1.
Irene Camber
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Irene Camber or Irene Camber-Corno is an Italian fencer and Olympic champion in foil competition. Camber was born in Trieste on 12 February 1926 and she began to be interested in fencing at eight years-old in Trieste. Her involvement in fencing was not planned, but random, instead of entering the hall where she used to practice gymnastics, she mistakenly entered the fencing hall. She had four appearances at Olympic Games, London, Helsinki, Rome, after graduating with a bachelor of science degree in industrial chemistry, she made her debut at the London Games in 1948. She was defeated in the semi-finals, four years later at the Helsinki Games, she faced two-fold Olympic champion 45-year-old Hungarian Ilona Elek. Camber won the match by 4–3 and she did not appear at the Melbourne Games, since she was pregnant. At the Rome Games in 1960, she won a team medal. She lastly took part in the Italian fencing team at the Tokyo Games, Camber also won medals st the world fencing championships. Then she began to serve as the team coach at the Munich Games. Camber also worked at Montedison chemical corporation during her fencing career, Camber received a gold medal in the individual foil at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome she received a medal in foil team. In addition, she earned two titles – one individually and one with the Italian team – and 6 more medals at the Fencing World Championships. Italian sportswomen multiple medalists at Olympics and World Championships
2.
Cornicello
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A cornicello or cornetto, Italian for little horn or hornlet, often abbreviated to corno, is an Italian amulet or talisman worn to protect against the evil eye. In Neapolitan, it is called cuornuciello or variants thereof, the amulet is also sometimes referred to as the Italian horn. In Italy people may wear the cornicello - an amulet of good luck used for protection against the evil-eye curse and it consists of a twisted horn-shaped charm often made of gold, silver, bone, terracotta or red coral. Originally cornecelli resembled the horn of an African eland, though over the years they have become stylized. The shape and colour of the red horn are reminiscent of a chili pepper, possibly related to the corno is the mano cornuta or horned hand. This is an Italian hand-gesture that can be used to indicate that a man has been cuckolded, mano means hand and corno means horn
3.
Victoria and Albert Museum
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The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and these include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. The museum is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum has been free since 2001, the V&A covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The museum owns the worlds largest collection of sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea, the East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world, New 17th- and 18th-century European galleries were opened on 9 December 2015. These restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815, at this stage the collections covered both applied art and science. Several of the exhibits from the Exhibition were purchased to form the nucleus of the collection, by February 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site and it was renamed South Kensington Museum. In 1855 the German architect Gottfried Semper, at the request of Cole, produced a design for the museum, but it was rejected by the Board of Trade as too expensive. The site was occupied by Brompton Park House, this was extended including the first refreshment rooms opened in 1857, the official opening by Queen Victoria was on 22 June 1857. In the following year, late night openings were introduced, made possible by the use of gas lighting, in these early years the practical use of the collection was very much emphasised as opposed to that of High Art at the National Gallery and scholarship at the British Museum. George Wallis, the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection, passionately promoted the idea of art education through the museum collections. From the 1860s to the 1880s the scientific collections had been moved from the museum site to various improvised galleries to the west of Exhibition Road. In 1893 the Science Museum had effectively come into existence when a director was appointed. The laying of the stone of the Aston Webb building on 17 May 1899 was the last official public appearance by Queen Victoria. It was during this ceremony that the change of name from the South Kensington Museum to the Victoria, the exhibition which the museum organised to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 renaming, A Grand Design, first toured in North America from 1997, returning to London in 1999
4.
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
5.
Brass instrument
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A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the players lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning lip-vibrated instruments, there are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. The view of most scholars is that the brass instrument should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent, as valved instruments are predominant among the brasses today, a more thorough discussion of their workings can be found below. The valves are usually piston valves, but can be rotary valves, slide brass instruments use a slide to change the length of tubing. The main instruments in this category are the family, though valve trombones are occasionally used. The trombone familys ancestor, the sackbut, and the folk instrument bazooka are also in the slide family, there are two other families that have, in general, become functionally obsolete for practical purposes. Instruments of both types, however, are used for period-instrument performances of Baroque or Classical pieces. In more modern compositions, they are used for their intonation or tone color. Natural brass instruments only play notes in the harmonic series. These include the bugle and older variants of the trumpet and horn, the trumpet was a natural brass instrument prior to about 1795, and the horn before about 1820. In the 18th century, makers developed interchangeable crooks of different lengths, natural instruments are still played for period performances and some ceremonial functions, and are occasionally found in more modern scores, such as those by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Keyed or Fingered brass instruments used holes along the body of the instrument and these included the cornett, serpent, ophicleide, keyed bugle and keyed trumpet. They are more difficult to play than valved instruments, Brass instruments may also be characterised by two generalizations about geometry of the bore, that is, the tubing between the mouthpiece and the flaring of the tubing into the bell. Those two generalizations are with regard to the degree of taper or conicity of the bore and the diameter of the bore with respect to its length, cylindrical bore brass instruments are generally perceived as having a brighter, more penetrating tone quality compared to conical bore brass instruments. The trumpet, baritone horn and all trombones are cylindrical bore, in particular, the slide design of the trombone necessitates this. Conical bore brass instruments are those in which tubing of constantly increasing diameter predominates, conical bore instruments are generally perceived as having a more mellow tone quality than the cylindrical bore brass instruments. The British brass band group of instruments fall into this category and this includes the flugelhorn, cornet, tenor horn, horn, euphonium and tuba
6.
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
7.
French horn
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The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras, a musician who plays any kind of horn is generally referred to as a horn player. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some, especially older horns, use piston valves, the backward-facing orientation of the bell relates to the perceived desirability to create a subdued sound, in concert situations, in contrast to the more piercing quality of the trumpet. A horn without valves is known as a horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument. Pitch may also be controlled by the position of the hand in the bell, the pitch of any note can easily be raised or lowered by adjusting the hand position in the bell. Three valves control the flow of air in the single horn, the more common double horn has a fourth valve, usually operated by the thumb, which routes the air to one set of tubing tuned to F or another tuned to B♭. Triple horns with five valves are made, tuned in F, B♭. Also common are descant doubles, which typically provide B♭ and alto F branches and this configuration provides a high-range horn while avoiding the additional complexity and weight of a triple. A crucial element in playing the horn deals with the mouthpiece, when playing higher notes, the majority of players exert a small degree of additional pressure on the lips using the mouthpiece. It is the goal of all serious brass musicians to develop their technique such that additional mouthpiece pressure is avoided altogether, or at the very least, the name French horn is found only in English, first coming into use in the late 17th century. At that time, French makers were preeminent in the manufacture of hunting horns, as a result, these instruments were often called, even in English, by their French names, trompe de chasse or cor de chasse. The International Horn Society has recommended since 1971 that the instrument be simply called the horn, there is also a more specific use of French horn to describe a particular horn type, differentiated from the German horn and Vienna horn. In this sense, French horn refers to an instrument with three Périnet valves. It retains the narrow bell-throat and mouthpipe crooks of the orchestral hand horn of the late 18th century, and most often has an ascending third valve. This is a whole-tone valve arranged so that with the valve in the up position the valve loop is engaged, the horn is the third-highest-sounding instrument in the brass family, below the trumpet and the cornet. Horns are mostly tuned in B♭ or F, or a combination of both, in some traditions, novice players use a single horn in F, while others prefer the B♭ horn. The F horn is used more commonly than the B♭ horn, sound is produced by vibrating the players lips into the mouthpiece of the instrument. Different partials in the series can be played by adjusting the air pressure and lip tension
8.
