1.
String instrument
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String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or piano, with bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a wheel that rubs the strings. Bowed instruments include the string instruments of the Classical music orchestra. All of the string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp, in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, in most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it, the vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, the development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country, Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four stringed precursor to the guitar and these instruments typically used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history, violins and guitars became more consistent in design, and were roughly similar to what we use in the 2000s. At the same time, the 19th century guitar became more associated with six string models. In big bands of the 1920s, the guitar played backing chords. The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier, the development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups, volume control knobs and an output jack, in the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called stacks
2.
Pizzicato
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Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies depending on the type of stringed instrument. On bowed string instruments it is a method of playing by plucking the strings with the fingers and this produces a very different sound from bowing, short and percussive rather than sustained. On a keyboard string instrument, such as the piano, pizzicato may be employed as one of the variety of techniques involving direct manipulation of the strings known collectively as string piano. On the guitar, it is a form of plucking. For details of technique, see palm mute. When a string is struck or plucked, as with pizzicato and this complex timbre is called inharmonicity. The inharmonicity of a string depends on its characteristics, such as tension, composition, diameter. The first recognised use of pizzicato in classical music is found in Tobias Humes Captain Humes Poeticall Musicke, wherein he instructs the viola da gamba player to use pizzicato. Another early use is found in Claudio Monteverdis Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, later, in 1756, Leopold Mozart in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule instructs the player to use the index finger of the right hand. This has remained the most usual way to execute a pizzicato, the bow is held in the hand at the same time unless there is enough time to put it down and pick it up again between bowed passages. In jazz and bluegrass, and the few popular music styles which use double bass, in classical double bass playing, pizzicato are often performed with the bow being held in the hand, as such, the string is usually only plucked with a single finger. In contrast, in jazz, bluegrass, and other non-Classical styles, in classical music, however, string instruments are most usually played with the bow, and composers give specific indications to play pizzicato where required. Pieces in classical music that are played entirely pizzicato include, J. S. Bach, johann Strauss II, Neue Pizzicato Polka. 4 Benjamin Britten, the movement of the Simple Symphony Leroy Anderson. He also included pizzicato in the movement of Winter from The Four Seasons. In music notation, a composer will normally indicate the performer should use pizzicato with the abbreviation pizz, a return to bowing is indicated by the Italian term arco. If a string player has to play pizzicato for a period of time
3.
Guitar pick
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A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. Picks are generally made of one uniform material—such as some kind of plastic, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, tagua and they are often shaped in an acute isosceles triangle with the two equal corners rounded and the third corner less rounded. They are used to strum chords or to individual notes on a guitar. In British English, guitar picks are referred to as plectrums reserving the term pick to identify the difference between this and finger picks, musicians have used plectrums to play stringed instruments for thousands of years. Feather quills were likely the first standardized plectra and became widely used until the late 19th century, other alternatives had come and gone, but tortoiseshell provided the best combination of tonal sound and physical flexibility for plucking a taut string. There have been innovations in the design of the guitar pick. Most of these were out of the issue of guitar picks slipping and flying out of the hand of the player. In 1896, a Cincinnati man affixed two rubber disks to either side of a pick, which made it the first popular solution to the problem. Over the next two decades more innovations were made, such as corrugating the rounded surface of the pick or drilling a hole through the center to fit the pad of a players thumb. A more notable improvement was attaching cork to the part of the pick. Some of these new designs made picks undesirably expensive, eventually, pickers realized that all they needed was something to sink their fingerprints into so the pick wouldnt slip, such as a high relief imprinted logo. Celluloid was a material on which this could easily be done, tony DAndrea was the one of the first people to use celluloid to produce and sell guitar picks. From the 1920s through the 1950s, DAndrea Manufacturing would dominate the worlds international pick market, providing to major businesses such as Gibson, Fender, and Martin. One of the main reasons celluloid was so popular as guitar pick material was that it very closely imitated the sound and flexibility of a tortoise shell guitar pick. Musicians had been partial to shell picks, and when DAndrea provided an alternative, DAndrea Manufacturing became very successful, Celluloid provided a good alternative in many ways. Tortoise shell was rare, expensive, and had a tendency to break, Celluloid was made from cellulose, one of the most abundant raw materials in the world, and nitrocellulose combined with camphor under heat and pressure produced celluloid. Later, other materials, such as nylon and less popularly wood, glass, or metal would become popular for making guitar picks for their increased grip, flexibility, or tonal qualities. Pick shapes started with guitarists shaping bone, shell, wood, cuttlebone, metal, amber, most of todays guitar pick shapes were created by the company that made the first plastic pick in 1922, DAndrea Picks
4.
Chordophone
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A chordophone is a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. It is one of the four divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. What many would call string instruments are classified as chordophones, violins, guitars, lyres, and harps are examples. However, the word also embraces instruments that many would hesitate to call string instruments, such as the musical bow, Hornbostel-Sachs divides chordophones into two main groups, instruments without a resonator as an integral part of the instrument, and instruments with such a resonator. Most western instruments fall into the group, but the piano. Hornbostel and Sachs criterion for determining which sub-group an instrument falls into is that if the resonator can be removed without destroying the instrument, then it is classified as 31. This is not true of the violin, because the passes over a bridge located on the resonator box. Electric string instruments often have a pickup that produces a signal that can be amplified. The electric guitar is the most common example, but many other chordophones use pickups—including mandolins, violins, when a chordophone is played, the strings vibrate and interact with each other. There is usually something that makes the sound resonate, such as the body of a guitar or violin, the strings are set into motion by either plucking, strumming, by rubbing with a bow, or by striking. Common chordophones are the banjo, cello, double bass, dulcimer, guitar, harp, lute, piano, sitar, ukulele, viola and violin
5.
