1.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, 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. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, 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 back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
2.
Timbre
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The physical characteristics of sound that determine the perception of timbre include spectrum and envelope. Singers and instrumental musicians can change the timbre of the music they are singing/playing by using different singing or playing techniques, for example, a violinist can use different bowing styles or play on different parts of the string to obtain different timbres. On electric guitar and electric piano, performers can change the timbre using effects units, in simple terms, timbre is what makes a particular musical sound have a different sound from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. For instance, it is the difference in sound between a guitar and a playing the same note at the same volume. Experienced musicians are able to distinguish between different instruments of the type based on their varied timbres, even if those instruments are playing notes at the same pitch. Tone quality and tone color are synonyms for timbre, as well as the attributed to a single instrument. However, the texture can also refer to the type of music, such as multiple. The sound of an instrument may be described with words such as bright, dark, warm, harsh. There are also colors of noise, such as pink and white, in visual representations of sound, timbre corresponds to the shape of the image. The Acoustical Society of America Acoustical Terminology definition 12, Timbre has been called. the psychoacousticians multidimensional waste-basket category for everything that cannot be labeled pitch or loudness. Many commentators have attempted to decompose timbre into component attributes, the richness of a sound or note a musical instrument produces is sometimes described in terms of a sum of a number of distinct frequencies. The lowest frequency is called the frequency, and the pitch it produces is used to name the note. The dominant frequency is the frequency that is most heard, for example, the dominant frequency for the transverse flute is double the fundamental frequency. Other significant frequencies are called overtones of the frequency, which may include harmonics. Harmonics are whole number multiples of the frequency, such as ×2, ×3, ×4. There are also sometimes subharmonics at whole number divisions of the fundamental frequency, most instruments produce harmonic sounds, but many instruments produce partials and inharmonic tones, such as cymbals and other indefinite-pitched instruments. When the tuning note in an orchestra or concert band is played, each instrument in the orchestra or concert band produces a different combination of these frequencies, as well as harmonics and overtones. The sound waves of the different frequencies overlap and combine, the timbre of a sound is also greatly affected by the following aspects of its envelope, attack time and characteristics, decay, sustain, release and transients
3.
John Cage
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John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. The content of the composition is not four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, as is often assumed, the works challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the piano, for which he wrote numerous dance-related works. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes and his teachers included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cages major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, the I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cages standard composition tool for the rest of his life. Cage was born September 5,1912, at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles and his father, John Milton Cage, Sr. was an inventor, and his mother, Lucretia Harvey, worked intermittently as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times. The familys roots were deeply American, in a 1976 interview, John Milton Sr. taught his son that if someone says cant that shows you what to do. In 1944–45 Cage wrote two small character pieces dedicated to his parents, Crete and Dad, the latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while Crete is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work. During high school, one of his teachers was Fannie Charles Dillon. By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer and he graduated that year from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian, having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the Hollywood Bowl proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being hushed and silent, he said, we should have the opportunity to hear other people think. Cage enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont as a major in 1928. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks, I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly, Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre, where he took a train to Paris, Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it and he then took up painting, poetry and music
4.
Prepared piano
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A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects on or between the strings. They must fit in the location inside the piano. They should not move from their location during playing, additionally, most preparations will change the timbre of the string in such a way that the original pitch of the string will no longer be perceptible, though there are occasional exceptions to this. He developed these techniques in such as Aeolian Harp and The Banshee. Although Cowells techniques dont call for placing objects inside the piano, the invention of the prepared piano, per se, is usually traced to John Cage. Cage first prepared a piano when he was commissioned to write music for Bacchanale, for some time previously, Cage had been writing exclusively for a percussion ensemble, but the hall where Fort’s dance was to be staged had no room for a percussion group. The only instrument available was a grand piano. After some consideration, Cage said that he realized it was possible “to place in the hands of a single pianist the equivalent of an entire percussion orchestra. With just one musician, you can really do a number of things on the inside of the piano if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard”. Ferrante & Teicher, were American piano duo who produced over an albums of light classical. Between 1950 and 1980 they included partially prepared pianos on a number of their tunes to add percussive effects, all Tomorrows Parties from The Velvet Underground & Nico, John Cale prepared his piano with a chain of paper clips. Since 1982, Roger Miller has fashioned his own take on prepared piano in his work, initially featured on Mission of Burmas 45 Trem II, Miller has since released many albums incorporating this technique. His concert hall compositions, from 2009 to present, often utilize prepared piano, on his 1973 album Another Green World, composer Brian Eno employed prepared piano on the track entitled Little Fishes. German band Tangerine Dream includes prepared piano on their 1975 album Rubycon, aphex Twin widely used prepared piano in his 2001 album Drukqs and 2015 Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 EP. Strictly speaking, a piano is not a prepared piano. The strings original pitches remain perceptible, although the tacks can be removed from the hammers, inserting them causes permanent damage to the felt, and for this and other reasons the use of tacks is generally discouraged by piano technicians. The Acoustisizer is a musical instrument built from a small grand piano with built in speakers, magnetic guitar pickups, PZMs. It was built as part of a thesis project at California State University Dominguez Hills by Bob Fenger
5.
