Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument, sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice; the percussion section of an orchestra most contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals and tambourine. However, the section can contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. Percussive techniques can be applied to the human body, as in body percussion. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone are included. Percussion instruments are most divided into two classes: Pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes or sounds without an identifiable pitch. Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but melody and harmony.
Percussion is referred to as "the backbone" or "the heartbeat" of a musical ensemble working in close collaboration with bass instruments, when present. In jazz and other popular music ensembles, the pianist, bassist and sometimes the guitarist are referred to as the rhythm section. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings and brass; however at least one pair of timpani is included, though they play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents. In the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments have been used, again sparingly; the use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music. In every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. In military marching bands and pipes and drums, it is the beat of the bass drum that keeps the soldiers in step and at a regular speed, it is the snare that provides that crisp, decisive air to the tune of a regiment.
In classic jazz, one immediately thinks of the distinctive rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word "swing" is spoken. In more recent popular music culture, it is impossible to name three or four rock, hip-hop, funk or soul charts or songs that do not have some sort of percussive beat keeping the tune in time; because of the diversity of percussive instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed of percussion. Rhythm and harmony are all represented in these ensembles. Music for pitched percussion instruments can be notated on a staff with the same treble and bass clefs used by many non-percussive instruments. Music for percussive instruments without a definite pitch can be notated with a specialist rhythm or percussion-clef. Percussion instruments are classified by various criteria sometimes depending on their construction, ethnic origin, function within musical theory and orchestration, or their relative prevalence in common knowledge; the word "percussion" derives from Latin the terms: "percussio", "percussus".
As a noun in contemporary English, Wiktionary describes it as "the collision of two bodies to produce a sound." The term has application in medicine and weaponry, as in percussion cap. However, all known uses of percussion appear to share a similar lineage beginning with the original Latin: "percussus". In a musical context the percussion instruments may have been coined to describe a family of musical instruments including drums, metal plates, or blocks that musicians beat or struck to produce sound. Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion. Most percussion instruments are classified as membranophones; however the term percussion is instead used at lower-levels of the Hornbostel–Sachs hierarchy, including to identify instruments struck with either a non-sonorous object or against a non-sonorous object. This is opposed to concussion, which refers to instruments with two or more complementary sonorous parts that strike against each other and other meanings. For example: 111.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks.
111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a percussion mallet, such as the hang and the xylophone, but not drums and only some cymbals. 21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani, snare drum, tom-tom. (Included in most drum sets or 412.12 Percussion reeds, a class of wind instrument unrelated to percussion in the more common sense There are many instruments that have some claim to being percussion, but are classified otherwise: Keyboard instruments such as the celesta and piano. Stringed instruments played with beaters such as the hammered dulcimer. Unpitched whistles and similar instruments, such as the pea whistle and Acme siren. Percussion instruments are sometimes classified as "pitched" or "unpitched". While valid, this classification is seen as inadequate. Rather, it may be more informative to describe percussion instruments in regards to one or more of the following four paradigms: Many texts, including Teaching Percussion by Gary Cook of the University of Arizona, begin by studying the physica
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, except with a longer neck and scale length, four to six strings or courses. The four-string bass is tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar, it is played with the fingers or thumb, or striking with a pick. The electric bass guitar has pickups and must be connected to an amplifier and speaker to be loud enough to compete with other instruments. Since the 1960s, the bass guitar has replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary from one style of music to another, the bassist plays a similar role: anchoring the harmonic framework and establishing the beat. Many styles of music include the bass guitar, it is a soloing instrument. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, an "Electric bass guitar a Guitar with four heavy strings tuned E1'-A1'-D2-G2."