Range (music)
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In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range, the range of a musical part is the distance between its lowest and highest note. The terms sounding range, written range, designated range, duration range, a piccolo, for example, typically has a sounding range one octave higher than its written range. The designated range is the set of notes the player should or can achieve while playing, all instruments have a designated range, and all pitched instruments have a playing range. Timbre, dynamics, and duration ranges are interrelated and one may achieve registral range at the expense of timbre, the designated range is thus the range in which a player is expected to have comfortable control of all aspects. The duration range is the difference between the shortest and longest rhythm used, dynamic range is the difference between the quietest and loudest volume of an instrument, part or piece of music. Although woodwind instruments and string instruments have no upper limit to their range. Brass instruments, on the hand, can play beyond their designated ranges. Notes lower than the brass instruments designated range are called pedal tones, the playing range of a brass instrument depends on both the technical limitations of the instrument and the skill of the player. Classical arrangements seldom make woodwind or brass instruments play beyond their designed range, string musicians play the bottom of their ranges very frequently, but the top of a string instruments range is rather fuzzy, and it is unusual for a string player to exceed the designated range. It is quite rare for wind musicians to play the extremes of their instruments, the most common exception is that in many 20th century works, pedal tones are called for in bass trombones. This chart uses standard numberings for octaves where middle C corresponds to C4, in the MIDI language middle C is referred to as MIDI note number 60. The lowest note that an organ can sound is C−1. However, if acoustic combination counts, the lowest note is C−2, *This chart only displays down to C0, though some pipe organs, such as the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, extend down to C−1. Also, the frequency of the subcontrabass tuba is B♭−1
6.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
7.
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
8.
Mandola
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The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin, the four courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola. The mandola, although now rarer, is the ancestor of the mandolin, the name mandola may originate with the ancient pandura, and was also rendered as mandora, the change perhaps having been due to approximation to the Italian word for almond. The instrument developed from the lute at a date, being more compact and cheaper to build. Historically related instruments include the mandore, mandole, vandola, bandola, bandora, however, significantly different instruments have at times and places taken on the same or similar names, and the true mandola has been strung in several different ways. The mandola has four courses of metal strings, tuned in unison rather than in octaves. The scale length is typically around 42 cm, the mandola is typically played with a plectrum. The double strings accommodate a sustaining technique called tremolando, an alternation of the plectrum on a single course of strings. The mandola is commonly used in folk music—particularly Italian folk music and it is sometimes played in Irish traditional music, but the instruments octave mandola, Irish bouzouki and modern cittern are more commonly used. It is tuned like a viola CGDA, like the guitar, the mandola can be acoustic or electric. Attila the Stockbroker, punk poet and frontman of Barnstormer, uses an electric mandola as his main instrument, alex Lifeson, guitarist of Rush, has also featured the mandola in his work. Mandolas are often played in orchestras, along with other members of the mandolin family, mandolin, mandocello. Sometimes the octave mandolin is included as well, Mandolin Mando-bass Octave mandola - Tuned an octave below the mandolin Mandocello - Tuned an octave below the mandola Irish bouzouki Troughton, John. Mandolin Manual, The Art, Craft and Science of the Mandolin, united States, Crowood Press, Limited, The. The Tenor Mandola Chord Bible, CGDA Standard Tuning 1,728 Chords, Chords for Mandolin, Irish Bango, Bouzouki, Mandola, Mamdocello. — A chord book featuring 20 pages of popular chords, the Mandolin Page theMandolinTuner, a mandolin site focusing on mandolin tuning, chords and tabs
9.
Mandolin
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A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or pick. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five, the courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello. There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-back has a bottom, constructed of strips of wood. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a shallower, arched back. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and traditional music, carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are used in Irish, British and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature a fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course. There has also been a type and an instrument with sixteen-strings. Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard, pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, and were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, the modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections, there is usually one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic f. A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling, Mandolins evolved from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the deep bowled mandolin, produced particularly in Naples, became common in the 19th century. Dating to around c.13,000 BC, a painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed, since each string played a note, adding strings added new notes, creating bow harps, harps. In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords, another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute
10.
Tenor banjo
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The banjo is a four-, five- or six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is made of plastic, although animal skin is still occasionally but rarely used. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, the banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a place in African American traditional music. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music and it is also very frequently used in Traditional Jazz. The modern banjo derives from instruments that had used in the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West Africa. Written references to the banjo in North America appear in the 18th century, the etymology of the name banjo is uncertain. The word could have come from the Yoruba word Bami jo and it may derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza. A Banza, a five double string courses Portuguese viuhela with two short strings, mbanza is a string African instrument that has been built after the Portuguese Banza. Banza is quite similar to Banjo, various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin head and gourd body. Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century, 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, banza, bonjaw, banjer and banjar. Instruments similar to the banjo have been played in many countries, another likely relative of the banjo is the akonting, a spike folk lute played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Early, African-influenced banjos were built around a body and a wooden stick neck. These instruments had varying numbers of strings, though often including some form of drone, the five-string banjo was popularized by Joel Walker Sweeney, an American minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage and his version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth string. This new banjo was at first tuned dGdf♯a, though by the 1890s this had been transposed up to gcgbd, Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeneys group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls. In the Antebellum South, many black slaves played the banjo, two techniques closely associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand fingering pattern that consist of eight notes that subdivide each measure
11.