Spring (device)
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A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually out of spring steel. There are a number of spring designs, in everyday usage the term often refers to coil springs. When a spring is compressed or stretched from its resting position, the rate or spring constant of a spring is the change in the force it exerts, divided by the change in deflection of the spring. That is, it is the gradient of the force versus deflection curve, an extension or compression springs rate is expressed in units of force divided by distance, for example lbf/in or N/m. A torsion spring is a spring that works by twisting, when it is twisted about its axis by an angle, a torsion springs rate is in units of torque divided by angle, such as N·m/rad or ft·lbf/degree. The inverse of spring rate is compliance, that is, if a spring has a rate of 10 N/mm, the stiffness of springs in parallel is additive, as is the compliance of springs in series. Springs are made from a variety of materials, the most common being spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel, some non-ferrous metals are also used including phosphor bronze and titanium for parts requiring corrosion resistance and beryllium copper for springs carrying electrical current. Simple non-coiled springs were used throughout history, e. g. the bow. In the Bronze Age more sophisticated spring devices were used, as shown by the spread of tweezers in many cultures, coiled springs appeared early in the 15th century, in door locks. The first spring powered-clocks appeared in that century and evolved into the first large watches by the 16th century, in 1676 British physicist Robert Hooke discovered Hookes law which states that the force a spring exerts is proportional to its extension. Compression spring – is designed to operate with a compression load, flat spring – this type is made of a flat spring steel. Machined spring – this type of spring is manufactured by machining bar stock with a lathe and/or milling operation rather than a coiling operation, since it is machined, the spring may incorporate features in addition to the elastic element. Machined springs can be made in the load cases of compression/extension, torsion. Serpentine spring - a zig-zag of thick wire - often used in modern upholstery/furniture, the most common types of spring are, Cantilever spring – a spring which is fixed only at one end. Coil spring or helical spring – a spring is of two types, Tension or extension springs are designed to become longer under load and their turns are normally touching in the unloaded position, and they have a hook, eye or some other means of attachment at each end. Compression springs are designed to become shorter when loaded and their turns are not touching in the unloaded position, and they need no attachment points
6.
String resonance
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String resonance occurs on string instruments. Strings or parts of strings may resonate at their fundamental or overtone frequencies when other strings are sounded, for example, an A string at 440 Hz will cause an E string at 330 Hz to resonate, because they share an overtone of 1320 Hz. Electric guitars can have string trees near the tuning pegs to mute this type of reverberation, the string length behind the bridge also must be as short as possible to prevent the resonance. String resonance is a factor in the timbre of a string instrument, tailed bridge guitars like the Fender Jaguar differ in timbre from guitars with short bridges, because of their floating bridge. The Japanese Koto is also an example of an instrument with occurring string resonance, sometimes string resonance is used in the construction of the instrument, like for instance the Sympathetic strings in many Eastern instruments. In the octave duplex piano by Hoerr of Toronto, each note had four strings, the following table shows the created resonating overtones on the koto for various positions on a stopped string
7.
Seesaw
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A seesaw is a long, narrow board supported by a single pivot point, most commonly located at the midpoint between both ends, as one end goes up, the other goes down. Mechanically, a seesaw is a lever and fulcrum, the most common playground design of seesaw features a board balanced in the center. A person sits on each end, and they take turns pushing their feet against the ground to lift their side into the air, playground seesaws usually have handles for the riders to grip as they sit facing each other. One problem with the design is that if a child allows himself/herself to hit the ground suddenly after jumping, or exits the seesaw at the bottom. For this reason, seesaws are often mounted above a surface such as foam or wood chips. Seesaws also are manufactured in shapes designed to look like other things, such as airplanes, helicopters, seesaws, and the eagerness of children to play with them, are sometimes used to aid in mechanical processes. For example, at the Gaviotas community in Colombia, a seesaw is connected to a water pump. Seesaws go by different names around the world. Seesaw, or its variant see-saw, is a direct Anglicisation of the French ci-ça, meaning literally, this-that, the term may also be attributable to the repetitive motion of a saw. It may have its origins in a combination of scie – the French word for saw with the Anglo-Saxon term saw, in most of the United States, a seesaw is also called a teeter-totter. According to linguist Peter Trudgill, the term originates from the Nordic language word tittermatorter, a teeter-totter may also refer to a two-person swing on a swing seat, on which two children sit facing each other and the teeter-totter swings back and forth in a pendulum motion. Both teeter-totter and seesaw demonstrate the process called reduplication, where a word or syllable is doubled. Reduplication is typical of words that indicate repeated activity, such as riding up, in the southeastern New England region of the United States, it is sometimes referred to as a tilt or a tilting board. Speakers in northeastern Massachusetts, United States, sometimes call them teedle boards, in the Narragansett Bay area the term changes to dandle or dandle board. This pattern suggests a New England term that spread down the coast, hickey-horse in the coastal regions of North Carolina is consistent with other linguistic and ethnic variations
8.
Weighing scale
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Weighing scales are devices to measure weight or calculate mass. Scales and balances are used in commerce, as many products are sold. Very accurate balances, called analytical balances, are used in fields such as chemistry. Although records dating to the 1700s refer to spring scales for measuring weight, the earliest design for such a device dates to 1770 and credits Richard Salter, an early scale-maker. Postal workers could work quickly with spring scales than balance scales because they could be read instantaneously. By the 1940s various electronic devices were being attached to these designs to make more accurate. A spring scale measures weight by reporting the distance that a spring deflects under a load and this contrasts to a balance, which compares the torque on the arm due to a sample weight to the torque on the arm due to a standard reference weight using a horizontal lever. Spring scales measure force, which is the force of constraint acting on an object. They are usually calibrated so that measured force translates to mass at earths gravity, the object to be weighed can be simply hung from the spring or set on a pivot and bearing platform. In a spring scale, the spring either stretches or compresses, by Hookes law, every spring has a proportionality constant that relates how hard it is pulled to how far it stretches. Rack and pinion mechanisms are used to convert the linear spring motion to a dial reading. With proper manufacturing and setup, however, spring scales can be rated as legal for commerce, to remove the temperature error, a commerce-legal spring scale must either have temperature-compensated springs or be used at a fairly constant temperature. To eliminate the effect of gravity variations, a spring scale must be calibrated where it is used. It is also common in high-capacity applications such as crane scales to use force to sense weight. The test force is applied to a piston or diaphragm and transmitted through hydraulic lines to an indicator based on a Bourdon tube or electronic sensor. A digital bathroom scale is a type of electronic weighing machine, the digital bathroom scale is a smart scale which has many functions like smartphone integration, cloud storage, fitness tracking, etc. In electronic versions of spring scales, the deflection of a beam supporting the weight is measured using a strain gauge. The capacity of such devices is only limited by the resistance of the beam to deflection and these scales are used in the modern bakery, grocery, delicatessen, seafood, meat, produce and other perishable goods departments
9.