It defines bass as "Bass. A contraction of Double bass or Electric bass guitar." According to some authors the proper term is "electric bass". Common names for the instrument are "bass guitar", "electric bass guitar", "electric bass" and some authors claim that they are accurate; the bass guitar is a transposing instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds. In the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc of Seattle, developed the first electric bass guitar in its modern form, a fretted instrument designed to be played horizontally; the 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's electronic musical instrument company, featured his "Model 736 Bass Fiddle", a four-stringed, solid-bodied, fretted electric bass guitar with a 30 1⁄2-inch scale length, a single pick up. The adoption of a guitar's body shape made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments; the addition of frets enabled bassists to play in tune more than on fretless acoustic or electric upright basses.
Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period. Audiovox sold their “Model 236” bass amplifier. Around 1947, Tutmarc's son, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948. However, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender and George Fullerton developed the first mass-produced electric bass guitar; the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company began producing the Precision Bass in October 1951. The "P-bass" evolved from a simple, un-contoured "slab" body design and a single coil pickup similar to that of a Telecaster, to something more like a Fender Stratocaster, with a contoured body design, edges beveled for comfort, a split single coil pickup; the "Fender Bass" was a revolutionary new instrument for gigging musicians. In comparison with the large, heavy upright bass, the main bass instrument in popular music from the early 1900s to the 1940s, the bass guitar could be transported to shows.
When amplified, the bass guitar was less prone than acoustic basses to unwanted audio feedback. In 1953 Monk Montgomery became the first bassist to tour with the Fender bass guitar, in Lionel Hampton's postwar big band. Montgomery was possibly the first to record with the bass guitar, on July 2, 1953 with The Art Farmer Septet. Roy Johnson, Shifty Henry, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from upright bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957; the bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, many early pioneers of the instrument, such as Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Paul McCartney were guitarists. In 1953, following Fender's lead, Gibson released the first short-scale violin-shaped electric bass, with an extendable end pin so a bassist could play it upright or horizontally. Gibson renamed the bass the EB-1 in 1958. In 1958, Gibson released the maple arched-top EB-2 described in the Gibson catalogue as a "hollow-body electric bass that features a Bass/Baritone pushbutton for two different tonal characteristics".
In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass. The EB-0 was similar to a Gibson SG in appearance. Whereas Fender basses had pickups mounted in positions in between the base of the neck and the top of the bridge, many of Gibson's early basses featured one humbucking pickup mounted directly against the neck pocket; the EB-3, introduced in 1961 had a "mini-humbucker" at the bridge position. Gibson basses tended to be smaller, sleeker instruments with a shorter scale length than the Precision. A number of other companies began manufacturing bass guitars during the 1950s: Kay in 1952, Hofner and Danelectro in 1956, Rickenbacker in 1957 and Burns/Supersound in 1958. 1956 saw the appearance at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt" of the distinctive Höfner 500/1 violin-shaped bass made using violin construction techniques by Walter Höfner, a second-generation violin luthier. The design was known popularly as the "Beat
Paul Gardiner
Paul Mark Gardiner was a British musician who played bass guitar with Gary Numan and Tubeway Army, as well as creating material under his own name. Paul Gardiner was born in Middlesex. In early 1976 he was playing in a band called The Lasers when Gary Numan auditioned as lead guitarist; the two became friends and when Numan left the band soon after, Gardiner followed. The pair formed Tubeway Army with Numan's uncle Jess Lidyard on drums. In October 1977, the band was signed to the independent label Beggars Banquet and released their first single, "That's Too Bad", in February 1978; the trio used assumed names, Gardiner's being'Scarlett'. An ever-changing line-up played gigs over the next few months and Numan being the only constant members. Settling back to a three-piece outfit with Lidyard, the band released two albums as Tubeway Army, an eponymously titled debut in 1978 and the No. 1 hit Replicas in 1979. When Numan dropped the name Tubeway Army in mid-1979, Gardiner remained as bassist, playing on the No. 1 albums The Pleasure Principle and Telekon, toured with Numan throughout the world in 1979–81.