Harmonic series (music)
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A harmonic series is the sequence of sounds where the base frequency of each sound is an integer multiple of the lowest base frequency. Pitched musical instruments are based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling each other to form standing waves, interaction with the surrounding air causes audible sound waves, which travel away from the instrument. Because of the spacing of the resonances, these frequencies are mostly limited to integer multiples, or harmonics, of the lowest frequency. The musical timbre of a tone from such an instrument is determined by the relative strengths of each harmonic. A complex tone can be described as a combination of many simple periodic waves or partials, each with its own frequency of vibration, amplitude, a partial is any of the sine waves of which a complex tone is composed. A harmonic is any member of the series, an ideal set of frequencies that are positive integer multiples of a common fundamental frequency. The fundamental is also considered a harmonic because it is 1 times itself, a harmonic partial is any real partial component of a complex tone that matches an ideal harmonic. An inharmonic partial is any partial that does not match an ideal harmonic, Inharmonicity is a measure of the deviation of a partial from the closest ideal harmonic, typically measured in cents for each partial. Unpitched, or indefinite-pitched instruments, such as cymbals, gongs, or tam-tams make sounds that are rich in inharmonic partials, an overtone is any partial except the lowest partial. The term overtone does not imply harmonicity or inharmonicity and has no special meaning other than to exclude the fundamental. It is the relative strengths of the different overtones that gives an instrument its particular timbre, some electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, can play a pure frequency with no overtones. Synthesizers can also combine pure frequencies into more complex tones, such as to other instruments. Certain flutes and ocarinas are very nearly without overtones, in most pitched musical instruments, the fundamental is accompanied by other, higher-frequency harmonics. Thus shorter-wavelength, higher-frequency waves occur with varying prominence and give each instrument its characteristic tone quality, the fact that a string is fixed at each end means that the longest allowed wavelength on the string is twice the length of the string. Other allowed wavelengths are 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, theoretically, these shorter wavelengths correspond to vibrations at frequencies that are 2,3,4,5,6, etc. times the fundamental frequency. Physical characteristics of the vibrating medium and/or the resonator it vibrates against often alter these frequencies, the harmonic series is an arithmetic series. In terms of frequency, the difference between consecutive harmonics is therefore constant and equal to the fundamental, but because human ears respond to sound nonlinearly, higher harmonics are perceived as closer together than lower ones
9.
Crook (music)
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Early horns had unalterable lengths and permanently attached mouthpieces. This presented problems in concert situations, a different horn was required for different keys, and the instrument could not be tuned. Around 1700 the Leichnamschneider brothers in Vienna developed a horn with a mouthpiece which could be connected to a short piece of tubing. Additional pieces, couplers, of different length were inserted between the crook and the body of the horn to change the horns length. Fine tuning was done with even shorter segments called tuning bits and this simple and relatively inexpensive solution remained in use even into the 19th century. Charles Tullys Tutor for the French Horn, published in London, the master crook and coupler system presented some problems. Moreover, the instrument became so long that it was difficult to reach the bell for hand-stopping. This important innovation had been introduced around 1720, and codified by Anton Hampel of Dresden in about 1750, so that the horn could be played chromatically. To get around these problems Hampel devised a new instrument, the inventionshorn, in which detachable crooks were inserted not in the mouth pipe and this presented the new problem of fitting the longest and shortest crooks into the same small space. Working with the Dresden instrument maker Johann Werner, Hampel perfected the Inventionshorn sometime between 1750 and 1755, the new horn was capable of the full range of transpositions and quickly became a regular member of the developing symphony orchestra. Fine tuning of the Inventionshorn remained a problem until J. G. Haltenhof replaced the tenon, the Inventionshorn design was also applied to other brass instruments. Some examples are a pair of invention trumpets by Michael Saurle at the National Music Museum, for photographs and a detailed description of the Saurle trumpets, see here. Around 1800 in France terminal crooks were invented, which proved to be extremely popular and these instruments used a separate crook for each key, and the crooks maintained a fairly uniform distance between the mouthpiece and the body of the instrument. Horn players typically needed at least eight crooks, for B♭-alto, A, G, F, E, E♭, D, after about 1828, an additional crook in A♭-alto was also included. Although crooks for low B and B♭ were also occasionally made, Horns constructed with the large number of crooks needed for playing in an orchestra are sometimes referred to as orchestral horns. The main disadvantage of this system was that so many crooks needed to be transported, the large cases required for carrying them were often works of art themselves. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the low B♭ and C crooks have a rich, dark almost muddy tone, but, because of their length — B♭ has 18 feet of tubing — are slow to speak. Indeed, the difference in response between a horn crooked in B♭ alto and one in B♭ basso is akin to the difference in handling between a car and a lorry
10.
Embouchure
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The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments. The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche, the proper embouchure allows the instrumentalist to play the instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to ones muscles. While performing on an instrument, the sound is produced by the player buzzing his or her lips into a mouthpiece. Pitches are changed in part through altering the amount of muscular contraction in the lip formation, the performers use of the air, tightening of cheek and jaw muscles, as well as tongue manipulation can affect how the embouchure works. Even today, many brass pedagogues take an approach to teaching how a brass players embouchure should function. Many of these authors also disagree with each other regarding which technique is correct, research suggests efficient brass embouchures depend on the player using the method that suits that players particular anatomy. In 1962, Philip Farkas hypothesized that the air stream traveling through the lip aperture should be directed straight down the shank of the mouthpiece and he believed that it would be illogical to violently deflect the air stream downward at the point of where the air moves past the lips. In this text, Farkas also recommends that the lower jaw be protruded so that the upper and lower teeth are aligned, in 1970, Farkas published a second text which contradicted his earlier writing. Out of 40 subjects, Farkas showed that 39 subjects directed the air downward to varying degrees, the lower jaw position seen in these photographs show more variation from his earlier text as well. This supports what was written by trombonist and brass pedagogue Donald S. Reinhardt in 1942. According to this text, players who place the mouthpiece higher on the lips, so that more upper lip is inside the mouthpiece. Performers who place the lower, so that more lower lip is inside the mouthpiece. In order for the performer to be successful, the air stream direction, lloyd Leno confirmed the existence of both upstream and downstream embouchures. More controversial was Reinhardts description and recommendations regarding a phenomenon he termed a pivot, whether the player uses one general pivot direction or the other, and the degree to which the motion is performed, depends on the performers anatomical features and stage of development. The placement of the mouthpiece upon the lips doesnt change, but rather the relationship of the rim, later research supports Reinhardts claim that this motion exists and might be advisable for brass performers to adopt. Froelich noted that the symphonic trombonists used the least amount of direct and shear forces and recommends this model be followed. Other research notes that virtually all brass performers rely upon the upward and downward embouchure motion, other authors and pedagogues remain skeptical about the necessity of this motion, but scientific evidence supporting this view has not been sufficiently developed at this time to support this view. Some noted brass pedagogues prefer to instruct the use of the embouchure from an analytical point of view
11.
Wolf tone
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A similar phenomenon is the beating produced by a wolf interval, which is usually the interval between E♭ and G♯ of the various non-circulating temperaments. Wolf tones are only noticed on bowed instruments, most notably the violin family, since the tones produced are played for much longer periods. Frequently, the wolf is present on or in between the pitches E and F♯ on the cello, and around G♯ on the double bass, a wolf can be reduced or eliminated with a piece of equipment called a wolf tone eliminator. This is a tube and mounting screw with an interior rubber sleeve. Different placements of this tube along the string influence or eliminate the frequency at which the wolf occurs and it is essentially an attenuator that slightly shifts the natural frequency of the string cutting down on the reverberation. While it has said that Lou Harrison wrote a piece that exploited the wolf specific to Seymour Barabs new cello. Naldjorlak I, composed by Éliane Radigue for realisation exclusively by the cellist Charles Curtis is in fact composed solely around the manipulation of the tone of Curtiss cello. It is rumoured that the Amadeus Quartet were in professional circles nicknamed the Wolf Gang, punning on the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, mechanical resonance String resonance Wilkins, R. A. An Empirical Investigation into the Mechanism of Cello Wolf-Tone Beats, Journal of the Violin Society of America, Fall 2013, Vol. XXIV, No.2. An Investigation into the Techniques for Controlling Cello Wolf-Tones, Journal of the Violin Society of America, Fall 2013, Vol. XXIV, No.2
12.
Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
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Mandi, Mandi, formerly known as Mandav Nagar, also known as Sahor, is a major town and a municipal council in Mandi District in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is situated 153 kilometres north of capital, Shimla. Located in the north-west Himalayas at an altitude of 850 metres. Mandi is connected to the Pathankot through National Highway 20 which is almost 220 km long and to Manali, Mandi is approximately 184.6 km from Chandigarh, the nearest major city, and 440.9 km from New Delhi, the national capital. According to the 2011 Indian census, Mandi city has a population of 26,422, Mandi district is currently the 2nd largest economy in the state next to Kangra. Mandi, in the state is having second highest sex ratio of 1013 females per thousand males and it serves as the headquarters of Mandi District and Zonal Headquarters of central zone including Districts namely Kullu, Bilaspur, and Hamirpur. As a tourist place, Mandi is often referred to as Varanasi of Hills or Choti Kashi or Kashi of Himachal, also, Mandi is the starting point for the famous trek of the region Prashar lake trek. From Mandi, trekkers go to Bagi village, which serves as the village for Prashar lake. Indian Institute of Technology is an institute located in the city. This one time capital of the state of Mandi is a fast developing city that still retains much of its original charm. The city was established in 1527 by Ajbar Sen, as the seat of the Mandi State, foundation of the city was laid on the establishment of Himachal Pradesh in early 1948. Today, it is known for the International Mandi Shivaratri Fair. The city also has the remains of old palaces and notable examples of ‘colonial’ architecture, the city had one of the oldest buildings of Himachal Pradesh. The name mandi has its roots from Great Sage Rishi Mandav who prayed in this area, alternatively, the name may have been derived from the common word mandi which means market in Hindi. It may possibly be connected with the Sanskrit root mandaptika, meaning a hall or shed. While the citys name has always pronounced in the local language. This change is now the most widely used name for the city, Mandi is renowned for its 81 ancient old stone Shaivite temples and their enormous range of fine carving. Because of this, it is often called the Varanasi of the Hills
13.
George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712 and he was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that Handel was not only a great composer, he was a dramatic genius of the first order. As Alexanders Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works, after his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759 and his funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Handel was born in 1685 in Halle-on-Saal, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Händel and his father,63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching and they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War. Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry. Even the smaller churches all had able organists and fair choirs, and humanities, the Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. But since the middle of the war the city was under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, the arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata, which did not describe Handels family. Handel was the child of this marriage, the first son died still born. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric, Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687 and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, Mainwaring is the source for almost all information of Handels childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handels confidant and copyist. Whether they came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation and it is from Mainwaring that the portrait of Handels father as implacably opposed to any musical education comes. This did nothing to dampen young Handels inclination, in fact, Mainwaring tells the story of Handels secret attic spinnet, Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep, but Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training. Somehow Handel made his way to the organ, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction, Handels father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel
14.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
15.
Ludwig van Beethoven
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
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Georg Philipp Telemann
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Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his familys wishes, after studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, Telemanns music incorporates several national styles and is even at times influenced by Polish popular music. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies and his music is an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles, Telemann was born in Magdeburg, then the capital of the Duchy of Magdeburg, Brandenburg-Prussia. His father Heinrich, deacon at the Church of the Holy Spirit, the future composer received his first music lessons at 10, from a local organist, and became immensely interested in music in general, and composition in particular. Despite opposition from his mother and relatives, who forbade any musical activities, Telemann found it possible to study and compose in secret, even creating an opera at age 12. Telemann was becoming equally adept both at composing and performing, teaching himself flute, oboe, violin, recorder, double bass, in 1701 he graduated from the Gymnasium and went to Leipzig to become a student at the Leipzig University, where he intended to study law. He ended up becoming a musician, regularly composing works for Nikolaikirche. In 1702 he became director of the opera house Opernhaus auf dem Brühl. Prodigiously productive, Telemann supplied a wealth of new music for Leipzig, including operas, one of which was his first major opera. However, he engaged in a conflict with the cantor of Thomaskirche. The conflict intensified when Telemann started employing numerous students for his projects, including those that were Kuhnaus, Telemann left Leipzig in 1705 at the age of 24 after receiving an invitation to become Kapellmeister for the court of Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau. He became Konzertmeister on 24 December 1708 and Secretary and Kapellmeister in August 1709, during his tenure at Eisenach Telemann created a very large amount of music, at least four annual cycles of church cantatas, dozens of sonatas and concertos, and other works. In 1709 he married Amalie Louise Juliane Eberlin, lady-in-waiting to the Countess of Promnitz and their daughter was born in January 1711. The mother died soon afterwards, leaving Telemann depressed and distraught, after less than a year he sought another position, and moved to Frankfurt on 18 March 1712 at the age of 31 to become city music director and Kapellmeister at the Barfüsserkirche. In Frankfurt, he gained his mature personal style. Here, as in Leipzig, he was a force in the citys musical life. By 1720 he had adopted the use of the da capo aria, operas such as Narciso, which was brought to Frankfurt in 1719, written in the Italian idiom of composition, made a mark on Telemanns output
17.
Carl Maria von Weber
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Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. Webers operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantische Oper in Germany, a brilliant pianist himself, Weber composed four sonatas, two concertos and the Konzertstück in F minor, which influenced composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. The Konzertstück provided a new model for the one-movement concerto in several contrasting sections, Webers shorter piano pieces, such as the Invitation to the Dance, were later orchestrated by Berlioz, while his Polacca Brillante was later set for piano and orchestra by Liszt. Webers compositions for clarinet, bassoon, and horn occupy an important place in the musical repertoire. His compositions for the clarinet, which include two concertos, a concertino, a quintet, a duo concertante, and variations on a theme from his opera Silvana, are performed today. His Concertino for Horn and Orchestra requires the performer to simultaneously produce two notes by humming while playing—a technique known as multiphonics and his bassoon concerto and the Andante e Rondo ungarese are also popular with bassoonists. Webers contribution to vocal and choral music is also significant and his body of Catholic religious music was highly popular in 19th-century Germany, and he composed one of the earliest song cycles, Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten. Weber was also notable as one of the first conductors to conduct without a piano or violin and his operas influenced the work of later opera composers, especially in Germany, such as Marschner, Meyerbeer and Wagner, as well as several nationalist 19th-century composers such as Glinka. Homage has been paid to Weber by 20th-century composers such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Mahler, Weber also wrote music journalism and was interested in folksong, and learned lithography to engrave his own works. Weber was born in Eutin, Bishopric of Lübeck, the eldest of the three children of Franz Anton von Weber and his wife, Genovefa Weber, a Viennese singer. The von was an affectation, Franz Anton von Weber was not actually an aristocrat, both his parents were Catholic and originally came from the far south of Germany. Franz Anton began his career as a officer in the service of the Duchy of Holstein. In 1787 Franz Anton went on to Hamburg where he founded a theatrical company, Franz Antons half-brother, Fridolin, married Cäcilia Stamm and had four musical daughters, Josepha, Aloysia, Constanze and Sophie, all of whom became notable singers. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart attempted to woo Aloysia, composing pieces for her. But after she rejected his advances, Mozart went on to marry Constanze, a gifted violinist, Franz Anton had ambitions of turning Carl into a child prodigy like Franzs nephew-by-marriage, Mozart. Carl was born with a hip disease and did not begin to walk until he was four. But by then, he was already a singer and pianist. Webers father gave him an education, which was however interrupted by the familys constant moves
18.