Quarter tone
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A quarter tone play, is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone. Many composers are known for having written music including quarter tones or the quarter-tone scale —proposed by 19th-century music theorists Heinrich Richter in 1823, george Tucker, Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky, and Iannis Xenakis. The term quarter tone can refer to a number of different intervals, for example, some 17th- and 18th-century theorists used the term to describe the distance between a sharp and enharmonically distinct flat in mean-tone temperaments. In the quarter tone scale, also called 24 tone equal temperament, the tone is 50 cents, or a frequency ratio of 24√2 or approximately 1.0293. In this scale the quarter tone is the smallest step, a semitone is thus made of two steps, and three steps make a three-quarter tone play or neutral second, half of a minor third. The 8-TET scale is composed of three-quarter tones, in just intonation the quarter tone can be represented by the septimal quarter tone,36,35, or by the undecimal quarter tone,33,32, approximately half the semitone of 16,15 or 25,24. The ratio of 36,35 is only 1.23 cents narrower than a 24-TET quarter tone and this just ratio is also the difference between a minor third and septimal minor third. Quarter tones and intervals close to also occur in a number of other equally tempered tuning systems. 22-TET contains an interval of 54.55 cents, slightly wider than a quarter-tone, whereas 53-TET has an interval of 45.28 cents, 72-TET also has equally tempered quarter-tones, and indeed contains 3 quarter tone scales, since 72 is divisible by 24. Johnston uses an upward and downward arrow to indicate a note is raised or lowered by a ratio of 33,32, because many musical instruments manufactured today are designed for the 12-tone scale, not all are usable for playing quarter tones. Sometimes special playing techniques must be used, other instruments can be used to play quarter tones when using audio signal processing effects such as pitch shifting. Pairs of conventional instruments tuned a tone apart can be used to play some quarter tone music. Indeed, quarter-tone pianos have been built, which consist essentially of two stacked one above the other in a single case, one tuned a quarter tone higher than the other. Many Persian dastgah and Arabic maqamat contain intervals of three-quarter tone size, the quarter tone scale may be primarily a theoretical construct in Arabic music. Previously, pitches of a mode were chosen from a scale consisting of seventeen tones, the Japanese multi-instrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue developed a 24-TET quarter tone tuning on his guitar. Several quarter-tone albums have been recorded by Jute Gyte, a one-man avantgarde black metal band from Missouri, the enharmonic genus of the Greek tetrachord consisted of a ditone or an approximate major third, and a semitone, which was divided into two microtones. Intervals matched particularly closely include the second, neutral third. The septimal minor third and septimal major third are approximated rather poorly, overall, 24-TET can be viewed as matching the 11th and 13th harmonics more closely than the 7th
10.
Keith Rowe
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Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a member of both the influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M. I. M. E. O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowes paintings have featured on most of his own albums. After years of obscurity, Rowe has achieved a level of relative notoriety and he is seen as a godfather of EAI, with many of his recent recordings having been released by Erstwhile Records. Rowe began his playing jazz in the early 1960s—notably with Mike Westbrook. His early influences were guitarists like Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, eventually, however, Rowe grew tired of what he considered the forms limitations. Rowe began experimenting, slowly and gradually, an important step was a New Years resolution to stop tuning his guitar—much to Westbrooks displeasure. Rowe gradually expanded into jazz and free improvisation, eventually abandoning conventional guitar technique. This change in his approach to guitar, Rowe reports, was inspired by a teacher in one of his painting courses who told him, Rowe. Rowe reports that after considering this idea from a musical perspective, how could I abandon the technique. He has been known to objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips. A January 1997 feature in Guitar Player magazine described a Rowe performance as resemble a surgeon operating on a patient, Rowe sometimes incorporates live radio broadcasts into his performances, including shortwave radio and number stations. On AMMMusic, towards the end of the cacophonous Ailantus Glandolusa, prevost writes that during an AMM performance in Istanbul, Rowe located and integrated a radio broadcast of the pious intonation of a male Turkish voice. AMM of course, had no idea what the material was. Later, it was complimented upon the way that verses from The Koran had been introduced into the performance. This he does masterfully, mixing in random operatics and chance encounters with talkshow hosts to anchor the sound in humanity, amidst the abstraction. Discography, links, mp3 samples, A2001 Interview In Conversation with Richard Pinnell on the Audition Radio Show, Dublin,01.04.06 A2007 Interview
11.
