Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
YouTube
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion. YouTube allows users to upload, rate, add to playlists, comment on videos, subscribe to other users, it offers a wide variety of corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, other content such as video blogging, short original videos, educational videos. Most of the content on YouTube is uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Hulu offer some of their material via YouTube as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can only watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed inappropriate are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old.
YouTube and its creators earn advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, subscription services offering premium and ad-free music streaming, ad-free access to all content, including exclusive content commissioned from notable personalities; as of February 2017, there were more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, one billion hours of content being watched on YouTube every day. As of August 2018, the website is ranked as the second-most popular site in the world, according to Alexa Internet. YouTube has faced criticism over aspects of its operations, including its handling of copyrighted content contained within uploaded videos, its recommendation algorithms perpetuating videos that promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods, hosting videos ostensibly targeting children but containing violent and/or sexually suggestive content involving popular characters, videos of minors attracting pedophilic activities in their comment sections, fluctuating policies on the types of content, eligible to be monetized with advertising.
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. According to a story, repeated in the media and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos, shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, but Chen commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story, digestible". Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.
Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. Difficulty in finding enough dating videos led to a change of plans, with the site's founders deciding to accept uploads of any type of video. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital and an $8 million investment from Artis Capital Management between November 2005 and April 2006. YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California; the domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, the website was developed over the subsequent months. The first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo; the video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, can still be viewed on the site. YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005; the first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005.
Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site launched on December 15, 2005, by which time the site was receiving 8 million views a day. The site grew and, in July 2006, the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos in May 2010. In May 2011, 48 hours of new videos were uploaded to the site every minute, which increased to 60 hours every minute in January 2012, 100 hours every minute in May 2013, 300 hours every minute in November 2014, 400 hours every minute in February 2017; as of January 2012, the site had 800 million unique users a month. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. According to third-party web analytics providers and SimilarWeb, YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, as of December 2016.
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United Kingdom. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock, acid rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, overall loudness; the genre's lyrics and performance styles are sometimes associated with machismo. In 1968, three of the genre's most famous pioneers, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were founded. Though they came to attract wide audiences, they were derided by critics. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers". During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with groups such as Mötley Crüe.
Underground scenes produced an array of more aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, while other extreme subgenres of heavy metal such as death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre; these include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop. Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, vigorous vocals. Heavy metal subgenres variously alter, or omit one or more of these attributes; the New York Times critic Jon Pareles writes, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force." The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist.
Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purple's Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ. In 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on Led Zeppelin III; the electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a combined use of heavy distortion. For classic heavy metal guitar tone, guitarists maintain moderate levels gain at moderate levels, without excessive preamp or pedal distortion, to retain open spaces and air in the music. Thrash metal guitar tone has scooped mid-frequencies and compressed sound with lots of bass frequencies. Guitar solos are "an essential element of the heavy metal code... that underscores the significance of the guitar" to the genre. Most heavy metal songs "feature at least one guitar solo", "a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity"; some exceptions are nu grindcore bands, which tend to omit guitar solos.
With rhythm guitar parts, the "heavy crunch sound in heavy metal... palm muting" the strings with the picking hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more precise sound and it emphasizes the low end; the lead role of the guitar in heavy metal collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry". Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity. Critic Simon Frith claims; the prominent role of the bass is key to the metal sound, the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy"; the bass plays a "more important role in heavy metal than in any other genre of rock". Metal basslines vary in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead or rhythm guitars.
Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton with his heavy emphasis on bass guitar solos and use of chords while playing bass in the early 1980s. Lemmy of Motörhead played overdriven power chords in his bass lines; the essence of heavy metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed and precision". Heavy metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", drummers have to develop "considerable speed and dexterity... to play the intricate patterns" used in heavy metal. A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand, producing a burst of sound; the metal drum setup is much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music. Black metal, death metal and some "mainstream metal" bands "all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats". In live performance, loudness—an "onslaught of sound", in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description—is considered vital.
In his book Metalheads, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy me
Rhino Entertainment
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is the catalog division for Warner Music Group, its current CEO is Mark Pinkus. Founded in 1978, Rhino was a novelty and reissue label during the 1970s and 1980s, it released compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, rhythm & blues successes from the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as novelty-song LPs and retrospectives of famous comedy performers, including Richard Pryor, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones. Rhino started as a record shop on Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, in 1973, run by Richard Foos, became a record distributor five years thanks to the effort of then-store manager Harold Bronson, their early releases were novelty records. The difficulties involved in getting airplay and distribution for such material caused Foos and Bronson to take the label in other directions. One of Rhino's early artists was The Twisters, whose Los Angeles popularity far exceeded their album sales.