Chromaticism
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Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism, chromatic elements are considered elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members. Chromaticism is almost by definition an alteration of, an interpolation in or deviation from this basic diatonic organization, though these styles/methods continue to incorporate tonality or tonal elements, often the trends that led to these methods were abandoned, such as modulation. David Cope describes three forms of chromaticism, modulation, borrowed chords from secondary keys, and chromatic chords such as augmented sixth chords, the total chromatic is the collection of all twelve equally tempered pitch classes of the chromatic scale. Similarly, a chord is one which includes one or more such notes. A chromatic scale is one which proceeds entirely by semitones, so dividing the octave into twelve equal steps of one semitone each, linear chromaticism, is used in jazz, All improvised lines. will include non-harmonic, chromatic notes. In other words, at least one note of the chord is chromatically altered, any chord that is not chromatic is a diatonic chord. Examples, ♭II in first inversion is called the Neapolitan sixth chord, for example in C Major, F–A♭–D♭. The Neapolitan Sixth chord resolves to the V, the ♯IV diminished chord is the Sharpened subdominant with diminished seventh chord. The ♯IV diminished chord resolves to the V, the ♯IV can also be understood as the tonicization of V where it functions as viio7 of the V chord, written viio7/V. ♭VI, The Augmented sixth chord resolves to the V, in music theory, passus duriusculus is a Latin term which refers to chromatic line, often a bassline, whether descending or ascending. From the late 16th century onward, chromaticism has come to symbolize intense emotional expression in music, the chromatic symbolizing darkness doubt and grief and the diatonic light, affirmation and joy—this imagery has hardly changed for three centuries. Nevertheless the convention is a one and the emotional associations evoked by chromaticism have endured and indeed strengthened over the years. The rich harmonization of a chromatic scale in the Sleep Motif from Wagners opera Die Walkure. Donington speaks of this musics slow chromatic drift and its modulations as elusive as the drift into sleep itself. Chromaticism is often associated with dissonance, in the 16th century the repeated melodic semitone became associated with weeping, see, passus duriusculus, lament bass, and pianto. For instance, Catherine Clément calls the chromaticism in Wagners Isolde feminine stink, 20th-century music – Classical Passus duriusculus, Bach-Cantatas. com
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Johannes Brahms
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Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his life in Vienna. Brahms composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works and he worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished, Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg, the diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahmss works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs, Brahmss father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein. The family name was sometimes spelt Brahmst or Brams, and derives from Bram. Against the familys will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg in 1826, where he work as a jobbing musician. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen, a seamstress 17 years older than he was, in the same year he was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia. Eventually he became a player in the Hamburg Stadttheater and the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. As Johann Jakob prospered, the family moved over the years to better accommodation in Hamburg. Johannes Brahms was born in 1833, his sister Elisabeth had been born in 1831, Fritz also became a pianist, overshadowed by his brother he emigrated to Caracas in 1867, and later returned to Hamburg as a teacher. Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training, Johannes also learnt to play the violin, from 1840 he studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms could be such a good player, at the age of 10, Brahms made his debut as a performer in a private concert including Beethovens quintet for piano and winds Op.16 and a piano quartet by Mozart. He also played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz, by 1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor
20.
Benjamin Britten
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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes, the War Requiem, Born in Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge, Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame, over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadlers Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote operas for small forces. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw, recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence. Brittens other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and he took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noyes Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind, Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bachs Brandenburg concertos, Mozart symphonies, in his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage. Britten was born in the port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten and his wife Edith Rhoda, Robert Brittens youthful ambition to become a farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he met Edith Hockey and they were married in September 1901 at St Johns, Smith Square, London. The consensus among biographers of Britten is that his father was a loving but somewhat stern, Britten, according to his sister Beth, got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains. Edith Britten was an amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of class were taken very seriously. Music was the means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the familys social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house. When Britten was three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died, the illness left him with a damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life
21.
Intonation (music)
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Intonation, in music, is a musicians realization of pitch accuracy, or the pitch accuracy of a musical instrument. Intonation may be flat, sharp, or both, successively or simultaneously, the lower or upper pitch of an interval may be sharp or flat, or both pitches of an interval may be out of tune. Intervals are conventionally measured from the bottom, as such in an interval that is too wide the upper pitch is thus sharp, for example, the flat fifth of meantone temperament. However, the interval itself may be in tune, in relation to itself, a melody or harmony is flat or sharp if it is too low or high, respectively. A melody may be successively both sharp and flat, a harmony may be simultaneously and successively both sharp and flat. The pleasantly alive sound of a string section results from the amount by which each stringed instrument is slightly out of tune. Several factors affect fretted instrument intonation, including depth of the slots in the nut, bridge saddle position, the position of the frets themselves. If the instrument doesnt compensate for this with an increase in the distance from the bridge saddle to the fret. Most electric fretted string instruments have individually adjustable bridge saddles, adjustable with a driver or Allen wrench. Acoustic fretted instruments typically have either a bridge, held in place by string tension, or a fixed bridge. A luthier or technician adjusts a floating bridge simply by changing its position until the intonation is correct. Adjusting intonation on a fixed bridge involves carefully shaping the bridge saddle with a file to alter the strings contact point, another cause of poor intonation on a fretted instrument is that the maker didnt cut the string slots in the nut deep enough. If the string is higher than fret height at the nut, like unfretted string instruments, the trombone relies on the musician precisely positioning something, in this case the trombones slide. The slides pitch adjustment on a single partial is approximately the interval of a tritone on a length of over 80 centimeters. The trombonist may use his/her ear to minutely adjust pitch on sustained notes, by coincidence, the position of the bell on most trombones provides a reference for third position, but this is not accessible during fast passages. Articulation is also an important consideration when playing trombone, imprecise articulation may add unwanted glissando to a note not requiring it, woodwinds are manufactured with holes that must be covered or uncovered to shorten or lengthen the bore to change pitch, and require register keys to change octaves. By theory, there should be one key for each of the twelve pitches. This causes certain notes to be out of tune, so the musician must understand where these are
22.
Just intonation
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In music, just intonation or pure intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a pure or just interval, pure intervals are important in music because they correspond to the vibrational patterns found in physical objects which correlate to human perception. The two notes in any just interval are members of the harmonic series. Frequency ratios involving large integers such as 1024,729 are not generally said to be justly tuned, the Indian classical music system uses just intonation tuning as codified in the Natya Shastra. Various societies perceive pure intervals as pleasing or satisfying consonant and, conversely, however, various societies do not have these associations. Just intonation can be contrasted and compared with equal temperament, which dominates Western instruments of fixed pitch, however, except for doubling of frequencies, no other intervals are exact ratios of small integers. Each just interval differs a different amount from its analogous, equally tempered interval, justly tuned intervals can be written as either ratios, with a colon, or as fractions, with a solidus. For example, two tones, one at 300 hertz, and the other at 200 hertz are both multiples of 100 Hz and as members of the harmonic series built on 100 Hz. Thus 3,2, known as a fifth, may be defined as the musical interval between the second and third harmonics of any fundamental pitch. Just intonation An A-major scale, followed by three major triads, and then a progression of fifths in just intonation, equal temperament An A-major scale, followed by three major triads, and then a progression of fifths in equal temperament. By listening to the file, and then listening to this one, one might be able to hear the beating in this file. Equal temperament and just intonation compared A pair of major thirds, the first in each pair is in equal temperament, the second is in just intonation. Equal temperament and just intonation compared with square waveform A pair of major chords, the first is in equal temperament, the second is in just intonation. The pair of chords is repeated with a transition from equal temperament to just temperament between the two chords, in the equal temperament chords a roughness or beating can be heard at about 4 Hz and about 0.8 Hz. In the just intonation triad, this roughness is absent, the square waveform makes the difference between equal and just temperaments more obvious. Harmonic intervals come naturally to horns, vibrating strings, and in human singing voices. Pythagorean tuning, perhaps the first tuning system to be theorized in the West, is a system in all tones can be found using powers of the ratio 3,2. It is easier to think of this system as a cycle of fifths
23.
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
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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
25.