Fred Frith
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Jeremy Webster Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor. Probably best known for his work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. He was also a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre and he has also composed several long works, including Traffic Continues and Freedom in Fragments. Frith produces most of his own music, and has produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan. Frith is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzels award-winning 1990 documentary Step Across the Border and he also appears in the Canadian documentary Act of God, which is about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. Frith has contributed to a number of publications, including New Musical Express and Trouser Press. Friths career spans four decades and he appears on over 400 albums. He still performs actively throughout the world, currently Frith is Professor of Composition in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California. He lives in the United States with his wife, German photographer Heike Liss, Frith was awarded the 2008 Demetrio Stratos Prize for his career achievements in experimental music. The prize was established in 2005 in honour of experimental vocalist Demetrio Stratos, of the Italian group Area, in 2010 Frith received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England in recognition of his contribution to music. Frith is the brother of Simon Frith, a critic and sociologist, and Chris Frith. Frith was born in Heathfield in Sussex, England into a family where music was considered a part of life. He started violin lessons at the age of five and became a member of his school orchestra, but at 13 he switched to guitar after watching a group imitating a popular instrumental band at the time, the Shadows. He decided to learn how to play guitar and get into a band, Frith taught himself guitar from a book of guitar chords and soon found himself in a school group called The Chaperones, playing Shadows and Beatles covers. Friths first public performances were in 1967 in folk clubs in the North of England, besides the blues, Frith started listening to any music that had guitar in it, including folk, classical, ragtime, and flamenco. He also listened to Indian, Japanese, and Balinese music and was drawn to East European music after a Yugoslav school friend taught him folk tunes from his home. Frith went to Cambridge University in 1967, where his musical horizons were expanded further by the philosophies of John Cage and Frank Zappas manipulation of rock music. Frith graduated from Christs College, Cambridge with a BA in 1970, Frith met Tim Hodgkinson, a fellow student, in a blues club at Cambridge University in 1968
12.
Guitar Solos
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Guitar Solos is the debut solo album of English guitarist, composer, and improviser Fred Frith. It was recorded while Frith was still a member of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and was released in the United Kingdom on LP record by Caroline Records in October 1974. The album comprises eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised music played on prepared guitars by Frith without any overdubbing, Guitar Solos was voted one of the best albums of 1974 by NME critics. AllMusic called it an album because of its innovative and experimental approach to guitar playing. It also attracted the attention of Brian Eno, resulting in Friths playing guitar on two of Enos albums, and spawned two follow-up albums, Guitar Solos 2 and Guitar Solos 3. Guitar Solos was remastered and released on CD on Friths own record label, Fred Records, Fred Frith was a classically-trained violinist who turned to playing blues guitar while still at school. In 1967 he went to Cambridge University where he and fellow student, while at University, Frith read John Cages Silence, Lectures and Writings, which changed his attitude to music completely. He realised that sound, in and of itself, can be as important as melody and harmony and this changed his approach to the guitar, just to see what I could get out of it, and initiated a long period of experimentation that continued throughout Friths musical career. While the music of Henry Cow was highly orchestrated and structured, Frith also began to experiment with unstructured music, using prepared instruments, in June 1974, after the release of Henry Cows second album, Virgin Records commissioned a solo record from Frith. They were impressed with his ability and gave him free rein to record whatever he wanted. In October 1974, Virgin released the album as Guitar Solos on their budget label, Frith recorded the album at David Vorhauss Kaleidophon Studios in London on 11–13 and 15 July 1974, where he played a modified 1936 Gibson K-11. He added an extra pickup over the strings at the nut and he then split the fretboard in two with a capo, effectively giving him two guitars, each amplified separately that he could play independently with each hand. To split the sounds further he attached alligator clips at various positions on the strings, the net result was a guitar with multiple sound sources that could be channelled to a mixer and distributed across the stereo soundscape. The album was recorded in four days without any overdubbing, on the longest track on the album, No Birds, Frith played on two prepared guitars simultaneously, creating the timbre and range of an orchestra. He laid the two guitars flat on a table, neck to neck with the bodies of the guitars at opposite ends and the necks parallel to each other. He tuned the strings on both guitars to one note, and because they were stereo guitars with nut pickups, he had six separate sound sources coming from each guitar. Using volume pedals on some of the sources, he filtered sounds in. Guitar Solos was voted one of the best albums of 1974 by NME critics, sean Westergaard of AllMusic called Guitar Solos a landmark album because of its innovative and experimental approach to guitar playing
13.
Musical improvisation
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Sometimes musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in classical music, and many other kinds of music. One definition is a performance given extempore without planning or preparation, another definition is to play or sing extemporaneously, by inventing variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies. Improvisation is often done within a harmonic framework or chord progression. Improvisation is a part of some types of 20th-century music, such as blues, jazz. Throughout the eras of the Western art music tradition, including the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Improvisation might have played an important role in the monophonic period, the earliest treatises on polyphony, such as the Musica enchiriadis, indicate that added parts were improvised for centuries before the first notated examples. However, it was only in the century that theorists began making a hard distinction between improvised and written music. Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach all belonged to a tradition of solo keyboard improvisation, in the Baroque era, performers improvised ornaments and basso continuo keyboard players improvised chord voicings based on figured bass notation. At the same time, some contemporary composers from the 20th, in Indian classical music, improvisation is a core component and an essential criterion of performances. In Indian, Afghani, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi classical music, the Encyclopædia Britannica defines a raga as a melodic framework for improvisation and composition. Keyboard players likewise performed extempore, freely formed pieces, the pattern of chords in many baroque preludes, for example, can be played on keyboard and guitar over a pedal tone or repeated bass notes. Such progressions can be used in other structures and contexts, and are still found in Mozart. Bach, for example, was fond of the sound produced by the dominant seventh harmony played over, i. e. suspended against. This shift of roles between treble and bass is another definitive characteristic, finally, in keeping with this polarity, the kind of question and answer which appears in baroque music has the appearance of fugue or canon. This method was a favorite in compositions by Scarlatti and Handel especially at the beginning of a piece, improvised accompaniment over a figured bass was a common practice during the Baroque era, and to some extent the following periods. Improvisation remains a feature of playing in some church services and are regularly also performed at concerts. Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach were regarded in the Baroque period as highly skilled organ improvisers, maurice Duruflé, a great improviser himself, transcribed improvisations by Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire. Olivier Latry later wrote his improvisations as a compositions, for example Salve Regina, Classical music departs from baroque style in that sometimes several voices may move together as chords involving both hands, to form brief phrases without any passing tones
14.
