group, like the Light Crust Doughboys, the Musical Brownies played a mixture of country, pop, and jazz, but the Brownies had a harder rhythm & blues dance edge than their predecessors. Almost immediately, Brown and His Musical Brownies were a huge success, the group had a regular spot on the radio station KTAT and drew large crowds to various Texas and Oklahoma dance halls. Their home venue, Crystal Springs Dance Hall in Fort Worth, was out nearly every Saturday night from 1933 to 1936
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Music of Hawaii
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The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaiis musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks, Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. Music of Hawaiian people is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting, Hawaiian music has had a notable impact on the music of other Polynesian islands, Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics. Aprils Aloha Week is a popular tourist attraction, as is the Molokai Music Festival held around Labor Day, there was also a Hawaii International Jazz Festival, which ran from 1993 until 2007. The annual Pacific Rim Jazz Festival occurs in mid-autumn at the Hawaii Convention Center, the annual Manoa Jazz & Heritage Festival takes place in early autumn at the Andrews Amphitheatre on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus. Large music venues in Hawaii include the University of Hawaii at Hilo Performing Arts Center, a 560-seat venue and cultural exhibition center on Kauai is the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. In Honolulu, the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena, Concert Hall, other venues for Hawaiian music on Oahu include the Waikiki Shell an establishment used primarily for concerts and entertainment purposes. Over the years local, as well as international artists have graced the stage there. It is unique outdoor theater located in Kapiolani Park and this venue seats 2,400 persons, with the capacity to hold up to 6,000 more on the lawn area. Concerts, graduation ceremonies and hula shows are popular at this site. The historic Lanai Theatre is a landmark on Lanai, dating back to the 1930s. Hawaii is home to a number of renowned institutions in several fields. The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is an important part of the musical history. The Orchestra has collaborated with local institutions, like the Hawaii Opera Theatre and the Oʻahu Choral Society, which sponsors the Honolulu Symphony Chorus. Numerous businesses have been created supporting the musical styles and instruments suited to the Hawaiian musical tradition. Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting and music meant for highly ritualized dance, Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology, and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is complex and rich in the poetry, accompanying mimetic dance, and subtleties of vocal styles
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Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
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Bluegrass music
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Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a related genre of country music. Settlers from Britain and Ireland arrived in Appalachia during the 18th century and these traditions consisted primarily of English and Scottish ballads—which were essentially unaccompanied narrative—and dance music, such as Irish reels, which were accompanied by a fiddle. Many older bluegrass songs come directly from the British Isles, several Appalachian bluegrass ballads, such as Pretty Saro, Barbara Allen, Cuckoo Bird and House Carpenter, come from England and preserve the English ballad tradition both melodically and lyrically. Others, such as The Two Sisters, also come from England, however, some bluegrass fiddle songs popular in Appalachia, such as Leather Britches, and Pretty Polly, have Scottish roots. The dance tune Cumberland Gap may be derived from the tune that accompanies the Scottish ballad Bonnie George Campbell and this is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Breakdowns are often characterized by rapid tempos and unusual instrumental dexterity, there are three major subgenres of bluegrass and one unofficial subgenre. Traditional bluegrass has musicians playing folk songs, tunes with traditional chord progressions, progressive bluegrass groups may use electric instruments and import songs from other genres, particularly rock & roll. Examples include Cadillac Sky and Bearfoot, another subgenre, Bluegrass gospel uses Christian lyrics, soulful three- or four-part harmony singing, and sometimes the playing of instrumentals. Bluegrass music has attracted a following worldwide. Bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe characterized the genre as, Scottish bagpipes and its Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. Its blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound, unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, five-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are often joined by the resonator guitar and this instrumentation originated in rural dance bands and is the basis on which the earliest bluegrass bands were formed. The guitar is now most commonly played with a style referred to as flatpicking, unlike the style of bluegrass guitarists such as Lester Flatt. Banjo players often use the three-finger picking style made popular by such as Don Reno. Fiddlers frequently play in thirds and fifths, producing a sound that is characteristic to the bluegrass style, bassists almost always play pizzicato, occasionally adopting the slap-style to accentuate the beat. A bluegrass bass line is generally a rhythmic alternation between the tonic and dominant of each chord, with walking bass excursions. Instrumentation has been a topic of debate. Traditional bluegrass performers believe the correct instrumentation is used by Bill Monroes band
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Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
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Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
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Cole Clark
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Cole Clark is a manufacturer of guitars and other fretted instruments based in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 2001 by Adam Cole and Bradley Clark, the company has patented a design that blends steel string body shapes with Spanish classical guitar construction techniques. Cole Clark produce the products, Acoustic guitars 6 string 12 string Lap steel guitars Ukuleles The Company has ceased producing electric guitars at this stage. Cole Clark guitars are made largely using Australian indigenous timbers, solid timber is used in preference to plywood. Clarks discovery of the best type of wood for his guitars came whilst searching in Australia in 1998 and he came across Bunya Pine, and found out that it had the perfect characteristics for the sound board on an acoustic guitar. Whilst researching this type of wood, Clark also discovered that Bunya is about 18% stronger than Spruce wood, Blackwood is also another favourite material of Cole Clarks for building their guitars. Materials used include Spruce, Bunya, Queensland Maple, Australian Blackwood, ebony, in 2008 Cole Clark came under fire from the Fender Corporation for the naming of two models of guitars, the Offender and the Defender. The names of models have since been changed to, respectively, Culprit. Brad Clark is a director of Cole Clark. His experience includes eleven years at Maton, first as factory manager and then as CEO
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Eastwood Guitars
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Eastwood Guitars is a Canadian company founded by Michael Robinson which primarily manufactures vintage-style electric guitars. It has no connection with Brian Eastwood Guitars, a respected British guitar maker since the 1970s, according to their website, We make Eastwood® Guitars in three different factories based in Korea and China. Many accessories such as cases and Airline straps are made in Canada, the company was established in 2001 with the intent of manufacturing replicas of rare vintage electric guitars. Much of the focus is on building reproductions of famous discontinued electric guitar models such as the Valco Airline. As of summer 2012, Eastwood Guitars produced around 60 guitar models, many of which having been received by players
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Ellis Guitars
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Ellis Guitars is a company based in Perth, Western Australia producing handmade acoustic guitars and acoustic stompboxes. In recent years the company has produced some novel, sometimes unique, the 7 string resonator guitar is a single cone resonator guitar with an added harp string which can be on a bass or baritone scale length. This guitar was first demonstrated in Melbourne Australia 2005 and it is currently owned and played by Jeff Martin formerly of The Tea Party. Jeff Martin played this guitar on his album Exile and the Kingdom on the songs Black Snake Blues, Lament, Jeff Martin also played the 7 string as recorded on Live at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia on 7 September 2006 during his Australian Tour. Along with these guitars, Ellis Guitars also build traditional acoustic instruments such as the OOO, OM, Dreadnought. Also built are Weissenborn style guitars, the Ellis stomp box sounds like a kick-drum and can be used as a trigger. The stompboxes built by Ellis Guitars are small in size, traditionally stomp boxes have been large wooden boxes with a microphone underneath which produce a tap/boom sound usually to accompany a solo guitarist. The Ellis model is about the size of a CD case and plugs directly into an amplifier or P. A
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