A lute is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity with a sound hole or opening in the body. More the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes; the term refers to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table. The strings are attached to pegs or posts at the end of the neck, which have some type of turning mechanism to enable the player to tighten the tension on the string or loosen the tension before playing, so that each string is tuned to a specific pitch; the lute is plucked or strummed with one hand while the other hand "frets" the strings on the neck's fingerboard. By pressing the strings on different places of the fingerboard, the player can shorten or lengthen the part of the string, vibrating, thus producing higher or lower pitches; the European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance.

During the Baroque music era, the lute was used as one of the instruments which played the basso continuo accompaniment parts. It is an accompanying instrument in vocal works; the lute player either improvises a chordal accompaniment based on the figured bass part, or plays a written-out accompaniment. As a small instrument, the lute produces a quiet sound; the player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, a maker of lutes is referred to as a luthier. Curt Sachs defined the word lute in the terminology section of The History of Musical Instruments as "composed of a body, of a neck which serves both as a handle and as a means of stretching the strings beyond the body", his definition focused on body and neck characteristics and not on the way the strings were sounded, so the fiddle counted as a "bowed lute". Sachs distinguished between the "long-necked lute" and the short-necked variety; the short necked variety contained most of our modern instruments, "lutes, hurdy-gurdies and the entire family of viols and violins".

The long lutes were the more ancient lutes. He further categorized long lutes with a "pierced lute" and "long neck lute"; the pierced lute had a neck made from a stick. The long lute had an attached neck, included the sitar and tar. Sachs' book dates from 1941, the archaeological evidence available to him placed the early lutes at about 2000 BC. Discoveries since have pushed the existence of the lute back to c. 3100 BC. Musicologist Richard Dumbrill today uses the word lute more categorically to discuss instruments that existed millennia before the term "lute" was coined. Dumbrill documented more than 3000 years of iconographic evidence for the lutes in Mesopotamia, in his book The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. According to Dumbrill, the lute family included instruments in Mesopotamia prior to 3000 BC, he points to a cylinder seal as evidence. Like Sachs, Dumbrill saw length as distinguishing lutes, dividing the Mesopotamian lutes into a long variety and a short, his book does not cover the shorter instruments that became the European lute, beyond showing examples of shorter lutes in the ancient world.

He focuses on the longer lutes of Mesopotamia, various types of necked chordophones that developed throughout ancient world: Greek, Iranian, Roman, Turkic, Chinese, Armenian/Cilician cultures. He names among the long lutes, the pandura and the tanburThe line of short-necked lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria and Gandhara, into a short, almond-shaped lute. Curt Sachs talked about the depictions of Gandharan lutes in art, where they are presented in a mix of "Northwest Indian art" under "a strong Greek influences"; the short-necked lutes in these Gandhara artworks were "the venerable ancestor of the Islamic, the Sino-Japanese and the European lute families". He described the Gandhara lutes as having a "pear-shaped body tapering towards the short neck, a frontal stringholder, lateral pegs, either four or five strings". Bactria and Gandhara became part of the Sasanian Empire. Under the Sasanians, a short almond shaped lute from Bactria came to be called the barbat or barbud, developed into the Islamic world's oud or ud.

When the Moors conquered Andalusia in 711, they brought their ud or quitra along, into a country that had known a lute tradition under the Romans, the pandura. During the 8th and 9th centuries, many musicians and artists from across the Islamic world flocked to Iberia. Among them was Abu l-Hasan'Ali Ibn Nafi', a prominent musician who had trained under Ishaq al-Mawsili in Baghdad and was exiled to Andalusia before 833 AD, he taught and has been credited with adding a fifth string to his oud and with establishing one of the first schools of music in Córdoba. By the 11th century, Muslim Iberia had b

Church Preen is a dispersed hamlet and small civil parish in central Shropshire, England. The county town of Shropshire is Shrewsbury, located to the North and by road is 12 miles, it is located near Plaish and Hughley. The nearest towns are Church Stretton; the nearest city is Birmingham, located to the East of Church Preen. It is 49 miles by road and takes just over 1 hour to get there; the A49 runs 6 miles to the West and the nearest train station is at Church Stretton, 7.4 miles away. Church Preen has a total of 30 different households, 6 of which are semi-detached and the others are groups of buildings farms. Located in the centre of the hamlet is St. John the Baptist parish church, a separate graveyard, a post box, telephone box, a pump cottage, Preen Manor, a well, Church Preen pre-school, Church Preen quarry and just on the outskirts is Church Preen Primary School; the primary employment sectors are agriculture. The primary school at Church Preen, called Church Preen Primary School, serves the local, rural communities.

There are around 40 pupils at the school spread over 3 classes from the ages of 5 to 11. More can be read on the school in the education section. There is a preschool called Church Preen Preschool, it is held at The Village Hall, Church Preen and children from 2 up to 5 years old are welcome. Church Preen is part of the Atcham constituency. Daniel Kawczynski is the MP; the surrounding area around the hamlet is privately owned farmland. The forests and woodlands in the area coniferous trees. Church Preen lies between 240 metres above sea level; the nearest rivers are the River Corve and the River Severn where it flows passed Cressage about 4.94 miles away. Church Stretton Fault Line runs just to the North of the hamlet, which has led to several different rock types sprawling over Shropshire. Church Preen lies on the edge of Marine Silurian, from the Silurian period around 409-439 million years ago and the Ordovician period around 443–488 million years ago; the huge variety of different rock types in Shropshire has played a big part in what the land shape looks like today.