Gibson
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Gibson Brands, Inc. is an American manufacturer of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was known as Gibson Guitar Corp. and renamed Gibson Brands. Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and builds one of the worlds most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are highly collectible, Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s, the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In 1952, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul which became its most popular guitar to date— designed by Ted McCarty, Gibson was owned by the Norlin corporation from 1969 to 1986. In 1986, the company was acquired by its present owners, Gibson is a privately held corporation owned by its chief executive officer Henry Juszkiewicz and its president David H. Berryman. Orville Gibson patented a single-piece mandolin design in 1898 that was more durable than other mandolins, Orville Gibson began to sell his instruments in 1894 out of a one-room workshop in Kalamazoo Michigan. In 1902 Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd. was incorporated to market the instruments, initially, the company produced only Orville Gibsons original designs. Orville died in 1918 of endocarditis, the following year the company hired designer Lloyd Loar to create newer instruments. Loar designed the flagship L-5 archtop guitar and the Gibson F5 mandolin that was introduced in 1922, in 1936 Gibson introduced their first Electric Spanish model, the ES-150 followed by other electric instruments like steel guitars, banjos and mandolins. During World War II, instrument manufacturing at Gibson slowed due to shortages of wood and metal, between 1942-1945, Gibson employed women to manufacture guitars. Women produced nearly 25,000 guitars during World War II yet Gibson denied ever building instruments over this period, Gibson folklore has also claimed its guitars were made by seasoned craftsmen who were too old for war. In 1944 Gibson was purchased by Chicago Musical Instruments, the ES-175 was introduced in 1949. Gibson hired Ted McCarty in 1948, who became President in 1950, the Les Paul was offered in Custom, Standard, Special, and Junior models. In the mid-50s, the Thinline series was produced, which included a line of thinner guitars like the Byrdland, the first Byrdlands were slim, custom built, L-5 models for guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland. Later, a neck was added. Other models such as the ES-350T and the ES-225T were introduced as less costly alternatives, in 1958, Gibson introduced the ES-335T model
15.
Pickup (music technology)
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The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly, using a DI box or broadcast on the radio or television. Most electric guitars and electric basses use magnetic pickups, acoustic guitars, upright basses and fiddles often use a piezoelectric pickup. A magnetic pickup consists of a permanent magnet with a core of such as alnico or ferrite. The pickup is most often mounted on the body of the instrument, Magnetic pickups used with string basses can be attached to the bridge. The permanent magnet creates a field, the motion of the vibrating steel strings disturbs the field, changing magnetic flux. The pickup is then connected with a cable to an amplifier which amplifies the signal to a sufficient magnitude of power to drive a loudspeaker. A pickup can also be connected to recording equipment via a patch cable, there may also be an internal preamplifier device mounted in an acoustic guitar or in an external box. When a preamp is used in way, it is between the pickup and cable and can significantly reduce the equivalent impedance of the pickup coil. The output voltage of magnetic pickups varies between 100 mV rms to over 1 V rms for some of the higher output types, some high-output pickups achieve this by employing very strong magnets, thus creating more flux and thereby more output. This can be detrimental to the sound because the magnets pull on the strings can cause problems with intonation as well as damp the strings. Other high-output pickups have more turns of wire to increase the voltage generated by the strings movement, however, this also increases the pickups output resistance/impedance, which can affect high frequencies if the pickup is not isolated by a buffer amplifier or a DI unit. The turns of wire in proximity to each other have an equivalent self-capacitance that and this resonance can accentuate certain frequencies, giving the pickup a characteristic tonal quality. The more turns of wire in the winding, the higher the output voltage, the inductive source impedance inherent in this type of transducer makes it less linear than other forms of pickups, such as piezo-electric or optical. The tonal quality produced by this nonlinearity is, however, subject to taste, the external load usually consists of resistance and capacitance between the hot lead and shield in the guitar cable. The electric cable also has a capacitance, which can be a significant portion of the overall system capacitance and this arrangement of passive components forms a resistively-damped second-order low-pass filter. Single coil pickups act like an antenna and are prone to pick up mains hum along with the musical signal. Mains hum consists of a signal at a nominal 50 or 60 Hz, depending on local alternating current frequency. The changing magnetic flux caused by the mains current links with the windings of the pickup, the pickups also are sensitive to the electromagnetic field from nearby cathode ray tubes in video monitors or televisions
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Nut (string instrument)
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A nut, on a stringed musical instrument, is a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll. The nut marks one end of the length of each open string, sets the spacing of the strings across the neck. Along with the bridge, the nut defines the vibrating lengths of the open strings, the nut may be made of ebony, ivory, cow bone, brass, Corian or plastic, and is usually notched or grooved for the strings. The grooves are designed to lead the string from the fingerboard to the headstock or pegbox in a smooth curve, bowed string instruments in particular benefit from an application of soft pencil graphite in the notches of the nut, to preserve the delicate flat windings of their strings. The word may have come from the German Nut, meaning groove or slot, in French, the nut is known as a fr, sillet, which, like German, can also translate to mean saddle. The Italian term, capo tasto, is the origin of the capo, not all string instruments have nuts as described, The nuts on some instruments are notched deeply enough that they are just string spacers. These instruments use a zero fret—a fret at the beginning of the scale where a normal nut would be that provides the correct string clearance, the zero fret is often found on less expensive instruments, as it is easier to set up an instrument this way. However, a zero fret also makes the sound of the open string similar to fretted notes, a conventional nut can make open strings sound slightly different—and for this reason some high-end instruments use a zero fret. String slots in a nut without a zero fret must be cut to the depth to make string height correct. Strings that are too low at the nut can buzz against the frets, some fretted instruments have a compensated nut. This type of nut provides better intonation across the instrument, the principle, given that strings are different thicknesses and have different tensions, the temperament of each fret is not 100% accurate for an equal temperament instrument. This is especially evident on the first few frets of an electric guitar, many guitar players notice how open position chords never sound in tune with each other. A compensated nut aims to correct this, by staggering the starting position of each string according to thickness, while not a complete solution such as a true temperament fretboard, there is a noticeable difference in tuning within chords. Many guitar companies, such as Music Man, and ESP include compensated nuts as standard on most of their instruments, another type is a locking nut. This nut—usually used in conjunction with a vibrato system such as a Floyd Rose or Kahler—clamps the strings against the nut. This improves tuning stability when using the vibrato bar, a drawback however, is that the locking nut must be loosened using an Allen wrench to tune outside the range of the fine tuners on the bridge. The erhu does not use a hard nut to define the length of the open string, but rather a qiān jin, a loop of string, or, less commonly. Some guitars have a rolling nut, in this design, made popular by the Fender company, the strings sit on roller bearings instead of nut slots