Ukulele
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The ukulele, sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments, it generally employs four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings. Some strings may be paired in courses, giving the instrument a total of six or eight strings and it gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century and from there spread internationally. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction, ukuleles commonly come in four sizes, soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. The ukulele is commonly associated with music from Hawaii where the name translates as jumping flea. Legend attributes it to the nickname of the Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākauas officers, because of his size, fidgety manner. According to Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, the means the gift that came here, from the Hawaiian words uku. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, one of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings,50,000 schoolchildren and adults learned ukulele through the Doane program at its peak. Today, a program created by James Hill and J. Chalmers Doane continues to be a staple of music education in Canada. The ukulele came to Japan in 1929 after Hawaiian-born Yukihiko Haida returned to the country upon his fathers death, Haida and his brother Katsuhiko formed the Moana Glee Club, enjoying rapid success in an environment of growing enthusiasm for Western popular music, particularly Hawaiian and jazz. During World War II, authorities banned most Western music, but fans and players kept it alive in secret, in 1959, Haida founded the Nihon Ukulele Association. Today, Japan is considered a home for Hawaiian musicians. Demand surged in the new century because of its simplicity and portability. The ukulele was popularized for an audience during the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The Hawaiian Pavilion featured a guitar and ukulele ensemble, George E. K. Awai and his Royal Hawaiian Quartet, the popularity of the ensemble with visitors launched a fad for Hawaiian-themed songs among Tin Pan Alley songwriters. The ensemble also introduced both the lap steel guitar and the ukulele into U. S. mainland popular music, where it was taken up by vaudeville performers such as Roy Smeck and Cliff Ukulele Ike Edwards. On April 15,1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, Smeck appeared, playing the ukulele, in Stringed Harmony, a short film made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. On August 6,1926, Smeck appeared playing the ukulele in a short film His Pastimes, made in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process, the ukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age
12.
Steel-string guitar
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The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the classical guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. It is often referred to simply as a guitar, though the nylon-strung classical guitar is also sometimes called an acoustic guitar. The most common type is called a flat top guitar, to distinguish it from the more specialized archtop guitar. The standard tuning for a guitar is E-A-D-G-B-E, although many players, particularly fingerpickers, use alternate tunings, such as open G, open D. There are many variations in construction and materials used in steel-string guitars, different combinations of woods and construction elements affect the timbre or tone of the guitar. Many players and luthiers are convinced that a well-made guitars tone improves over time, acoustic guitars are commonly constructed in several different body types. The proportion and overall size of two parts helps determine the overall tonal balance and native sound of a particular body style – the larger the body. The 00, also called the Double-Oh or the Grand Concert and it has the thinnest soundbox and the smallest overall size of the major styles, making it very comfortable to play but also one of the quietest. Its smaller size makes it suitable for younger or smaller-framed players and these guitars are commonly called parlor steels as they are well-suited to smaller rooms. Martins 00-xxx series and Taylors x12 series are common examples, the Grand Auditorium guitar, sometimes called the 000 or the Triple-Oh, is very similar in design to the Grand Concert, but slightly wider and deeper. Many 000-style guitars also have a back panel to increase the volume of space in the soundbox without making the soundbox deeper at the edges. Eric Claptons signature Martin guitar, for example, is of this style, Martins 000-xxx series and Taylors x14 series are well-known examples of the Grand Auditorium style. The Dreadnought style was designed by Martin Guitars to produce a deeper sound than classic-style guitars and this body styles combination of a small profile with a deep sound has made it immensely popular, and it has since been copied by virtually every major steel-string luthier. Martins D series guitars, such as the highly-prized D-28, are examples of the Dreadnought. This comes at the expense of being oversized, with a very deep sounding box, the foremost example of this style is the Gibson J-200, but like the Dreadnought, most guitar manufacturers have at least one jumbo model. Any of these body type can optionally incorporate a cutaway, a cutaway guitar has a redesigned upper bout that removes a section of the soundbox on the underside of the neck, hence the name cutaway. This allows for access to the frets that are located on top of the soundbox past the heel of the neck. The tradeoff is reduced soundbox volume, and often a change in bracing, the 12-string guitar replaces each single string with a course of two strings
13.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
14.
Gibson Guitar Company
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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.
C. F. Martin & Company
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Martin & Company is an American guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. Martin is highly regarded for its guitars and is a leading manufacturer of flat top guitars. Martin instruments can sell for thousands of dollars, and vintage instruments occasionally command six-figure prices, the company has also made mandolins as well as several models of electric guitars and electric basses, although none of these other instruments are currently in production. The companys headquarters and primary factory are situated in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the building includes the Martin Guitar Museum, which features over 170 guitars made by the company over its history. Visitors can see pictures of famous guitar owners, try out some guitars, Martin also manufactures instruments in Navojoa, Mexico. Martin produced 182 instruments during 1901, increasing to 56,422 in 2000, the company has been run by the Martin family throughout its history. The current chairman and CEO, C. F, Chris Martin IV, is the great-great-great-grandson of the founder. The firm was the first to many of the characteristic features of the modern flat top. Influential Martin innovations include the Dreadnought body style and scalloped bracing, C. F. Martin was born in 1796 in Markneukirchen, Germany, and came from a long line of cabinet makers and woodworkers. His father, Johann Georg Martin, also built guitars, by the age of 15, according to the book Martin Guitars, A History by Mike Longworth, C. F. Martin apprenticed to Johann Georg Stauffer, a well-known guitar maker in Vienna, Austria. Martin returned to his hometown after completing training and opened his own guitar-making shop, however, he soon became embroiled in a controversy between two guilds. In the early 1800s, European craftsmen still operated under the guild system, the guitar was a relatively new instrument, and most guitar makers were members of the Cabinet Makers Guild. However, the Violin Makers Guild claimed exclusive rights to manufacture musical instruments, the Violin Makers Guild filed appeals on three occasions—the first in 1806—to prevent cabinet makers from producing guitars. Johann Martin is mentioned in a surviving submission dated 1832, although the cabinet makers successfully defended their right to build guitars, C. F. Martin believed that the guild system was too restrictive and moved to New York City in 1833. By 1838, he moved his business to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, the Martin company is generally credited with developing the X-bracing system during the 1850s although C. F. Martin did not apply for a patent on the new bracing system. The Martin company was the first to use X-bracing on a large scale, from the 1860s on, fan bracing became standard in Europe. Martin and other American builders including Washburn and others since forgotten used X-bracing instead, the growing popularity of the guitar in the early 1900s led to a demand for louder and more percussive guitars. In response, many began to use metal strings instead of the traditional catgut
16.