Following Numan's'retirement' in April 1981, after final concerts at Wembley Arena, his backing band went its separate ways. Most of the members formed a new group called Dramatis, while Gardiner elected to concentrate on a solo career. Gardiner's debut solo release was a single co-written with Numan called "Stormtrooper in Drag" b/w "Night Talk" in 1981, it made No. 49 in the UK Singles Chart. On these tracks Gardiner and Numan were credited with bass, respectively. Gardiner's recording of The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" was the first release on Numan's own label, Numa, in 1984; the single's B-side, "No Sense", was written by Gardiner. Aside from work on solo projects, he played with Dramatis in 1982 and, shortly before his death, worked with Marc Anthony Thompson on the latter's debut album. Paul Gardiner struggled with heroin addiction in his last years and died at the age of 25 from a fatal heroin overdose on 4 February 1984 in Limetrees Park in Northolt, Middlesex, he was survived by Chris.
Gary Numan wrote the song "A Child with the Ghost" in memory of former bass-player. He paid tribute to Gardiner on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of his death by playing "Stormtrooper in Drag" on his 1994 tour and "Night Talk" at a 2004 charity gig. During the 2009 Pleasure Principle tour Numan paid tribute to Gardiner on his 25th anniversary of his death by playing "Complex" with a picture of Gardiner displayed on the large screen background. Paul Gardiner: "Stormtrooper in Drag" Paul Gardiner: "Venus in Furs" Paul Gardiner: "No Sense" Tubeway Army - Peel session 1979Robert Palmer: "I Dream of Wires" Marc Anthony Thompson: "Love Cools Down"
Dance (Gary Numan album)
Dance is the third solo studio album by English musician Gary Numan, released in 1981. It was the first studio album Numan released after his "Farewell Concerts" staged at Wembley Arena. Dance features the UK Top 10 single "She's Got Claws"; the album itself reached #3 on the UK charts. With synth pop music in the mainstream by 1981, Numan made a conscious effort to craft a more sombre and musically experimental album, in a jazzier vein than its predecessors; the album's title is somewhat ironic, as Dance was the least danceable album Numan had made at that point. The album's sound constitutes a significant change in style from the heavy analogue synth arrangements of Numan's earlier hit releases. Side One of the album consists of four long, slow-tempo minimalist songs, with the rhythm tracks based around muted drum machine patterns; the style is not dissimilar to some of the more ambient work by Brian Eno his solo album Another Green World and collaborations with David Bowie on Low and "Heroes", tracks by the band Japan such as'"The Tenant" and "Despair".
Side Two of the album contains more conventional songs. One of these, "Moral", is a contrafactum, adapting the tune from Numan's 1979 song "Metal", changing its lyrics into an attack on the New Romantic movement. Numan's commercial success by this period enabled him to enlist several guest musicians to perform on the album, including guitarist Rob Dean and bassist/saxophonist Mick Karn of Japan, drummer Roger Taylor of Queen, keyboardist Roger Mason of Australian band Models, Canadian alternative musician Nash the Slash. Lyrically, the songs deal with tragic sexual relationships, examined in a manner similar to the bleak and alienating relationships between people and technology that informed earlier songs such as "Down in the Park" and "Are'Friends' Electric?". The opening track. "Night Talk" is about a man dealing with a lover, a drug addict. "Cry the Clock Said" is a nearly ten-minute ballad about a breakup. The salsa-flavoured "She's Got Claws" is about a predatory woman, written as an embittered response to an ex-girlfriend who sold the story of their relationship to the tabloids.