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Fret
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A fret is a raised element on the neck of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the width of the neck. On most modern western fretted instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard, on some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework, on instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. Fret is often used as a verb, meaning simply to press down the string behind a fret, fretting often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Pressing the string against the fret reduces the length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the fingertip on a fretless fingerboard. Frets make it easier for a player to achieve an acceptable standard of intonation. Furthermore, a fretted fingerboard makes it easier to play chords accurately, a disadvantage of frets is that they restrict pitches to the temperament defined by the fret positions. A player may still influence intonation, however, by pulling the string to the side to increase string tension and this technique is often used by electric guitarists of all genres, and is an important part of sitar playing. On instruments with frets that are thicker off the fingerboard, string tension, sometimes a player can pull the string toward the bridge or nut, thus lowering or raising the string tension and pitch. However, except for instruments that accommodate extensive string pulling, like the sitar, since the intonation of most modern western fretted instruments is equal tempered, the ratio of the distances of two consecutive frets to the bridge is 212, or approximately 1.059463. Theoretically, the twelfth fret should divide the string in two exact halves, to compensate for the increase in string tension when the string is pressed against the frets, the bridge position is adjusted slightly so the 12th fret plays exactly in tune. Fan frets (also fanned frets, slanted frets, or multi-scale, Frets are generally perpendicular to the instruments neck centerline, on a fanned fretboard, the frets are angled with only one center fret perpendicular to the neck’s centerline. This gives the strings more length and the higher strings shorter length. The idea is to more accurate tuning and deeper bass. Some think that fanned frets might be more ergonomic, fanned frets first appeared on the 16th century Orpharion, a variant of the cittern, tuned like a lute. John Starrett revived the idea in the seventies on his innovative instrument
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Fingerboard
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The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, the strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length and this is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, on some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique. The word fingerboard in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions, in particular, the direction sul tasto for bowed string instruments to play with the bow above the fingerboard. This reduces the prominence of upper harmonics, giving a more ethereal tone, a fingerboard may be fretted, having raised strips of hard material perpendicular to the strings, which the player presses the strings against to stop the strings. On modern guitars, frets are made of metal. Frets let the player stop the string consistently in the same place, as well, frets do not dampen string vibrations as much as fingers alone on an unfretted fingerboard. Frets may be fixed, as on a guitar or mandolin, or movable, fingerboards may also be unfretted, as they usually are on bowed instruments, where damping by the finger is of little consequence because of the sustained stimulation of the strings by the bow. Unfretted fingerboards allow a more control over subtle changes in pitch than fretted boards. Fingerboards may also be, though uncommon, a hybrid of these two, such a construction is seen on the sitar, where arched frets attach at the edges of a smooth fingerboard, unfrettable strings run inside the frets, while frettable ones run outside. A double dot or some other variation marks the 12th fret, variations on the standard dot shape can make a guitar more distinctive. Position markers are sometimes made luminescent to make more visible on stage. Position markers are sometimes repeated on the edge of the fingerboard for easy viewing. Over time, strings wear frets down, which can cause buzzing, fixing this occasionally requires replacing the frets—but more often they just need dressing. In fret dressing, a luthier levels and polishes the frets, stainless steel guitar frets may never need dressing, because of the density of the material. Not having frets carefully and properly aligned with the fingerboard can cause severe intonation issues, the ultimate way of determining the source of a buzz and detuning problem is to measure the levelness of the frets. A straightedge positioned on the neck in the lie of one of the strings should show nearly level frets, on bowed string instruments, the fingerboard is usually made of ebony, rosewood or other hardwood
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Capo
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It is frequently used on guitars, mandolins, and banjos. The word derives from the Italian capotasto which means the nut of a stringed instrument, the earliest known use of the term capotasto is by Giovanni Battista Doni who, in his Annotazioni of 1640, uses it to describe the nut of a viola da gamba. The first patented capo was designed by James Ashborn of Wolcottville, musicians commonly use a capo to raise the pitch of a fretted instrument so they can play in a different key using the same fingerings as playing open. In effect, a capo uses a fret of an instrument to create a new nut at a higher note than the actual nut. There are several different capo designs, but most commercial capos consist of a bar that clamps to the instruments neck in some way to hold down the strings. Capos come in different sizes and shapes for different instruments and fretboard curvatures, all types of capo should be applied after a fresh tuning by laying the barre, descending from above, and directly behind the fret, so that all of the strings have uniform position and pressure. If the strings are bent or mispositioned, the instrument will sound out of tune in the new key, some types of capo can mar the neck of the guitar if applied incorrectly. Musicians use capos on many stringed instruments, guitars, mandolins, mandolas, banjos, capos exist for square-necked resonator guitars, some of which do not contact the neck, but clamp above and below the strings. Song arrangements often cite capo position, just as they cite alternate tunings, when referencing fingerings for