Rhino's mail-order catalogs and early LP labels featured the company's mascot character, a cartoon Elvis Presley rhinoceros wearing a black leather jacket named "Rocky", designed by bootleg cover artist William Stout, cartoonist Scott Shaw!. Some of the label's earliest successes with reissues were achieved by acquiring the rights to the White Whale Records catalog that included the Turtles. By the mid-1980s, most of Rhino's releases were reissues of released recordings licensed from other companies. For superior sound quality, audio mastering of the original tapes was done under the direction of Bill Inglot, the label's creative packaging made Rhino one of the most respected reissue record labels, receiving rave reviews from music collectors and historians. Rhino was quick to get into the compact disc market, releasing dozens of oldies CDs at the dawn of the CD age in 1984, their retrospective compact disc releases, such as those in the Billboard Top Hits series, are remastered to restore or improve upon the releases' original analog audio quality.
In the late 1980s, Rhino transitioned into a complete entertainment company specializing in home video reissues of television programs such as The Monkees, The Lone Ranger, The Transformers, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Ed Sullivan's Rock'n' Roll Classics collection, as well as compact disc releases of select artists and movie soundtracks. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the company continued to sign artists and release new music, on the main Rhino label and on subsidiary labels such as RNA and Forward. However, the company's artists tended to generate more critical acclaim than public interest. One exception was the success of "At This Moment" by Billy Vera & the Beaters, a 1981 song that went to the top of the U. S. Billboard charts in late 1986 after being featured in an episode of the hit NBC TV series Family Ties. In 1985, Rhino signed a six-year distribution agreement with Capitol Records. During 1989 Rhino and Capitol’s parent EMI made a deal to jointly acquire Roulette Records; when the distribution deal with Capitol ended in 1992, Rhino signed a new distribution deal with Atlantic Records, in turn Time Warner bought a 50 per cent stake in the record company.
In 1998, Time Warner bought the other half of Rhino. The Rhino Records retail store, part of the 50% sale in 1992 but which reverted to Foos after Time Warner bought out the remainder, closed in 2005, it is through this merger that the label has reissued material from such artists as the Monkees, Eric Burdon, Dannii Minogue, the Ramones, the Grateful Dead, Lake & Palmer, the Beach Boys, the Doobie Brothers, the Cars, Tom Paxton, Third Eye Blind, the Doors, Spirit of the West and most the Bee Gees. Rhino's soundtrack releases include Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade, North by Northwest, King Kong, Doctor Zhivago and Finian's Rainbow; the Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. film soundtrack libraries are managed by Warner Bros.' in-house label subsidiary, WaterTower Music. In 1999, Rhino started the'Rhino Handmade' division of limited-edition releases available from their website. All Handmade deluxe editions were limited to about 3,000 copies or less, once sold out were not re-pressed.
In 2003, co-founders and longtime executives Richard Foos and Harold Bronson left Rhino due to frustration with the challenges of an competitive market. In fact, Time Warner's final vesting of its 100 percent ownership of the label, its subsequent'reorganization' of label staff, which did not stop at the former owners, were the major factors in their exits. Soon after, Foos inaugurated a new label, Shout! Factory, which began releasing dozens of CDs and videos mirroring the original early-1990s Rhino philosophy. In 2004, Time Warner spun off its music divisions and today Rhino is part of the newly organized Warner Music Gr
Graphic design
Graphic design is the process of visual communication and problem-solving through the use of typography and illustration. The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes the term "graphic design" is used synonymously. Graphic designers create and combine symbols and text to form visual representations of ideas and messages, they use typography. Common uses of graphic design include corporate design, editorial design, wayfinding or environmental design, web design, communication design, product packaging and signage; the term graphic design was coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922. However, the origins of graphic design can be traced from the origins of human existence, from the caves of Lascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the neon lights of Ginza, Tokyo. In "Babylon, artisans pressed cuneiform inscriptions into clay bricks or tablets which were used for construction; the bricks gave information such as the name of the reigning monarch, the builder, or some other dignitary".