Trombone
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The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the players vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate, nearly all trombones have a telescoping slide mechanism that varies the length of the instrument to change the pitch. Many modern trombone models also utilize a rotary valve as a means to lower pitch of the instrument, variants such as the valve trombone and superbone have three valves like those on the trumpet. The word trombone derives from Italian tromba and -one, so the name means large trumpet, the trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like its valved counterpart the baritone and in contrast to its conical valved counterparts, the euphonium and the horn. The most frequently encountered trombones are the trombone and bass trombone. The most common variant, the tenor, is an instrument pitched in B♭, an octave below the B♭ trumpet. A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player, the trombone is a predominantly cylindrical tube bent into an elongated S shape. Rather than being completely cylindrical from end to end, the tube is a series of tapers with the smallest at the mouthpiece receiver. The design of these affects the intonation of the instrument. As with other instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through pursed lips producing a vibration that creates a standing wave in the instrument. The detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece is similar to that of the baritone horn and it has the venturi, a small constriction of the air column that adds resistance greatly affecting the tone of the instrument, and is inserted into the mouthpiece receiver in the slide section. The slide section consists of a leadpipe, the inner and outer tubes. Modern stays are soldered, while sackbuts were made with loose, the slide, the most distinctive feature of the trombone, allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch. To prevent friction from slowing the action of the slide, additional sleeves were developed during the Renaissance, and this part of the slide must be lubricated frequently. Additional tubing connects the slide to the bell of the instrument through a neckpipe, for example, second position A is not in exactly the same place on the slide as second position E. Many types of trombone also include one or more rotary valves used to increase the length of the instrument by directing the air flow through additional tubing. This allows the instrument to reach notes that are not possible without the valve as well as play other notes in alternate positions. Like the trumpet, the trombone is considered a cylindrical bore instrument since it has sections of tubing, principally in the slide section
26.
Human voice
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The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary sound source. Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts, the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx, and the articulators, the lung must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds. The vocal folds are a vibrating valve that chops up the airflow from the lungs into audible pulses that form the sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the folds to ‘fine-tune’ pitch. The articulators articulate and filter the sound emanating from the larynx, the vocal folds, in combination with the articulators, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound. The tone of voice may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, singers use the human voice as an instrument for creating music. Adult men and women typically have different sizes of vocal fold, adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have larger folds. The male vocal folds, are between 17 mm and 25 mm in length, the female vocal folds are between 12.5 mm and 17.5 mm in length. The folds are within the larynx and they are attached at the back to the arytenoids cartilages, and at the front to the thyroid cartilage. They have no outer edge as they blend into the side of the tube while their inner edges or margins are free to vibrate. They have a three layer construction of an epithelium, vocal ligament, then muscle, which can shorten and they are flat triangular bands and are pearly white in color. Above both sides of the cord is the vestibular fold or false vocal cord, which has a small sac between its two folds. The difference in vocal folds size between men and women means that they have differently pitched voices, additionally, genetics also causes variances amongst the same sex, with mens and womens singing voices being categorized into types. For example, among men, there are bass, baritone, tenor and countertenor, there are additional categories for operatic voices, see voice type. This is not the source of difference between male and female voice. Men, generally speaking, have a vocal tract, which essentially gives the resultant voice a lower-sounding timbre. This is mostly independent of the folds themselves
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Synthesizer
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A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones. Synthesizers may either imitate instruments like piano, Hammond organ, flute, vocals, natural sounds like ocean waves, etc. or generate new electronic timbres. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are called sound modules, and are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device. Synthesizers use various methods to generate electronic signals, synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. In the 1970s, synths were used in disco, especially in the late 1970s, in the 1980s, the invention of the relatively inexpensive, mass market Yamaha DX7 synth made synthesizers widely available. 1980s pop and dance music often made use of synthesizers. In the 2010s, synthesizers are used in genres of pop, rock. Contemporary classical music composers from the 20th and 21st century write compositions for synthesizer, the beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace, as it is difficult to draw a distinction between synthesizers and some early electric or electronic musical instruments. One of the earliest electric musical instruments, the telegraph, was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray. He accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromechanical circuit and this musical telegraph used steel reeds with oscillations created by electromagnets transmitted over a telegraph line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a diaphragm in a magnetic field. This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument that used telegraphy, though it lacked an arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer. In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented the Teleharmonium, which used dynamos, and was capable of additive synthesis like the Hammond organ, however, Cahills business was unsuccessful for various reasons, and similar but more compact instruments were subsequently developed, such as electronic and tonewheel organs. In 1906, American engineer, Lee De Forest ushered in the electronics age and he invented the first amplifying vacuum tube, called the Audion tube. This led to new entertainment technologies, including radio and sound films, ondes Martenot and Trautonium were continuously developed for several decades, finally developing qualities similar to later synthesizers. In the 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art, in 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin designed a compositional tool called ANS, one of the earliest real-time additive synthesizers using optoelectronics. The earliest polyphonic synthesizers were developed in Germany and the United States, during the three years that Hammond manufactured this model,1,069 units were shipped, but production was discontinued at the start of World War II. Both instruments were the forerunners of the electronic organs and polyphonic synthesizers
28.
Wind instrument
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The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. In the case of wind instruments, sound is produced by blowing through a reed. Using different air columns for different tones, such as in the pan flute and this method is used on nearly all brass instruments. Changing the length of the air column by lengthening and/or shortening the tube using a sliding mechanism. This method is used on the trombone and the slide whistle, changing the frequency of vibration through opening or closing holes in the side of the tube. This can be done by covering the holes with fingers or pressing a key which then closes the hole and this method is used in nearly all woodwind instruments. Making the column of air vibrate at different harmonics without changing the length of the column of air, almost all wind instruments use the last method, often in combination with one of the others, to extend their register. A more accurate way to determine whether an instrument is brass or woodwind is to examine how the player produces sound, in brass instruments, the players lips vibrate, causing the air within the instrument to vibrate. For example, the saxophone is typically made of brass, but is classified as an instrument because it produces sound with a vibrating reed. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, wind instruments are classed as aerophones, sound production in all wind instruments depends on the entry of air into a flow-control valve attached to a resonant chamber. The resonator is typically a long cylindrical or conical tube, open at the far end, a pulse of high pressure from the valve will travel down the tube at the speed of sound. It will be reflected from the end as a return pulse of low pressure. Under suitable conditions, the valve will reflect the pulse back, with increased energy, Reed instruments such as the clarinet or oboe have a flexible reed or reeds at the mouthpiece, forming a pressure-controlled valve. Standing waves inside the tube will be odd multiples of a quarter-wavelength, with a pressure anti-node at the mouthpiece, the reed vibrates at a rate determined by the resonator. For Lip Reed instruments, the controls the tension in their lips so that they vibrate under the influence of the air flow through them. They adjust the vibration so that the lips are most closed, and the air flow is lowest, standing waves inside the tube will be odd multiples of a quarter-wavelength, with a pressure anti-node at the mouthpiece, and a pressure node at the open end. For Air Reed instruments, the thin grazing air sheet flowing across an opening in the pipe interacts with an edge to generate sound. The jet is generated by the player, when blowing through a thin slit, for recorders and flue organ pipes this slit is manufactured by the instrument maker and has a fixed geometry
29.