Lute
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The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an instrument, especially in vocal works. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, the words lute and oud possibly derive from Arabic al-ʿud. Recent research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests ʿud may in turn be an Arabized version of the Persian name rud and it has equally been suggested the wood in the name may have distinguished the instrument by its wooden soundboard from skin-faced predecessors. Gianfranco Lotti suggests the wood appellation originally carried derogatory connotations because of proscriptions of all music in early Islam. Lutes are made almost entirely of wood, the soundboard is a teardrop-shaped thin flat plate of resonant wood. In all lutes the soundboard has a single decorated sound hole under the strings called the rose. The sound hole is not open, but rather covered with a grille in the form of a vine or a decorative knot. Robert Lundberg, in his book Historical Lute Construction, suggests ancient builders placed bars according to ratios of the scale length. He further suggests the inward bend of the soundboard is an adaptation by ancient builders to afford the lutenists right hand more space between the strings and soundboard. Soundboard thickness varies, but generally hovers between 1.5 and 2 mm, some luthiers tune the belly as they build, removing mass and adapting bracing to produce desirable sonic results. The lute belly is almost never finished, but in cases the luthier may size the top with a very thin coat of shellac or glair to help keep it clean. After joining the top to the sides, a half-binding is usually installed around the edge of the soundboard, the half-binding is approximately half the thickness of the soundboard and is usually made of a contrasting color wood. The rebate for the half-binding must be precise to avoid compromising structural integrity. The back or the shell is assembled from strips of hardwood called ribs. There are braces inside on the soundboard to give it strength, the neck is made of light wood, with a veneer of hardwood to provide durability for the fretboard beneath the strings. Unlike most modern stringed instruments, the fretboard is mounted flush with the top
17.
Archtop guitar
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His 1898 patent for a mandolin, which was also applicable to guitars according to the specifications, was intended to enhance power and quality of tone. However, Gibson was not the first to apply design principles to the guitar. Back obtained patent #508,858 in 1893 for a guitar that among other features included an arched top, another transitional design is the parlor guitar fitted with a floating bridge and tailpiece. These inexpensive instruments, manufactured by such as Stella and Harmony, are associated with early blues musicians. The earliest Gibson designs introduced the arched top, and increasing body sizes, in 1922, Lloyd Loar was hired by the Gibson Company to redesign their instrument line in an effort to counter flagging sales, and in that same year the Gibson L5 was released to his design. Perhaps the most revered instrument from this period is the F5 mandolin, but probably the more influential was the L5 guitar. The mature Gibson archtop guitar and its imitators are regarded as the quintessential jazzbox, in Europe, companies such as Framus, Höfner and Hagström took up the manufacture of archtops. Archtop guitars were particularly adopted by jazz and country musicians, and in big bands and swing bands. Gibsons ES-150 guitar is generally recognized as the worlds first commercially successful Spanish-style electric guitar, the ES stands for Electric Spanish, and it was designated 150 because it cost $150, along with an EH-150 amplifier and a cable. After its introduction in 1936, it became popular in jazz orchestras of the period. Unlike the usual acoustic guitars utilized in jazz, it was enough to take a more prominent position in ensembles. The ES-150s top was not carved on the underside, making it unsuitable for acoustic use, in 1951, Gibson released the L5CES, an L5 with a single cutaway body and two electric pickups, equally playable as either an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. This innovation was immediately popular, and while purely acoustic archtop guitars such as the Gibson L-7C remain available to this day, they have become the exception. In 1958, the L5CES was redesigned with humbucking pickups, most, the electric archtop was particularly popular with jazz musicians Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel and Johnny Smith. Other manufacturers introduced electric archtop guitars, notable including the Gretsch White Falcon. Some of these instruments have a distinctive sound and were taken up by country music and early rock and roll artists such as Duane Eddy. Similar models remain popular in rockabilly, Gibsons last innovation in archtop design was the creation, in late 1950s, of thinline models with a reduced body depth, notably the Gibson ES-335 and Epiphone Casino. These were more resistant and easier to play standing up
18.