This was the first known road sign announcing the name of the governor of a state or mayor of the city. The Egyptians developed communication by hieroglyphics that used picture symbols dating as far back as 136 B. C. found on the Rosetta Stone. "The Rosetta stone, found by one of Napoleon's engineers was an advertisement for the Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy as the "true Son of the Sun, the Father of the Moon, the Keeper of the Happiness of Men"" The Egyptians invented papyrus, paper made from reeds found along the Nile, on which they transcribed advertisements more common among their people at the time. During the "Dark Ages", from 500 AD to 1450 AD, monks created illustrated manuscripts. In both its lengthy history and in the recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, the distinction between advertising, graphic design and fine art has disappeared, they share many elements, principles, practices and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising, the ultimate objective is the sale of services.
In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas and feeling to artifacts that document human experience."Graphic design in the United States began with Benjamin Franklin who used his newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette, to master the art of publicity to promote his own books and to influence the masses. "Benjamin Franklin's ingenuity gained in strength as did his cunning and in 1737 he had replaced his counterpart in Pennsylvania, Andrew Bradford as postmaster and printer after a competition he instituted and won. He showed his prowess by running an ad in his General Magazine and the Historical Chronicle of British Plantations in America that stressed the benefits offered by a stove he invented, named the Pennsylvania Fireplace, his invention is known as the Franklin stove. "American advertising imitated British newspapers and magazines. Advertisements were printed in scrambled type and uneven lines. Franklin better organized this by adding 14-point type for the first line of the advertisement.
Franklin added something that London printers had not attempted. Franklin was the first to utilize logos, which were early symbols that announced such services as opticians by displaying golden spectacles. Franklin taught advertisers; some advertisements ran for 10-20 lines, including color, names and sizes of the goods that were offered. During the Tang Dynasty wood blocks were cut to print on textiles and to reproduce Buddhist texts. A Buddhist scripture printed in 868 is the earliest known printed book. Beginning in the 11th century, longer scrolls and books were produced using movable type printing, making books available during the Song dynasty. During the 17th-18th century movable type was used for handbills or trade cards which were printed from wood or copper engravings; these documents announced its location. English painter William Hogarth used his skill in engraving was one of the first to design for business trade. In Mainz Germany, in 1448, Johann Gutenberg introduced movable type using a new metal alloy for use in a printing press and opened a new era of commerce.
This made graphics more available since mass printing dropped the price of printing material significantly. Most advertising was word of mouth. In France and England, for example, criers announced products for sale just as ancient Romans had done; the printing press made books more available. Aldus Manutius developed the book structure that became the foundation of western publication design; this era of graphic design is called Old Style. Additionally, William Caxton, England's first printer produced religious books, but had trouble selling them, he discovered the use of leftover pages and used them to announce the books and post them on church doors. This practice was termed "squis" or "pin up" posters, in 1612, becoming the first form of print advertising in Europe; the term Siquis came from the Roman era when public notices were posted stating "if anybody...", which in Latin is "si quis". These printed announcements were followed by public registers of wants called want ads and in some areas such as the first periodical in Paris advertising was termed "advices".
The "Advices" were what we know
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that has six strings. It is played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or the finger/fingernails of one hand, while fretting with the fingers of the other hand; the sound of the vibrating strings is projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar, or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker. The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning; the modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, the archtop guitar, sometimes called a "jazz guitar"; the tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber.
The classical guitar is played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive finger-picking technique where each string is plucked individually by the player's fingers, as opposed to being strummed. The term "finger-picking" can refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the United States; the acoustic bass guitar is a low-pitched instrument, one octave below a regular guitar. Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier and a loudspeaker that both makes the sound of the instrument loud enough for the performers and audience to hear, given that it produces an electric signal when played, that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone using an equalizer and a huge variety of electronic effects units, the most used ones being distortion and reverb. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but solid wood guitars began to dominate during the 1960s and 1970s, as they are less prone to unwanted acoustic feedback "howls"; as with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of electric guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars, which are used in rock music.
The loud, amplified sound and sonic power of the electric guitar played through a guitar amp has played a key role in the development of blues and rock music, both as an accompaniment instrument and performing guitar solos, in many rock subgenres, notably heavy metal music and punk rock. The electric guitar has had a major influence on popular culture; the guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, country, folk, jota, metal, reggae, rock and many forms of pop. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, a flat back, most with incurved sides." The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and in the Americas. A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from Babylonia show people playing an instrument that has a strong resemblance to the guitar, indicating a possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.