Bagpipes
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Bagpipes are a wind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The term bagpipe is equally correct in the singular or plural, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as the pipes, a set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone in various combinations, held in place in stocks—sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag, the most common method of supplying air to the bag is through blowing into a blowpipe, or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with their tongue while inhaling, an innovation, dating from the 16th or 17th century, is the use of a bellows to supply air. In these pipes, sometimes called cauld wind pipes, air is not heated or moistened by the players breathing, the bag is an airtight reservoir that holds air and regulates its flow via arm pressure, allowing the player to maintain continuous even sound. The player keeps the bag inflated by blowing air into it through a blowpipe or pumping air into it with a bellows, materials used for bags vary widely, but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, dogs, sheep, and cows. More recently, bags made of materials including Gore-Tex have become much more common. A drawback of the bag is the potential for fungal spores to colonise the bag because of a reduction in necessary cleaning. An advantage of a bag is that they have a zip which allows the user to fit a more effective moisture trap to the inside of the bag. Bags cut from larger materials are usually saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam, holes are then cut to accommodate the stocks. The chanter is the pipe, played with two hands. Almost all bagpipes have at least one chanter, some pipes have two chanters, particularly those in North Africa, the Balkans in Southern Europe, and Southwest Asia. A chanter can be bored internally so that the walls are parallel for its full length. The chanter is usually open-ended, so there is no way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. Thus most bagpipes share a constant, legato sound where there are no rests in the music, primarily because of this inability to stop playing, technical movements are used to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments are often highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, a few bagpipes have closed ends or stop the end on the players leg, so that when the player closes the chanter becomes silent. A practice chanter is a chanter without bag or drones, allowing a player to practice the instrument quietly, the term chanter is derived from the Latin cantare, or to sing, much like the modern French word chanteur. The note from the chanter is produced by a reed installed at its top, the reed may be a single or double reed
30.
Tromba marina
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The tromba marina consists of a body and neck in the shape of a truncated cone resting on a triangular base. It is usually four to seven long, and is a monochord. It is played without stopping the string, but playing natural harmonics by lightly touching the string with the thumb at nodal points. Its name comes from its trumpet like sound due to the construction of the bridge. In most cases the bottom end of the instrument is open, the single string, generally the D string of a cello, most often is tuned to the C three octaves below middle C. It attaches at the soundboard and passes over one foot of the bridge, leaving the foot to vibrate freely on a plate of ivory or glass set into the soundboard. A string called a guidon is tied around the string below the bridge. The guidon adjusts the balance of the bridge by pulling the playing string, the measurements of the tromba marina varied considerably, as did the shape of the body and the number of strings. In the days of Michael Praetorius, the length of the Trumscheit was 7 feet 3 inches, there was at first only one string, generally a D cello string. The heavy bow, similar to that of the cello, is used between the highest positions of the hand at the nodal points and the nut of the head. In a Trumscheit in the collection of the Kgl, hochschule, at Charlottenburg the frets are lettered A, D, F, A, D, F, G, A, B, C, D. In Germany, at the time when the trumpet was used in the churches. The instrument fell into disuse during the first half of the 18th century, in modern times, the group Corvus Corax still regularly plays the tromba marina. Crwth Long-string instrument Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Schlesinger. Tromba Marina - A Study in Organology Tromba Marina
31.
Long-string instrument
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The long-string instrument is a musical instrument in which the string is of such a length that the fundamental transverse wave is below what a person can hear as a tone. If the tension and the result in sounds with such a frequency. Besides the beating frequency, the string also gives higher pitched natural overtones, since the length is that long, this has an effect on the attack tone. The attack tone shoots through the string in a longitudinal wave, the sound is also similar to that occurring in upper electricity cables for trains. A long string instrument was one of the techniques by which Mersenne tested Galileos hypothesis, now known under Mersennes name, by making string vibration speed visible and countable. For example if a string 0.33 meters long, of mass and tension, produces A440. One example of an instrument was invented by the American composer Ellen Fullman. It is tuned in just intonation and played by walking along the length of its approximately 100 90-foot-long strings and rubbing them with rosined hands and producing longitudinal vibrations. A C-clamp is used on each string for putting tension on the strings, much like a capo. This long-string instruments range is centered on the octave of middle C and extends above, the strings of the bass octave extend the instruments full 90 feet. Fullman is not the person who has built long-string instruments. Alvin Lucier employed a monochord of up to 25 meters in his piece Music on a Long Thin Wire, in 1981 Terry Fox also recorded two musical pieces called Berlin Attic Wire, Beating with a long string instrument. Since 1983, in addition to his work on and about the violin, throughout his career Paul Panhuysen made many large sound installations with groups of long strings. George Smits built long string instruments acoustically amplified with styrofoam, the experimental luthier and recording artist Yuri Landman built a portable electric long-string instrument. A three-minute solo that he recorded in a garden on this instrument can be heard on YouTube, sound lab and research centre Sonoscopia in Porto, Portugal has a permanent electric amplified long-string instrument mounted to the wall in the hall of their building. Tromba marina Ellen Fullmans Long-String Instrument Photographs from the Flanders Festival, Brussels, Belgium,2003 Ellen Fullman
32.
Harmonica
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There are many types of harmonica, including diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth to direct air into or out of one or more holes along a mouthpiece, behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. A harmonica reed is a flat elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, when the free end is made to vibrate by the players air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are pre-tuned to individual pitches, tuning may involve changing a reeds length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds, an important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates and cover plates. The comb is the body of the instrument, which. The term comb may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb, Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood but now are also made from plastic or metal. Some modern and experimental designs are complex in the way that they direct the air. There is dispute among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica, among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute, however, that comb surface smoothness and air-tightness when mated with the reedplates can greatly affect tone, the main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability. In particular, a comb can absorb moisture from the players breath. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem. Much effort is devoted by serious players to restoring wood combs, some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, players still dip harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes. The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing, the reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the side of the reed plate respond to blowing
33.
Keyboard instrument
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A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various keyboards, including synthesizers. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, today, the term keyboard often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers. Another important use of the keyboard is in historical musicology. Particularly in the 18th century, the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the piano were in competition. Hence in a phrase like Mozart excelled as a player the word keyboard is usefully noncommittal. The earliest known keyboard instrument was the Ancient Greek hydraulis, a type of pipe organ, the keys were likely balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian, who says magna levi detrudens murmura tactu. Intent, that is “let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty roarings with a light touch”, from its invention until the fourteenth century, the organ remained the only keyboard instrument. Often, the organ did not feature a keyboard at all, almost every keyboard until the fifteenth century had seven naturals to each octave. The clavichord and the harpsichord appeared during the 14th century—the clavichord probably being earlier, the harpsichord and clavichord were both common until widespread adoption of the piano in the 18th century, after which their popularity decreased. The piano was revolutionary, because a pianist could vary the volume of the sound by varying the vigor with which each key was struck. The pianos full name is gravicèmbalo con piano e forte meaning harpsichord with soft and loud but can be shortened to piano-forte, which means soft-loud in Italian. In its current form, the piano is a product of the late 19th century, in fact, the modern piano is significantly different from even the 19th-century pianos used by Liszt, Chopin, and Brahms. See Piano history and musical performance, keyboard instruments were further developed in the early twentieth century. Early electromechanical instruments, such as the Ondes Martenot, appeared early in the century and this was a very important contribution to the keyboards history. Much effort has gone into creating an instrument that sounds like the piano but lacks its size, the electric piano and electronic piano were early efforts that, while useful instruments in their own right, did not convincingly reproduce the timbre of the piano. Electric and electronic organs were developed during the same period, more recent electronic keyboard designs strive to emulate the sound of specific make and model pianos using digital samples and computer models. Concerns celebrated keyboard players and the various instruments used over the centuries
34.
Split sharp
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A split sharp is a kind of key found in some early keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, clavichord, or organ. It is a musical key divided in two, with separately depressible front and back sections, each sounding its own pitch, the particular keys that were split were those that play the sharps and flats on the standard musical keyboard. A sharp key divided or split into two parts, the front part is one third the length of the whole. Usually the back part is set slightly higher to facilitate playing, each part has its own so that two notes are available. In Italian instruments it was common. to provide split sharps for e♭/d♯, the usual practice was to put on the front part the note that would normally be found there, e. g. e♭ and g♯. Split sharps served two distinct purposes, first, in the broken octave, they allowed an instrument to include deep bass notes while retaining a short, compact keyboard. Second, in music, tuning was generally not done by equal temperament. Instead, they were assigned slightly different pitches on enharmonic keyboards and this allowed certain musical intervals, such as the major third, to sound closer to their ideal just value, hence more closely tuned to just intonation. Split sharps present advantages and disadvantages, Obviously this would have its advantages under some circumstances in terms of intonation, however, the complexities of fingering and hand position dictated by such a keyboard configuration presented problems. Kottick, Edward L. and George Lucktenberg Early keyboard instruments in European museums
35.