Epiphone
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Epiphone is an American musical instrument manufacturer founded by Anastasios Stathopoulos, currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1957 Epiphone, Inc. of New York was purchased by CMI and given the name Epiphone, Inc. of Kalamazoo, CMI took great measures to keep Gibson and Epiphone separate in different buildings each with its own management team. Epiphone is owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and was Gibsons main rival in the market prior to its acquisition in 1957. Their professional archtops, including the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway and Triumph, aside from guitars, Epiphone also made upright basses, banjos, and other stringed instruments. However, the weakness in the aftermath of World War II allowed Gibsons parent, CMI. The name Epiphone is a combination of proprietor Epaminondas Stathopoulos nickname Epi, Epiphone began in 1873, in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, where Greek founder Anastasios Stathopoulos made his own fiddles and lutes. Stathopoulo moved to the United States in 1903 and continued to make his original instruments, as well as mandolins, from Long Island City in Queens, Anastasios died in 1915, and his son, Epaminondas, took over. After two years, the became known as The House Of Stathopoulo. Just after the end of World War I, the company started to make banjos, the company produced its recording line of banjos in 1924 and, four years later, took on the name of the Epiphone Banjo Company. It produced its first guitars in 1928, after Epi died in 1943, control of the company went to his brothers, Orphie and Frixo. In 1951, a four-month-long strike forced a relocation of Epiphone from New York City to Philadelphia, in 1957 the company was acquired by CMI who also owned Gibson, Lowrey, Selmer and others, Gibson. After Epiphone became a subsidiary of Norlin, many of its instruments were later patterned after the more expensive Gibson versions, however, Epiphone also maintains its own line of archtop guitars and basses. As of January,2013, Epiphone makes the following guitars and this outfit was an amplifier, case and lap steel guitar stand all rolled into one unit and was supplied by a suitcase manufacturer of the time. Gibson produced Epiphone amplifiers in the 1960s and these were basically copies or variations of Gibson and Fender amplifiers. They used a design, and some had reverb and tremolo. Gibson decided to launch a new line of Epiphone amplifiers in 2005 with many different models, including the So Cal, Blues Custom, the Valve Hot Rod and Valve Senior were released in 2009. The Valve Hot Rod is a 5 watt amp like the Valve Junior, the Valve Senior offers 20 watts of power, with a full equalizer, gain, volume, reverb, and presence control. As of 2012, Epiphone has ceased production of their line of amplifiers with the exception of the Player and Performance Pack practice amplifiers and these Amplifiers are under the Epiphone Electar moniker
19.
Kay guitar company
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Kay Musical Instrument Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation since the 1930s until the 1960s. It was established in 1931 at Chicago, Illinois by Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet, Kay offered their first electric guitar in 1936—five years after the Rickenbacker Frying pan, and the same year as the Gibson ES-150. The Kay Musical Instrument Company grew from the Groeschel Mandolin Company in Chicago, in 1921, the company was renamed to Stromberg-Voisinet. In 1923, later president Henry Kay Hank Kuhrmeyer joined the company, the new company, Kay Musical Instruments was formally established in 1931 from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet company by Kuhrmeyer. Some of Kays lower-grade instruments were marketed under the Knox and Kent brand names, Kay also made guitar amplifiers, beginning with designs carried over from the old Stromberg company. Kay eventually subcontracted its amplifier production to Chicago music industry rival Valco in the 1950s, after the retirement of Kuhrmeyer in 1955, the company was taken over by Sidney M. Katz. The product line of Kay was shifted toward electric musical instruments on demands, and in 1964, in 1965 Katz sold Kay to Seeburg Corporation, and he became the head of Seeburgs musical instrument division. In 1967, Kay was resold and merged with Valco, the assets of Kay/Valco were auctioned off in 1969. The upright bass and cello lines were sold to Engelhardt-Link, a new company formed by a previous Valco member, which has continued production. The Kay name were acquired by Teisco importer, Weiss Musical Instruments, who put the Kay name on the Teisco products beginning in 1973, in 2008-2009, Kay Guitar Company in California reissued 12 models of vintage Kay guitars and basses manufactured by Fritz Brothers Guitars. As of 2013, production and sales of these guitars have continued, Kay was best known for its mid-priced guitars, as well as its budget instruments. Also, Kay produced a line of archtop acoustics called Kamico, Kay’s current line includes low priced acoustic, electric and bass guitars, and moderately priced banjos, ukuleles, mandolins and resonators. They also sell the Chicago Blues line of inexpensive harmonicas, one of the best known Kay electric guitars during the 1950s was the K-161 Thin Twin, most visibly used by blues artist Jimmy Reed. This instrument debuted in 1952, and featured a single body, a distinctive tortoiseshell pickguard. Kay used this type of pickups on various Kay electrics dating back to the 1940s, due to the use of K-162 by a bassist of Howlin Wolf, Andrew Blueblood McMahon, it is commonly known as the Howlin Wolf bass. These instruments are believed to be the first semi-hollow electrics, predating the Gibson ES-335 by six years and their unique design featured a flat top with no f-holes, a free-floating arched back, and two braces running along the top. The result was an instrument that was feedback-resistant while retaining natural acoustic resonances. In 1954, Kay added the K-160 bass to its catalog with baritone tuning, according to the catalog, tuned like the first four guitar strings, structurally this bass was basically same as K-162 bass, except for the higher pitched tuning and the addition of a white pickguard
20.
Gretsch
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Gretsch is an American company that manufactures guitars, basses and drums. The company was founded in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch, a 27-year-old German immigrant, Friedrich Gretsch manufactured banjos, tambourines, and drums until his death in 1895. In 1916, his son, Fred Gretsch Sr. moved operations to Brooklyn, most modern-era Gretsch guitars are manufactured in the Far East, though American-made Custom Shop models are available. In 2003, Gretsch entered an agreement with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. Under the terms of that agreement Fred W. Gretsch would retain ownership while FMIC would handle most of the development, distribution, Gretsch was founded in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch, a young German immigrant. His Brooklyn shop was designed for the manufacture of banjos, tambourines, in 1895, Gretsch died at the age of 39, and the then successful company was taken over by his son Fred Sr. By 1916, Fred had moved the company into a larger 10-story building in the Williamsburg district, chuck Berry also played the Duo Jet when he recorded his first major hit, Maybellene and is pictured on his LP After School Session. Two other models were introduced - the Country Club, and the White Falcon, Guitar production by the Gretsch Company began in the early 1930s, and Gretsch guitars became highly sought after, most notably in the 1950s and 1960s. They lost favor with players during the 1970s and 1980s for various reasons, Gretsch eventually went bankrupt, then was revived in 1989 by Fred W. Gretsch, a great-grandson of Friedrich Gretsch. Fred W. Gretsch remains president of the company, during this time, Chet Atkins became an endorser of Gretsch. Atkins was one of the pre-eminent guitarists of his day, and his endorsement gave Gretsch greater visibility in competition with Gibson and Fender. Gretsch ultimately sold thousands of guitars with Chets name on the pickguard, most notably the 6120 Chet Atkins model, the worldwide success of Eddys twangy instrumental records, television appearances, and extensive touring, helped expose the Gretsch guitar to the teenage rock and roll market. George Harrison, years later, would refer to model as the Eddie Cochran/Duane Eddy guitar. Other Chet Atkins models were the Country Gentleman and the Tennessean, many rockabilly players had followed in the footsteps of Eddie Cochran, who also wielded a 6120 and Gene Vincents guitarist Cliff Gallup, who played a Duo Jet. Elvis Presley later owned a Gretsch Country Gentleman—, playing it briefly both on stage and in the studio, Gretsch quickly became a legitimate competitor to both Gibson and its main rivals, Fender and Rickenbacker. Gretsch fortunes rose yet again in the sixties when George Harrison played a Gretsch Country Gentleman on The Ed Sullivan Show. Despite popular belief, he acquired two Country Gentleman guitars, his first was destroyed when it fell out of the trunk of a car on the roadway. He would later switch to a Gretsch Tennessean and his Country Gentleman made its last appearance in the video of Youre Going to Lose That Girl in the movie Help
21.