a song that uses a capo, the player must determine whether the chart references absolute finger positions, or positions relative to the capo. For example, in tablature, a note played on the fret of an instrument capoed at the second fret can be listed as 5 or 3. Similarly, a D-shaped chord can be referred to as D, neither method strongly prevails over the other. For this reason, the phrase chord-shape is commonly used to clarify that the fingering shape, in this manner, the two guitars create a fuller sound than they would playing in unison. Playing with a capo creates the musical effect as retuning all strings up the same number of steps. However, using a capo only affects the open note of each string, every other fret remains unaffected, and thus a performer does not need to adjust for or relearn the entire fretboard as they might with retuning. The scale length of the strings of an instrument affects the timbre of the strings, musicians also use capos to bring a guitar tuned below standard up to standard tuning. Manufacturers sometimes recommend tuning a guitar a whole-step or more below standard to offset the additional stress of the additional strings. A capo can raise it to standard tuning, however, improved manufacturing techniques have allowed many modern 12-strings to be tuned to standard pitch. In many cases, they have extended its use past the traditional purpose of changing the key, an example of using a partial capo to produce alternative sounds can be heard from guitar artist Antoine Dufour
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Crocodile clip
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A crocodile clip is a sprung metal clip with long, serrated jaws which is used for creating a temporary electrical connection. This simple mechanical device gets its name from the resemblance of its jaws to that of an alligators or crocodiles and it is used to connect an electrical cable to a battery or some other component. Functioning much like a spring-loaded clothespin, the tapered, serrated jaws are forced together by a spring to grip an object. The clip is typically covered by a shroud or boot to prevent accidental short-circuits. Small versions, ranging in size from 15–40 mm in length, are used in laboratory work. The United States Defense Logistics Agency specifies several types of clips in Commercial Item Description A-A-59466. In this CID document, crocodile clips are designated type CC, alligator clips are designated types TCx, dentistry, crocodile clips are often used on the ends of a cord in dental offices to attach a protective bib over the patients clothing. Laboratory, crocodile clips are used to quickly and cheaply assemble or modify experimental circuits. They are useful for connecting components to wires, education, like their laboratory use, crocodile clips are sometimes used with batteries, small lightbulbs and other small electrical devices in schools to teach students about electricity. Fencing, crocodile clips are used in fencing to connect to participants lamé vests to touch-detection systems, hobby, crocodile clips can be used as miniature clamps to hold parts together for gluing or soldering. Helping Hands typically have two crocodile clips, camping, crocodile clips may be designed to attach a rope to a tarp or other sheet of material. Drug use, as a clip for holding burning cannabis to avoid burning fingers. Film/animation, useful for airborne scenes in possible stop-motion or holding models of any sort in mid air, electronics, useful as a heat sink while soldering heat-sensitive devices. A Kelvin clip is a form of crocodile clip. The jaws of a Kelvin clip are insulated from each other and this enables 4-wire measurement of circuits with very low resistances
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Mixing console
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In the 2010s, a mixer is able to control analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer. The modified signals are summed to produce the output signals. A typical, simple application combines signals from two microphones into an amplifier that drives one set of speakers simultaneously, a DJ mixer may have only two channels, for mixing two record players. A coffeehouses tiny stage might only have a six channel mixer, a nightclub stages mixer for rock music shows may have 24 channels for mixing the signals from a rhythm section, lead guitar and several vocalists. A mixing console for a large concert may have 48 channels, a mixing console in a professional recording studio may have as many as 96 channels. In practice, mixers do more than simply mix signals, some mixers have onboard electronic effects, such as reverb. Some mixers intended for small venue live performance applications may include a power amplifier. A mixing console is also known as a mixer, audio console, mixing desk, sound mixer, sound board. A typical analog mixing board has three sections, Channel inputs Master controls Audio level metering The channel input strips are usually a bank of identical monaural or stereo input channels. Each channel has rotary knobs, buttons and/or faders for controlling the gain, the master control section is used to adjust the levels of the overall output of the mixer. The master control section has sub-group faders, master faders, master auxiliary mixing bus level controls, in addition it may have solo monitoring controls, a stage talk-back microphone control, muting controls and an output matrix mixer. On smaller mixers the inputs are on the left of the mixing board, in larger mixers, the master controls are in the center with input faders and channel strips on both sides. The audio level meters may be above the input and master sections or they may be integrated into the input, the audio level meters indicate when the signals are clipping. Each signal that is plugged into the mixer has its own channel, depending on the specific mixer, each channel is stereo or monaural. On most mixers, each channel has an XLR input, the smallest, least expensive mixers may only have one XLR input with the other inputs being line inputs. These can be used by a singer-guitarist or other small acts, below each input, there are usually several rotary controls. The first knob is typically a trim or gain control, the inputs buffer the signal from the external device and this controls the amount of amplification or attenuation needed to bring the signal to a nominal level for processing. This stage is where most noise of interference is picked up, balanced inputs and connectors, such as XLR or phone connectors, reduce interference problems
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Stereophonic sound
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Stereophonic sound or, more commonly, stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that creates an illusion of multi-directional audible perspective. Thus the term applies to so-called quadraphonic and surround-sound systems as well as the more common two-channel. It is often contrasted with monophonic, or mono sound, where audio is heard as coming from one position, in the 2000s, stereo sound is common in entertainment systems such as broadcast radio and TV, recorded music and the cinema. The word stereophonic derives from the Greek στερεός, firm, solid + φωνή, sound, tone, voice and it was coined in 1927 by Western Electric, the signal is then reproduced over multiple loudspeakers to recreate, as closely as possible, the live sound. Secondly artificial or pan-pot stereo, in which a sound is reproduced over multiple loudspeakers. By varying the amplitude of the signal sent to each speaker an artificial direction can be suggested. The control which is used to vary this relative amplitude of the signal is known as a pan-pot, by combining multiple pan-potted mono signals together, a complete, yet entirely artificial, sound field can