Harmonic
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A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series, the divergent infinite series. Every term of the series after the first is the mean of the neighboring terms. The phrase harmonic mean likewise derives from music, the term is employed in various disciplines, including music, physics, acoustics, electronic power transmission, radio technology, and other fields. It is typically applied to repeating signals, such as sinusoidal waves, a harmonic of such a wave is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the frequency of the original wave, known as the fundamental frequency. The original wave is called the 1st harmonic, the following harmonics are known as higher harmonics. As all harmonics are periodic at the frequency, the sum of harmonics is also periodic at that frequency. On strings, harmonics that are bowed have a glassy, pure tone, harmonics may also be called overtones, partials or upper partials. In some music contexts, the harmonic, overtone and partial are used fairly interchangeably. Most acoustic instruments emit complex tones containing many individual partials, rather, a musical note is perceived as one sound, the quality or timbre of that sound being a result of the relative strengths of the individual partials. Oscillators that produce harmonic partials behave somewhat like one-dimensional resonators, and are long and thin. Wind instruments whose air column is open at one end, such as trumpets and clarinets. However they only produce partials matching the odd harmonics, at least in theory, the reality of acoustic instruments is such that none of them behaves as perfectly as the somewhat simplified theoretical models would predict. Partials whose frequencies are not integer multiples of the fundamental are referred to as inharmonic partials, antique singing bowls are known for producing multiple harmonic partials or multiphonics. An overtone is any partial higher than the lowest partial in a compound tone, the relative strengths and frequency relationships of the component partials determine the timbre of an instrument. This chart demonstrates how the three types of names are counted, In many musical instruments, it is possible to play the upper harmonics without the note being present. In a simple case this has the effect of making the note go up in pitch by an octave, in some cases it also changes the timbre of the note. This is part of the method of obtaining higher notes in wind instruments. The extended technique of playing multiphonics also produces harmonics, on string instruments it is possible to produce very pure sounding notes, called harmonics or flageolets by string players, which have an eerie quality, as well as being high in pitch
36.
Guqin
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The guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as the father of Chinese music or the instrument of the sages, the guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long zither also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string. The prefix gu- was later added for clarification, thus, the instrument is called guqin today. It can also be called qixian-qin, because Robert Hans van Guliks book about the qin is called The Lore of the Chinese Lute, the guqin is sometimes inaccurately called a lute. Other incorrect classifications, mainly from music compact discs, include harp or table-harp, the guqin is a very quiet instrument, with a range of about four octaves, and its open strings are tuned in the bass register. Its lowest pitch is two octaves below middle C, or the lowest note on the cello. Sounds are produced by plucking open strings, stopped strings, the use of glissando—sliding tones—gives it a sound reminiscent of a pizzicato cello, fretless double bass or a slide guitar. The qin is also capable of a lot of harmonics, of which 91 are most commonly used and indicated by the dotted positions, by tradition the qin originally had five strings, but ancient qin-like instruments with 10 or more strings have been found. The modern form has been standardized for about two millennia, legend has it that the qin, the most revered of all Chinese musical instruments, has a history of about 5,000 years. This legend states that the figures of Chinas pre-history — Fuxi, Shennong and Huang Di. Nearly all qin books and tablature collections published prior to the twentieth century state this as the origins of the qin. It is mentioned in Chinese writings dating back nearly 3,000 years, the exact origins of the qin is still a very much continuing subject of debate over the past few decades. It is the longest excerpt included on the disc, in 2003, guqin music was proclaimed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. There are a number of ancient sources that discuss qin lore, qin theory, some of these books are available inserted into certain qinpu. The detail can be very concise to extremely detailed and thorough, some are mostly philosophical or artistic musings, others are scientific and technical. As with any other tradition, there are differences in ideals. Therefore, there exist different schools and societies which transmit these different ideas, many qin schools known as qin pai developed over the centuries. Such schools generally formed around areas where qin activity was greatest, some schools have come and gone, and some have offshoots
37.
3rd bridge
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The timbre created with this technique is close to that of gamelan instruments like the bonang and similar Indonesian types of pitched gongs. Third bridge instruments can be custom-made by experimental luthiers, modified from a non-third bridge instrument, perhaps the best-known examples of this technique come from No Wave artists like Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth. The 3rd bridge technique has a connection with Pythagoras monochord. Many non-Western musical scales and musical instruments share these consonant just pitch relations, on a standard guitar, the string is held above the soundboard by two nodes, the nut and the bridge. A player sounding a note on a standard guitar vibrates a single portion of the string, in contrast, a third bridge divides the string into two pieces. When played at one part of a string, the part can resonate in a subharmonic of the struck part. On harmonic positions the created multiphonic tone is consonant and increases in volume, the sound is comparable with the sound of bells or clocks. In the 1930s, Harry Partch experimented with this technique on an instrument he called a Kithara that had movable glass rods. In the late 1960s, Keith Rowe made occasional use of third bridge guitars, inspiring a slew of experimental guitarists to use prepared guitars, from the 1970s, Hans Reichels self-made and modified acoustic guitars sometimes featured third bridges. From the late 1970s, Glenn Branca adopted Partchs theory and used amplified string tables for some of his symphonies, after being trained in the Branca orchestra, Sonic Youth applied their own guitars with screwdrivers, mainly in their early years. On their debut EP and the album Confusion is Sex this technique is often used, afterwards Bradford Reed developed the Pencilina. Reed plays mainly with drumsticks hitting the strings as well, the sound effect can be achieved without an additional 3rd bridge or extended tail piece. If the player presses on a fret and strums the string at the head side, again, on harmonic positions the result is much louder and clearer than on the inharmonic fret positions. The 5th, 7th, 12th and 19th fret generate low-frequency humming overtones with the complementary tone and this playing technique causes a smooth, round multiphonic sound. By muting the resonating part and letting it go after the pluck it sounds like an inverse recorded sound, on all other positions the tone is more undefined and comes with higher pitched lower volume overtones. With heavy distortion these tones can become more clear, the technique is widely used in many modern classical works on bowing instruments. The extended technique involves bowing the instrument on the afterlength, the length of string behind the bridge. The tone is high and squeaky
38.
Monochord
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A monochord, also known as sonometer, is an ancient musical and scientific laboratory instrument, involving one string. The term monochord is sometimes used as the class-name for any musical stringed instrument having only one string, according to the Hornbostel–Sachs system, string bows are bar zithers while monochords are traditionally board zithers. A string is fixed at both ends and stretched over a sound box, one or more movable bridges are then manipulated to demonstrate mathematical relationships among the frequencies produced. With its single string, movable bridge and graduated rule, the monochord straddled the gap between notes and numbers, intervals and ratios, sense-perception and mathematical reason, however, music, mathematics, and astronomy were inexorably linked in the monochord. For example, when a string is open it vibrates at a particular frequency. When the length of the string is halved, and plucked, it produces a pitch an octave higher, half of this length will produce a pitch two octaves higher than the original—four times the initial frequency —and so on. Standard diatonic Pythagorean tuning is easily derived starting from superparticular ratios, /n, constructed from the first four counting numbers, the mathematics involved include the multiplication table, least common multiples, and prime and composite numbers. A bichord instrument is one, having two strings in unison for each note, such as the mandolin, with two strings one can easily demonstrate how various musical intervals sound. Parts of a monochord include a tuning peg, nut, string, moveable bridge, fixed bridge, calibration marks, belly or resonating box, instruments derived from the monochord include the guqin, dan bau, koto, vina, hurdy-gurdy, and clavichord. A monopipe is the wind instrument version of a monochord, an open pipe which can produce variable pitches. End correction must be used with this method, to achieve accuracy, the monochord is mentioned in Sumerian writings, while some attribute its invention to Pythagorus. Dolge attributes the invention of the bridge to Guido of Arezzo around 1000 CE. In 1618, Robert Fludd devised a mundane monochord that linked the Ptolemaic universe to musical intervals, was it physical intuition or a Pythagorean confidence in the importance of small whole numbers. 1,5 &10, which is music that uses pitch ratios extended to higher partials beyond the standard Pythagorean tuning system. A modern playing technique used in rock as well as contemporary classical music is 3rd bridge. This technique shares the same mechanism as used on the monochord, a sonometer is a diagnostic instrument used to measure the tension, frequency or density of vibrations. They are used in medical settings to test both hearing and bone density, a sonometer, or audiometer, is used to determine hearing sensitivity, while a clinical bone sonometer measures bone density to help determine such conditions as the risk of osteoporosis. In audiology, the device is used to test for hearing loss, the audiometer measures the ability to hear sounds at frequencies normally detectable by the human ear
39.