Guild Guitar Company
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The brand name currently exists as a brand under Córdoba Music Group. The first Guild workshop was located in Manhattan, New York, rapid expansion forced the company to move to much larger quarters, on Newark St. in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the old R. Neumann Leathers building. The company continued to expand, and was sold to the Avnet Corporation, as the folk scene quieted, a new generation of folk-rockers took Guild guitars on stage. The most notable Guild performance of that era was on the D-40 that Richie Havens played when he opened the Woodstock Festival in 1969, during the 1960s, Guild moved aggressively into the electric guitar market, successfully promoting the Starfire line of semi-acoustic and semi-solid guitars and basses. Alembic started their transition from sound and recording work to instrument building by modifying Lesh & Casadys Starfire basses, the rare S-200 Thunderbird solid body electric was used by Muddy Waters and The Lovin Spoonfuls Zal Yanovsky. Inspired by seeing Muddy Waters, Australian guitarist Ross Hannaford also acquired a Thunderbird, Guild also successfully manufactured the first dreadnought acoustic guitar which incorporates a cut-away in the lower shoulder of the instrument, known as the Guild D40-C. In 1972, under Guilds new president Leon Tell, noteworthy guitarist/designer Richard Rick Excellente conceptualized and initiated the first dreadnought guitar with a cut-away, the cut-away feature enables a player to have a more usable higher fret range. Upon the success of the Guild D-40C, other manufacturers followed suit. Today, Guild continues to manufacture the D-40C, and now and these guitars were the first Guild instruments to bear slim pointed headstocks, sometimes called pointy droopy, duck foot and cake knife for their distinctive shape. After several changes in management and ownership, Guild was eventually purchased by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation in 1995, in late 2001, Fender decided to move all Guild production to its factory in Corona, California. To ease the Corona facility into making archtop and acoustic guitars and these kits were near-complete production guitars that only needed finishing and final assembly before being sent to retailers. The New Hartford Guild facility began production in early 2009, starting with the D-55, production quickly ramped up to include most of the popular Traditional Series acoustic guitar models. Acoustic-Electric versions of models are also available. Starting with 2012 models, all US-built Guild Traditional Series guitars were available in right-, in 2011, Traditional Series models were improved by means of a new DTAR pickup system, which allows blending between an internal microphone element and an under-saddle transducer. Previous DTAR configurations only included an under-saddle transducer, also, hard shell case material has been upgraded to a high-end, faux alligator skin material with crushed velvet interior padding. In late 2010, Guild released its Standard Series acoustic guitars and these guitars have high-end features, but differences in ornamentation and instrument finish options make them more affordable. Standard Series models include the F-30, F-30R, F-50, D-40, D-50, in 2011, cutaway acoustic-electric versions of all Standard Series models were released. These guitars featured venetian cutaways and a DTAR 18V under-saddle pickup system and these models can be identified by the CE suffix at the end of the guitars model number
22.
National Reso-Phonic Guitars
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National Reso-Phonic Guitars is a manufacturer of resonator guitars and other resonator instruments including mandolins, ukuleles and 12 string guitars. The company was formed in 1989 by Don Young and McGregor Gaines, since 1990, the factory has been located in San Luis Obispo, California. Their current production is over 1000 instruments per annum, representing more than 50 different models, in addition to manufacturing new instruments, they offer a repair service capable of restoring almost any vintage National guitar to original condition. In 2008 Don Young and Eric Smith, an employee of the company since 1991, in 2012 Eric Smith became a 50% owner of National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Inc. then again in 2014 Eric Smith became sole owner after purchasing Dons remaining interest in the company. On Wednesday June 15,2016 Don Young died in San Luis Obispo, National Reso-Phonic Guitars model range includes not only the tricone and biscuit mechanisms used on the original National instruments, but also the inverted cone design used on the Dobro. Official website National Resonator Guitars - An American Tradition at the Bob Brozman official website
23.