Church Preen is set upon a rise up to the ridge hill, covered by deciduous woodland called Netherwood Coppice. There are many hills in the surrounding area including Lawley Hill, which elevates to 217 metres and Caer Caradac Hill at 459 metres, they are within 3.47 miles of the hamlet. Church Preen Manor sits adjacent to the church, it lies on an old Cluniac monastery, thought to have been built in 1159, overlooking Wenlock Edge. The remains of which have been lie under a yew tree in the gardens; the other monastic buildings were destroyed in 1850 by Norman Shaw to make way for the new manor, but this fell into disrepair in World War I until it was restored again. Presently, there are 6 acres of garden with 18 outdoor rooms leading into one another. Mrs Ann Trevor-Jones has developed the gardens for 30 years with her husband. There is a cafe and plants are sold. Opening and closing times as well as the small admission fee can be found on the website. There is a disused quarry located 0.3 miles to the South of the hamlet in a field owned by the New Holding Farm.

Apart from access by car via the country roads running through Church Preen, there is the A49, which runs 5.35 miles to the West of the hamlet. To the East there is the A458 near Harley, which by road is 4.74 miles away. The nearest station as said before is Church Stretton Station, which by road is 7.31 miles. Birmingham Airport is the nearest international airport, which by road is just less than 50 miles away. Church Preen Primary School is the only school in the hamlet; as said in the introductory text, it serves the rural communities with 3 classes over 40 pupils. The first school opened on 15 January 1872 with 20 children, of which only 6 had been in education and they learnt the three r's; the school was built by the architect of old Scotland Yard. The new school is well built with a big events room, which can be split into separate rooms by sliding doors. With many windows, it is bright and Mrs R. Beard is the headmistress. There is a pre-school, which meets in the village hall, inside of the primary school, for children form ages of 2 to 5 years old.

St. John the Baptist Church is the centre of Church Preen; the church is 70 feet long by 13-foot wide. It was a monastic church, which explains the abnormal appearance; the church was founded as a cell of Wenlock Priory in 1163. A prior and 2 or 3 monks would have served the church; the priory has little remains. Church Preen Yew, which stands inside the church's grounds is thought to be of a old age; this is because the Celtic people used to think of them as symbols of rebirth. When St. Augustine brought Christianity to England, he ordered that churches were to be built around them, which dates the trees back to the 5th century. Church preen is mentioned in the Domesday Book as'quiet' and talks of Norman Shaw's architecture of Preen Manor briefly. From 1801-1961, the population has changed quite dramatically. In 1801, it was at 84 and rose to a maximum of 117 in 1881, it decreased back to 89 people by 1961. The percentage of males to females has fluctuated but has been about 55% to 45%. In 1960, it was 50%

Duff's Brooklyn is a heavy metal bar located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Duff's opened as "Bellevue Bar" in the Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan in 1999, before moving to Brooklyn in 2004 with a name change to Duff's Brooklyn; the original Brooklyn location was at 28 North 3rd Street, where the bar resided from December 2004 to December 2008. Due to the rapid gentrification of area, the bar was forced relocate in December 2008; the bar reopened in December 2008 on Williamsburg's South Side, in a space four times larger than the original bar. Duff's is frequented by Tri-state metalheads and rock n' rollers, is a stop off for many heavy metal bands passing through New York City on tours; some visitors of note have been Rob Zombie, Iron Maiden, Kerry King of Slayer, Celtic Frost, Lamb of God, Machine Head, The Sword, Watain, 1349 and many others. The bar has hosted many official CD and DVD release parties for local and global acts such as Black Label Society, Lamb of God, Pantera, Slayer and Type O Negative.

The bar's unique decor has attracted many photo shoots and has made it a desirable spot to film in for independent filmmakers, as well as the better known MTV, MTV2, VH1 Classic's "That Metal Show", Fuse TV, Burning Angel. Https://web.archive.org/web/20070610022946/http://www.nypress.com/18/12/food/bernstein.cfm http://www.nypress.com/article-19323-gut-instinct-full-metal-jacket.html http://www.bkmag.com/2015/09/18/inside-duffs-bar-home-to-brooklyns-metalheads-and-a-piece-of-new-yorks-music-history/ http://www.villagevoice.com/best-of/2013/arts-and-entertainment/best-metal-bar-6449903 http://nymag.com/bestofny/fun/2010/dive/ http://www.villagevoice.com/best-of/2008/arts-and-entertainment/best-williamsburg-metal-bar-6445812 https://web.archive.org/web/20161128182413/http://gothamist.com/2016/11/03/best_jukeboxes_nyc.php http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/business/media/he-aint-heavy-hes-my-metal-model-campaign-spotlight.html?_r=0 http://www.villagevoice.com/best-of/2008/people-and-places/best-bar-owner-who-drives-a-hearse-6447241 http://www.villagevoice.com/slhttp://www.bkmag.com/2017/03/13/brooklyn-100-influencer-jimmy-duff-duffs/ideshow/wild-night-at-duffs-6266391/24 http://www.timeout.com/newyork/bars/best-dive-bars-in-nyc http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/06/a-heavy-metal-bar-for-outsiders http://www.bkmag.com/2017/03/13/brooklyn-100-influencer-jimmy-duff-duffs/ Duff's Brooklyn Duff's Brooklyn Facebook Duff's Brooklyn Twitter Duff's Brooklyn Instagram