Bradford Reed
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Bradford Reed is an American multi-instrumentalist, experimental luthier, and member of avant-garde band King Missile III. He is proficient at such instruments as drums, guitar, melodica, piano, in the 1980s he invented the pencilina, a custom-made string instrument. The pencilina is a string instrument that Reed invented in the 1980s. The instrument is a double neck 3rd bridge guitar, the divided strings can be then played separately, creating a tap harmonic-like tone. In addition, there are four bells – a fire bell, a door bell, the pencilina is played by striking its strings and bells with sticks. The strings may also be plucked or bowed, the Pencilina is described in the book Nice Noise by Bart Hopkin and Yuri Landman. Bradford Reeds homepage Bradford Reed on oddmusic. com
40.
Moodswinger
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The Moodswinger is a twelve-string electric zither with an additional third bridge designed by Yuri Landman. The rod which functions as the third bridge divides the strings into two sections to cause an overtone multiphonic sound, one of the copies of the instrument is part of the collection of the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In March 2006 Landman was contacted by the noise band Liars to make an instrument for them, after 6 months he finished two copies of The Moodswinger, an electric 12-string 3rd-bridge overtone koto, one for guitarist/drummer Aaron Hemphill and one for himself. Although it closely resembles a guitar, it is actually a zither. The pickup and electronics are built into the neck instead of in the body like usual electric guitars, in 2008 the Moodswinger II was released as a serial product. Jessie Stein of The Luyas owns a copy, in 2009 Landman created a derivative version of the instrument called the Home Swinger, for workshops at festivals, where participants built their own copy within four hours. In 2010 the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix included a Moodswinger as well as a Home Swinger in their collection as two of the pieces of the Dutch section of musical instrument inventions, the 3rd bridge divides the strings into two segments with different pitches. Depending on where the string is played, a bell-like harmonic second tone is created, the string resonates more or less when the back side is struck, depending on the position of the 3rd bridge along the string. This can be explained by resonance and microtonality. At harmonic nodal positions, the string more than at other positions. For instance, dividing the string 1/3 + 2/3 creates a clear overtone, the color dotted scale indicates the simple-number ratios up to the 7 limit On these positions just intoned harmonic dyads occur. The Moodswinger is focused on a playing technique. A mathematical scale is added to specify 23 harmonic positions on the strings, because the instrument has 12 strings, tuned in a circle of fourths, it is always possible to play every note of the equal tempered scale. However some positions have a + or - indication, because the equal tempered scale is not a perfect well-tempered scale, the tuning of this instrument is a circle of fourths, E-A-D-G-C-F-A#-D#-G#-C#-F#-B, arranged in 3 clusters of 4 strings each to make the field of strings better readable. Because of this tuning all five neighbouring strings form a harmonic pentatonic scale and this allows a very easy fingerpicking technique without picking false notes, if the right key is chosen. On the Home Swinger the same color system occurs, the sound of a 3rd-bridged string is a combination of 3 tones. A soft-sounding attack tone of the string part hit at the body side, the diagram below shows the tone combinations of the overtone and the low tone of the counterpart. The attack tone is in most positions exact the same note as the overtone, exceptions are 3/4, 3/5, 3/7 and 5/7
41.
Natural trumpet
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A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series. The natural trumpet was used as an instrument to facilitate communication. Even before the late Baroque period the natural trumpet had been accepted into Western Art Music, there is evidence, for example, of extensive use of trumpet ensembles in Venetian ceremonial music of the 16th century. Although neither Andrea nor Giovanni Gabrieli wrote music specifically for the trumpet, the most talented players were even able to produce certain chromatic notes outside the harmonic series by this process, although these notes were mostly used as brief passing tones. Other impure harmonics were avoided by most composers, but were deliberately used, for example. Baroque composers—such as Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach—made frequent use of trumpets in sacred, orchestral, indeed, highly skilled trumpeters were a prized commodity in the era, held in high esteem and avidly sought after by musical patrons. The vast majority of baroque trumpet parts were written for an instrument pitched in C or D. In the 18th century various attempts were made to overcome the limitations in the notes available to natural trumpets. As early as the time of Bach, crooks were introduced between the mouthpiece and the body which lowered the pitch of the instrument and allowed it to be used in a variety of keys. In the latter part of the 18th century side holes covered with keys, later Anton Weidinger, court trumpeter in Vienna, invented a 5-key trumpet. Natural trumpets continued to be used through the Classical era and even into the early Romantic period, but changing musical styles along with a growing dearth of sufficiently capable players spelled an end to the high, florid, complicated parts typical of baroque music. A few transitional composers, such as Michael Haydn, Leopold Mozart, however, for many decades following, most orchestral trumpet writing consisted of basic harmonic support and fanfare-like passages, with very little in the way of melody. Even as late as 1843, for example, Wagner was writing for valveless trumpets in his opera The Flying Dutchman, the use of finger holes on reconstructions of natural trumpets is traceable to Otto Steinkopf, who early in the 20th century discovered holes on a few museum originals. However, it appears that these holes were placed at antinodes. The natural trumpet is differentiated from another valveless brass instrument, the bugle and this places the higher harmonics in a playable range, enabling the performance of diatonic melodies. The bugle, by contrast, is useful for performing simple fanfares and military calls in a lower range. Some of the finest surviving examples of trumpets date back as far as the 1580s, other notable trumpet makers include, the Hainlein family of Nuremberg, the Haas family of Nuremberg, the Ehe family of Nuremberg, and William Bull of London. All of these instrument makers built what are now called natural trumpets, during the period, however, these instruments were simply called trumpets
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Alphorn
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Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the Alps to the Carpathians. Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner used the words lituum alpinum for the first known detailed description of the alphorn in his De raris et admirandis herbis in 1555, surviving artifacts, dating back to as far as ca. AD1400, include wooden labrophones in their form, like the alphorn, or coiled versions, such as the Büchel. The alphorn is carved from solid softwood, generally spruce but sometimes pine, in former times the alphorn maker would find a tree bent at the base in the shape of an alphorn, but modern makers piece the wood together at the base. A cup-shaped mouthpiece carved out of a block of wood is added. An alphorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwyz, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Swiss alphorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael Praetorius mentions an instrument under the name of Hölzern Trummet in Syntagma Musicum. The alphorn has no lateral openings and therefore gives the natural harmonic series of the open pipe. The notes of the harmonic series overlap, but do not exactly correspond. Most prominently within the range, the 7th and 11th harmonics are particularly noticeable. Accomplished alphornists often command a range of three octaves, consisting of the 2nd through the 16th notes of the harmonic series. The availability of the tones is due in part to the relatively small diameter of the bore of the mouthpiece. The well-known Ranz des Vaches is a traditional Swiss melody often heard on the alphorn, the song describes the time of bringing the cows to the high country at cheese making time
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