Dobro
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The word Dobro is, in popular usage, the generic term for a wood-bodied, single cone resonator guitar. It is also an American brand of guitar, currently owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The Dobro was originally made by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company and their design, with a single inverted resonator, was introduced in competition to the patented Tricone and biscuit designs produced by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars, Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired the Dobro trademark in 1994. Although the name Dobro is generically associated with the single-inverted-cone design, the name originated in 1928 when the Dopyera brothers, John and Emil, formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. Dobro is both a contraction of Dopyera brothers and a word meaning goodness or goodwill in their native Slovak, an early company motto was Dobro means good in any language. The Dobro was the third resonator guitar design by John Dopyera, the inventor of the resonator guitar, unlike his earlier tricone design, the Dobro had a single resonator cone and it was inverted, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl shaped resonator, the Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce. In Dopyeras opinion, the cost of manufacture had priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players and his failure to convince his fellow directors at the National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single-cone version was part of his motivation for leaving. Since National had applied for a patent on the single cone, in the following years both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the Tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National director Adolph Rickenbacher, by 1934, the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, and they merged the companies to form the National-Dobro Corporation. From the outset, wooden bodies had been sourced from existing guitar manufacturers, Dobro had granted Regal a license to manufacture resonator instruments. By 1937, it was the manufacturer, and the license was officially made exclusive. Regal continued to manufacture and sell resonator instruments under many names, including Regal, Dobro, Old Kraftsman, however, they ceased all resonator guitar production following the United States entry into World War II in 1941. Emil Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959 under the brand name Doperas Original before selling the company, Moseley merged it with his Mosrite guitar company and manufactured Dobros for a time. Meanwhile, in 1967, Rudy and Emil Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, however, in 1970, they again acquired the Dobro name—Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation. The Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, along with the Dobro name and they renamed the company Original Acoustic Instruments and moved production to Nashville. Gibson now uses the name Dobro only for models with the design that the original Dobro Manufacturing Company used
24.
Harmony Company
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The Harmony Company was an American company that, in its heyday, was the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the USA. They made many types of stringed instruments, including ukuleles, acoustic and electric guitars, Harmony was founded in 1892 by Wilhelm Schultz. In 1916, Sears, Roebuck and Co. purchased it, at the time Harmony was led by Joe Kraus, who was chairman until 1940. In 1928, Harmony introduced the first of many Roy Smeck models and they sold 250,000 pieces in 1923 and 500,000 in 1930, including various models of guitars, banjos, and mandolins. In the late 1930s, the firm began making violins again after a 19-year hiatus and they also bought brand names from the bankrupt Oscar Schmidt Co. —La Scala, Stella, and Sovereign. They sold not only Harmony products, but instruments under the Sears name, Silvertone, and a variety of trade names—Vogue, Valencia, Johnny Marvin, Monterey, Stella, and others. In 1940, after Kraus had a conflict management, he left. The company peaked in 1964-1965, selling 350,000 instruments, between 1945 and 1975, the Chicago firm mass-produced about ten million guitars. The company reduced their output over the years, later focusing on student models sold through JCPenney, the pickups on almost all electric guitars and basses that Harmony produced were manufactured by Rowe Industries Inc. /H. N. Rowe & Company/Rowe DeArmond Inc. /DeArmond In. in Toledo, many of the instrument amplifiers badged with the Harmony name were manufactured by Sound Projects Company of Cicero, Illinois. The Harmony Guitar Company ceased in 1975, and sold the Harmony name, in the early 2000s, an unrelated company, the Westheimer Corp. based in Lake Barrington, Illinois briefly imported reissue Harmony guitars. Harmony Company models Oscar Schmidt Inc, related brands Stella Silvertone Airline Harmony Westheimer Guitars Company Website Harmony at National Music Museum
25.
Regal Musical Instrument Company
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The Regal Musical Instrument Company was established in 1908 in Chicago. By the 1930s, they were one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments in the world, Regal specialised in, Hi-End student instruments, sold under the Regal name through major Dealers. Custom-built instruments, produced for professional musicians in the Regal custom shop, the bodies of their Laminated bellied guitars were particularly suited to resonator conversion. Production of resonator guitars ceased in 1941, and of all fretted instruments in 1954, however, in 1965, Fender distributed five models of banjo under the Regal name, as the exclusive distributors. In 1987 the Regal name and trademark reappeared as a brand of Saga Musical Instruments, most notable for their 4-string bass resonator guitars, Emil Wulschner & Son, Indianapolis, used the Regal brand name c. 1884-1901. The new owners of Emil Wulschner & Son renamed the company the Regal Musical instrument Manufacturing Company in 1901, lyon & Healy bought the rights to the Regal name in 1905 and used it until 1908. Http, //www. mugwumps. com/faq. htm Banjo FAQ. http, http, //invention. smithsonian. org/centerpieces/electricguitar/pop-ups/01-07. htm Metal-bodied Regal Dobro,1940, with historical background
26.
Stella (guitar)
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Stella was an American guitar brand owned by the Oscar Schmidt Company. The Stella brand consists of low and mid-level stringed instruments, Stella guitars were played by notable artists, including Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Charlie Patton, Doc Watson and Willie Nelson who learned to play on one. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana played an acoustic Stella on the recording of the song Polly, from the Nevermind album, Stella was acquired by the Harmony Company in 1939. The brand was dissolved in 1974, and was reintroduced by M. B. T. International, which is the parent of the Harmony Company. Stella was one of musical instrument brands made in Jersey City, New Jersey. Other Schmidt brands included Sovereign and La Scala, the company produced low and mid-level stringed instruments such as guitars, mandolins, banjos and autoharps. The company thrived during the first quarter of the 20th century, in 1920, the company was said to be the worlds largest manufacturer of stringed instruments. Stella instruments were noted for their tone and relatively low price. Top of the line Stella and Sovereign guitars cost a fraction of the lowest end Gibson or C. F. Martin instruments, after struggling through the Great Depression, the company sold their fretted instrument division in the late 1930s, but continued to make autoharps. Schmidts Stella, Sovereign and La Scala brands were acquired by the Harmony Company of Chicago, Harmony went on to produce student grade Stella instruments, as well as mid-level Sovereign guitars and banjos
27.