The modern word guitar, its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German Gitarre, the French guitare were all adopted from the Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic قيثارة and the Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek κιθάρα. Which comes from the Persian word "sihtar"; this pattern of naming is visible in setar and sitar. The word "tar" at the end of all of these words is a Persian word that means "string". Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the development of the earliest "guitars" is lost in the history of medieval Spain, two instruments are cited as their most influential predecessors, the European lute and its cousin, the four-string oud. At least two instruments called "guitars" were in use in Spain by 1200: the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca; the guitarra morisca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, several sound holes.
The guitarra Latina had a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, these two cordophones were referred to as guitars; the Spanish vihuela, called in Italian the "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, is considered to have been the single most important influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a cut waist, it was larger than the contemporary four-course guitars. By the 16th century, the vihuela's construction had more in common with the modern guitar, with its curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, more like a larger version of the contemporary four-course guita
Audio engineer
An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance and adjusting sound sources using equalization and audio effects, mixing and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "...technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts." It's a creative hobby and profession where musical instruments and technology are used to produce sound for film, television and video games. Audio engineers set up, sound check and do live sound mixing using a mixing console and a sound reinforcement system for music concerts, sports games and corporate events. Alternatively, audio engineer can refer to a scientist or professional engineer who holds an engineering degree and who designs and builds audio or musical technology working under terms such as acoustical engineering, electronic/electrical engineering or signal processing. Research and development audio engineers invent new technologies and techniques, to enhance the process and art of audio engineering.
They might design acoustical simulations of rooms, shape algorithms for audio signal processing, specify the requirements for public address systems, carry out research on audible sound for video game console manufacturers, other advanced fields of audio engineering. They might be referred to as acoustic engineers. Audio engineers working in research and development may come from backgrounds such as acoustics, computer science, broadcast engineering, acoustical engineering, electrical engineering and electronics. Audio engineering courses at university or college fall into two rough categories: training in the creative use of audio as a sound engineer, training in science or engineering topics, which allows students to apply these concepts while pursuing a career developing audio technologies. Audio training courses give you a good knowledge of technologies and their application to recording studio and sound reinforcement systems, but do not have sufficient mathematical and scientific content to allow you to get a job in research and development in the audio and acoustic industry.
Audio engineers in research and development possess a bachelor's degree, master's degree or higher qualification in acoustics, computer science or another engineering discipline. They might work in acoustic consultancy. Alternatively they might work in audio companies, or other industries that need audio expertise, or carry out research in a university; some positions, such as faculty require a Doctor of Philosophy. In Germany a Toningenieur is an audio engineer who designs and repairs audio systems; the listed subdisciplines are based on PACS coding used by the Acoustical Society of America with some revision. Audio engineers develop audio signal processing algorithms to allow the electronic manipulation of audio signals; these can be processed at the heart of much audio production such as reverberation, Auto-Tune or perceptual coding. Alternatively, the algorithms might carry out echo cancellation on Skype, or identify and categorize audio tracks through Music Information Retrieval. Architectural acoustics is the engineering of achieving a good sound within a room.
For audio engineers, architectural acoustics can be about achieving good speech intelligibility in a stadium or enhancing the quality of music in a theatre. Architectural Acoustic design is done by acoustic consultants. Electroacoustics is concerned with the design of headphones, loudspeakers, sound reproduction systems and recording technologies. Examples of electroacoustic design include portable electronic devices, sound systems in architectural acoustics, surround sound and wave field synthesis in movie theater and vehicle audio. Musical acoustics is concerned with describing the science of music. In audio engineering, this includes the design of electronic instruments such as synthesizers. Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of. At the heart of audio engineering are listeners who are the final arbitrator as to whether an audio design is successful, such as whether a binaural recording sounds immersive; the production, computer processing and perception of speech is an important part of audio engineering.
Ensuring speech is transmitted intelligibly and with high quality. A variety of terms are used to describe audio engineers who install or operate sound recording, sound reinforcement, or sound broadcasting equipment, including large and small format consoles. Terms such as "audio technician," "sound technician," "audio engineer," "audio technologist," "recording engineer," "sound mixer" and "sound engineer" can be ambiguous; such terms can refer to a person working in music production.