be created. In technical usage, true stereo sound recording and sound reproduction that uses stereographic projection to encode the relative positions of objects and events recorded. During two-channel stereo recording, two microphones are placed in strategically chosen locations relative to the source, with both recording simultaneously. The two recorded channels will be similar, but each will have distinct time-of-arrival and sound-pressure-level information, during playback, the listeners brain uses those subtle differences in timing and sound level to triangulate the positions of the recorded objects. Stereo recordings often cannot be played on systems without a significant loss of fidelity. This phenomenon is known as phase cancellation and this two-channel telephonic process was commercialized in France from 1890 to 1932 as the Théâtrophone, and in England from 1895 to 1925 as the Electrophone. Both were services available by coin-operated receivers at hotels and cafés, modern stereophonic technology was invented in the 1930s by British engineer Alan Blumlein at EMI, who patented stereo records, stereo films, and also surround sound. In early 1931, Blumlein and his wife were at a local cinema, Blumlein declared to his wife that he had found a way to make the sound follow the actor across the screen. The genesis of ideas is uncertain, but he explained them to Isaac Shoenberg in the late summer of 1931. His earliest notes on the subject are dated 25 September 1931, the application was dated 14 December 1931, and was accepted on 14 June 1933 as UK patent number 394,325. The patent covered many ideas in stereo, some of which are used today and these discs used the two walls of the groove at right angles in order to carry the two channels. Much of the development work on this system for cinematic use did not reach completion until 1935, in Blumleins short test films, his original intent of having the sound follow the actor was fully realised
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Soundscape
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The soundscape is the component of the acoustic environment that can be perceived by humans. There is a history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline - ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology. An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the term acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the resources within a given area - natural sounds. The International Organization for Standardization standardized these definitions in 2014, the term soundscape was first described by Canadian composer and environmentalist, R. Murray Schafer. According to this there are three main elements of the soundscape, A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology, the disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution. Pauline Oliveros, composer of post-World War II electronic art music, defined the term soundscape as All of the waveforms faithfully transmitted to our audio cortex by the ear, keynote sounds This is a musical term that identifies the key of a piece, not always audible. The key might stray from the original, but it will return, the keynote sounds may not always be heard consciously, but they outline the character of the people living there. They are created by nature, wind, water, forests, plains, birds, insects, in many urban areas, traffic has become the keynote sound. Sound signals These are foreground sounds, which are listened to consciously, examples would be warning devices, bells, whistles, horns, sirens, soundmark This is derived from the term landmark. A soundmark is a sound which is unique to an area, biophony Consisting of the prefix, bio and the suffix for sound, this term refers to all of the non-human, non-domestic biological soundscape sources of sound. Anthropophony Consisting of the prefix, anthro, this refers to all of the sound signatures generated by humans. In music, soundscape compositions are often a form of electronic music, composers who use soundscapes include real-time granular synthesis pioneer Barry Truax, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Luc Ferrari, whose Presque rien, numéro 1 is an early soundscape composition. The work landed on the ground of Titan in 2005 after traveling inside the spacecraft Huygens over seven years, irv Teibels Environments series consisted of 30-minute, uninterrupted environmental soundscapes and synthesized or processed versions of natural sound. Music soundscapes can also be generated by automated software methods, such as the experimental TAPESTREA application, a framework for design and soundscape composition. The soundscape is often the subject of mimicry in Timbre-centered music such as Tuvan throat singing, the process of Timbral Listening is used to interpret the timbre of the soundscape. This timbre is mimicked and reproduced using the voice or rich harmonic producing instruments, the soundscape consists of three major sources or components
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Glenn Branca
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Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Branca started playing the guitar at age 15. He also created a number of sound art collage pieces for his own amusement. After attending York College in 1966–1967, he started the cover band The Crystal Ship with Al Whiteside. In the early 1970s, Branca studied theater at Emerson College in Boston, in 1973, he moved from Boston to London with his then girlfriend Meg English. After moving back to Boston in 1974, he met John Rehberger, while there, he began experimenting with sound as the founder of an experimental theater group called Bastard Theatre in 1975. Working out of a loft on Massachusetts Avenue they wrote and produced the music/theater piece Anthropophagoi for a two-week run, in 1976, The Bastard Theatres second production was What Actually Happened at a new loft in Central Square, Cambridge and later at The Boston Arts Group. Considering the unconventional and sometimes confrontational nature of the productions, the shows still received interested reviews from the Phoenix, all music for Bastard Theatre productions were original compositions by Branca or Rehberger and were performed live by the actor/musicians. In 1976 Branca moved to New York City to continue in experimental theater and he encountered the N. Dodo Band and watched their rehearsals in Chelsea, hoping to use the space for a theater production. Branca spent time with one of its members, Jeffrey Lohn, the two began forming a theater group when Branca decided he wanted to form a band, which he called the Static and later Theoretical Girls. Branca put up posters to recruit members, and after seeing one of the posters, lohns girlfriend Margaret De Wys joined the band as its bassist, and they borrowed drummer Mike Anthol from the N. Dodo Band. Artist Dan Graham booked the band at Franklin Furnace for its first performance, the group reformed in 1977 with Wharton Tiers as its drummer. In 1982, Branca launched his own label, Neutral Records, releasing Y Pants LP. In the early 1980s, he released his first album under his own name, in the same year, he composed several medium-length compositions for electric guitar ensembles, including The Ascension and Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses. The Ascension appeared on his second same titled album in 1981. 3, he began to compose for the harmonic series. In this project, Branca was initially influenced by the writings of Dane Rudhyar, Hermann von Helmholtz and he also built several electrically amplified instruments of his own invention, expanding his ensemble beyond the guitar. A few of these instruments were third bridge zithers he called harmonic guitars, in the early 1990s, David Baratier attempted to document Brancas teaching style in They Walked in Line