The melancholic "Stories" describes an accidental café reunion between a woman and her son by a failed relationship. Reaction to the album was mixed, some critics applauding what they saw as a less commercial career move and others viewing the change of pace with cynicism. A few years after Dance's release Numan conceded, "if I was supposed to be a pop star doing music for the masses, it wasn't the right thing to do", but he praised the standard of playing on it. "She's Got Claws" was the album's sole single release, making number 6 in the UK charts, whilst the album itself peaked at number 3. It was Numan's first album to miss the number 1 spot since Tubeway Army's debut album in 1978, dropping out of the charts after 8 weeks. Numan rarely performs any music from the album in concert; however live recordings and visual footage of "She's Got Claws", "Cry the Clock Said" and "Moral" appear on Numan's video/DVD Micromusic and album Living Ornaments'81, taken when they were previewed prior to the release of Dance at his Wembley'farewell' concerts in April 1981.
An early live recording of "Stories" came to light in 2005 when Beggars Banquet released the expanded Living Ornaments'80 album on CD. Numan performed "Crash" and "Boys Like Me" during club dates in the US in 1982 but they have not been released, while "Night Talk" was performed live in 2004 to mark the 20th anniversary of Paul Gardiner's death, Numan's longtime bassist and co-writer of the track. On his website on 30 March 2010, Numan mentioned that "Crash" was one of the songs rehearsed for his set at the Manchester and London "Back to the Phuture" shows. All tracks written by Gary Numan, except "Night Talk" and "Stormtrooper in Drag", co-written with Paul Gardiner. Previous CD releases of Dance included "Love Needs No Disguise", Numan's 1981 single with Dramatis, as a bonus track; the track was subsequently replaced by its B-side, "Face to Face", for the subsequent edition of Dance, although "Love Needs No Disguise" would be included on the 1996 Numan compilation, The Premier Hits. On 19 January 2018, Beggars Arkive released Dance as a vinyl double-album, with the following track listing: The only previously-unreleased track in the 2018 edition of Dance is the extended version of "Moral,", over a minute longer than the version in the original album.
The 2018 edition of Dance otherwise replicates the track listing of the standard CD edition. Gary Numan - Vocals, Polymoog, SCI Prophet-5, Roland Jupiter-4, Yamaha CP-30, ARP Odyssey, Roland CR-78, Linn LM-1, Guitar, Piano, Claves, Handclaps Paul Gardiner - Bass, Guitar, ARP Odyssey Cedric Sharpley - drums Chris Payne - Viola John Webb - Roland Jupiter-4, Linn LM1, Handclaps Jess Lidyard - Drums Mick Karn - Fretless bass, saxophone Nash the Slash - Violin Roger Taylor - Drums, tom-toms Rob Dean - Guitar Tim Steggles - Percussion Sean Lynch - Linn LM1 Connie Filapello - Vocals Roger Mason - SCI Prophet-5, Yamaha CP-30 Mick Prague - Bass Paul Goodwin. Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide To Gary Numan Allmusic
Synthesizer
A synthesizer or synthesiser is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals that may be converted to sound. Synthesizers may imitate traditional musical instruments such as piano, vocals, or natural sounds such as ocean waves, they are played with a musical keyboard, but they can be controlled via a variety of other devices, including music sequencers, instrument controllers, guitar synthesizers, wind controllers, electronic drums. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are called sound modules, are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device a MIDI keyboard or other controller. Synthesizers use various methods to generate electronic signals. Among the most popular waveform synthesis techniques are subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis, wavetable synthesis, frequency modulation synthesis, phase distortion synthesis, physical modeling synthesis and sample-based synthesis. Synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. In the late 1970s, synths were used in progressive rock and disco.
In the 1980s, the invention of the inexpensive Yamaha DX7 synth made digital synthesizers available. 1980s pop and dance music made heavy use of synthesizers. In the 2010s, synthesizers are used in many genres, such as pop, hip hop, metal and dance. Contemporary classical music composers from the 20th and 21st century write compositions for synthesizer; the beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace, as it is difficult to draw a distinction between synthesizers and some early electric or electronic musical instruments. One of the earliest electric musical instruments, the Musical Telegraph, was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray, he accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromechanical circuit, invented a basic single-note oscillator. This instrument used steel reeds with oscillations created by electromagnets transmitted over a telegraph line. Gray built a simple loudspeaker device into models, consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field, to make the oscillator audible.
This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument that used telegraphy and electric buzzers that generated fixed timbre sound. Though it lacked an arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer. In 1897 Thaddeus Cahill was granted his first patent for an electronic musical instrument, which by 1901 he had developed into the Telharmonium capable of additive synthesis. Cahill's business was unsuccessful for various reasons, but similar and more compact instruments were subsequently developed, such as electronic and tonewheel organs including the Hammond organ, invented in 1935. In 1906, American engineer Lee de Forest invented the first amplifying vacuum tube, the Audion whose amplification of weak audio signals contributed to advances in sound recording and film, the invention of early electronic musical instruments including the theremin, the ondes martenot, the trautonium. Most of these early instruments used heterodyne circuits to produce audio frequencies, were limited in their synthesis capabilities.
The ondes martenot and trautonium were continuously developed for several decades developing qualities similar to synthesizers. In the 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art, similar graphical sound and tonewheel systems were developed around the world. In 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin designed a compositional tool called ANS, one of the earliest real-time additive synthesizers using optoelectronics. Although his idea of reconstructing a sound from its visible image was simple, the instrument was not realized until 20 years in 1958, as Murzin was, "an engineer who worked in areas unrelated to music". In the 1930s and 1940s, the basic elements required for the modern analog subtractive synthesizers — electronic oscillators, audio filters, envelope controllers, various effects units — had appeared and were utilized in several electronic instruments; the earliest polyphonic synthesizers were developed in the United States. The Warbo Formant Orgel developed by Harald Bode in Germany in 1937, was a four-voice key-assignment keyboard with two formant filters and a dynamic envelope controller.
The Hammond Novachord released in 1939, was an electronic keyboard that used twelve sets of top-octave oscillators with octave dividers to generate sound, with vibrato, a resonator filter bank and a dynamic envelope controller. During the three years that Hammond manufactured this model, 1,069 units were shipped, but production was discontinued at the start of World War II. Both instruments were the forerunners of the electronic organs and polyphonic synthesizers. In the 1940s and 1950s, before the popularization of electronic organs and the introductions of combo organs, manufacturers developed various portable monophonic electronic instruments with small keyboards; these small instruments consisted of an electronic oscillator, vibrato effect, passive filters. Most were designed for conventional ensembles, rather than as experimental instruments for electronic music studios, but contributed to the evolution of modern synthesizers; these instruments include the Solovox, Multimonica and Clavioline.
In the late 1940s, Canadian inventor and composer, Hugh Le Caine invented the Electronic Sackbut, a voltage-controlled electronic musical instrument that provided the earliest real-time control of three aspects of sound —corresponding to today's touch-sensitive keyboard and modulation controllers. The controllers were impl
Musician
A musician is a person who plays a musical instrument or is musically talented. Anyone who composes, conducts, or performs music is referred to as a musician. A musician who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. Musicians can specialize in any musical style, some musicians play in a variety of different styles depending on cultures and background. Examples of a musician's possible skills include performing, singing, producing, composing and the orchestration of music. In the Middle Ages, instrumental musicians performed with soft ensembles inside and loud instruments outdoors. Many European musicians of this time catered to the Roman Catholic Church, they provided arrangements structured around Gregorian chant structure and Masses from church texts. Notable musicians Phillipe de Vitry Guillaume Dufay Guillaume de Machaut Hildegard of Bingen John Jenkins Beatritz de Dia Tyagaraja Purandara Dasa Bhimsen Joshi Bismillah Khan A. R. RAHMAN Renaissance musicians produced music that could be played during masses in churches and important chapels.
Vocal pieces were in Latin—the language of church texts of the time—and were Church-polyphonic or "made up of several simultaneous melodies." By the end of the 16th century, patronage split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches, royal courts, wealthy amateurs, music printing—all provided income sources for composers. Notable musicians Giovanni Palestrina Giovanni Gabrieli Thomas Tallis Claudio Monteverdi Leonardo da Vinci The Baroque period introduced heavy use of counterpoint and basso continuo characteristics. Vocal and instrumental "color" became more important compared with the Renaissance style of music, emphasized much of the volume and pace of each piece. Notable musicians George Frideric Handel Johann Sebastian Bach Antonio Vivaldi Classical music was created by musicians who lived during a time of a rising middle class. Many middle-class inhabitants of France at the time lived under long-time absolute monarchies; because of this, much of the music was performed in environments that were more constrained compared with the flourishing times of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
Notable musicians Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Joseph Haydn Ludwig Van Beethoven The foundation of Romantic period music coincides with what is called the age of revolutions, an age of upheavals in political, economic and military traditions. This age included the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry and art, but the common perception of the world; some major Romantic Period precepts survive, still affect modern culture. Notable musicians Ludwig van Beethoven Frédéric Chopin Franz Schubert Niccolò Paganini Franz Liszt Charles-Valentin Alkan Richard Wagner Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Johannes Brahms Johann Strauss II The world transitioned from 19th-century Romanticism to 20th century Modernism, bringing major musical changes. In 20th-century music and musicians rejected the emotion-dominated Romantic period, strove to represent the world the way they perceived it.
Musicians wrote to be"... objective. While past eras concentrated on spirituality, this new period placed emphasis on physicality and things that were concrete."The advent of audio recording and mass media in the 20th century caused a boom of all kinds of music—pop, dance, folk and all forms of classical music. Musicians can experience a number of health problems related to the practice and performance of music; these can include tinnitus and noise-induced hearing loss, which occurs and over a long period of time, most musicians do not seek help until they start to experience secondary symptoms such as tinnitus, distortion of sounds and hyperacusis. In addition, musicians are at increased risk for both musculoskeletal and vocal health problems when producing high sound levels on musical instruments. Increased biomechanical demands, whether at the hands, embouchure, or vocal cords, elevates the risks for occupational health problems like tendonitis, carpal tunnel, rupture of facial muscles, vocal cord malfunction.
Singer Composer Tour manager Musicians' or'Hi-Fi' earplugs Media related to Musicians at Wikimedia Commons
Single (music)
In the music industry, a single is a type of release a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song, released separately from an album, although it also appears on an album; these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks; the biggest digital music distributor, iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as does popular music player Spotify. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is either an extended play or, if over six tracks long, an album; when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided.
That is to say, they were released with an A-side and B-side, on which two singles would be released, one on each side. Moreover, only the most popular songs from a released album would be released as a single. In more contemporary forms of music consumption, artists release most, if not all, of the tracks on an album as singles; the basic specifications of the music single were set in the late 19th century, when the gramophone record began to supersede phonograph cylinders in commercially produced musical recordings. Gramophone discs were manufactured in several sizes. By about 1910, the 10-inch, 78 rpm shellac disc had become the most used format; the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century. The crude disc-cutting techniques of the time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface, a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity.
78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered, synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3600 rpm with a 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format and performers tailored their output to fit the new medium; the 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting the performance into halves, separating them between the two sides of the vinyl disc, both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side, that radio stations play the song in its entirety; as digital downloading and audio streaming have become more prevalent, it has become possible for every track on an album to be available separately.
The concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a more promoted or more popular song within an album collection. The demand for music downloads skyrocketed after the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in January 2001 and the creation of portable music and digital audio players such as the iPod. In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella" for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Geffen Records released Aerosmith's "Head First" digitally for free. In 2004, Recording Industry Association of America introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached an all-time low in January 2005, as the popularity of the compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download.
Recognizing this, On 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single "Crazy", released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007 digital downloads became eligible from the point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch vinyl discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on Digital Compact Cassette, DVD, LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc; the most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, the standard diameter, 7 inches; the 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.
The first 45