Solid body
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The most well-known solid body instruments are the electric guitar and electric bass. These were instrumental in creating new genres of such as rock. Common woods used in the construction of solid body instruments are ash, alder, maple, mahogany, korina, spruce, rosewood, the first two make up the majority of solid body electric guitars. Solid body instruments have some of the features as acoustic string instruments. Like a typical string instrument they have a neck with tuners for the strings, a bridge, the fretboard is a piece of wood placed on the top surface of the neck, extending from the head to the body. The strings run above the fingerboard, some fingerboards have frets or bars which the strings are pressed against. This allows musicians to stop the string in the same place, ebony, rosewood and maple are commonly used to make the fingerboard. Some electric guitar necks do not have a piece of wood for the fingerboard surface. All the solid bodies have variations in length or, the length of the strings from the nut to the bridge. The action, or the height of the strings from the fingerboard, is adjustable on solid body instruments, most solid bodies have controls for volume and tone. Some have an electronic preamplifier with equalization for low, middle and these are used to shape the sound along with the aid of the main amplifier. Amplifiers allow solid body instruments to be heard at high volumes when desired, while noting this, it will be assumed that electric lap steels without sounding boards are solid-body instruments for the purposes of this article. The first commercially successful solid-body instrument was the Rickenbacker frying pan lap steel guitar, the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar was the Fender Broadcaster in 1950. A trademark dispute with the Gretsch Corporation who marketed a line of Broadcaster drums led to a change to the current designation. Fender also produced a one pickup version called the Fender Esquire starting in 1950 and these were followed by the Gibson Les Paul in 1952. Solid Body Electric Guitars The solid body electric guitar is one of the most well-known solid body instruments, instrumental in rock, metal, blues, and country music, the electric guitar has been responsible for creating various sounds. There are some characteristics of solid body electric guitars. They typically have six strings although there are some seven- and eight-string models, most have at least a volume and tone control
28.
Viola
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The viola is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century it has been the middle or alto voice of the family, between the violin and the cello. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C3, G3, D4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style as did its names, the Italians often used the term, viola da braccio meaning literally, of the arm. Brazzo was another Italian word referring to the viola which the Germans adopted in the form, the French had their own names, Cinquiesme was a small viola, Haute Contre was a large viola and Taile meant Tenor. In the modern era, the French use the term Alto, the viola had enjoyed popularity in the heyday of five-part harmony up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music that is written for the viola differs from that of most other instruments in that it uses the alto clef. Viola music switches to the treble clef when there are sections of music written in a higher register to make the notes easier to read. The viola often plays the voices in string quartets and symphonic writing. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral music, examples include Don Quixote by Richard Strauss and Harold en Italie by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber, many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for Lionel Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Toru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, Paul Hindemith wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher. The concerti by Paul Hindemith, Béla Bartók, and William Walton are the big three of viola repertoire, the viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size violas body is between 25 mm and 100 mm longer than the body of a violin, with an average length of 41 cm. Small violas typically made for children typically start at 30 cm, for a child who needs a smaller size, a fractional-sized violin is often strung with the strings of a viola. Unlike the violin, the viola does not have a full size. The body of a viola would need to measure about 51 cm long to match the acoustics of a violin, there have been several experiments intended to increase the size of the viola, in the interest of improving the instruments sound
29.
Irish traditional music
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The folk music of Ireland is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres in Ireland. In A History of Irish Music, W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there were at least ten instruments in general use. These were the cruit and clairseach, the timpan, the feadan, the buinne, the guthbuinne, the bennbuabhal and corn, the cuislenna, the stoc and sturgan, there is also evidence of the fiddle being used in the 8th century. There are several collections of Irish folk music from the 18th century, important collectors include Colm Ó Lochlainn, George Petrie, Edward Bunting, Francis ONeill, James Goodman and many others. Irish traditional music has survived more strongly against the forces of cinema, radio and this was possibly because the country was not a geographical battleground in either of the two world wars. Another potential factor was that the economy was agricultural, where oral tradition usually thrives. From the end of the world war until the late fifties folk music was held in low regard. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and the popularity of the Fleadh Cheoil helped lead the revival of the music, the English Folk music scene also encouraged and gave self-confidence to many Irish musicians. Following the success of The Clancy Brothers in the USA in 1959, the lush sentimental style of singers such as Delia Murphy was replaced by guitar-driven male groups such as The Dubliners. Irish showbands presented a mixture of pop music and folk dance tunes, the international success of The Chieftains and subsequent musicians and groups has made Irish folk music a global brand. Historically much old-time music of the USA grew out of the music of Ireland, England and Scotland, by the 1970s Irish traditional music was again influencing music in the USA and further afield in Australia and Europe. It has occasionally been fused with rock and roll, punk rock, like all traditional music, Irish folk music has changed slowly. Most folk songs are less than two hundred years old, one measure of its age is the language used. Modern Irish songs are written in English and Irish, most of the oldest songs and tunes are rural in origin and come from the older Irish language tradition. Modern songs and tunes often come from cities and towns, Irish songs went from the Irish language to the English language, unaccompanied vocals are called sean nós and are considered the ultimate expression of traditional singing. Sean-nós singing is highly ornamented and the voice is placed towards the top of the range, a true sean-nós singer will vary the melody of every verse, but not to the point of interfering with the words, which are considered to have as much importance as the melody. To the first-time listener, accustomed to pop and classical singers, sean-nós often sounds more Arabic, non-sean-nós traditional singing, even when accompaniment is used, uses patterns of ornamentation and melodic freedom derived from sean-nós singing, and, generally, a similar voice placement. Caoineadh /kˠi, nʲɪ/ is Irish for a lament, a song which is typified by lyrics which stress sorrow, traditionally, the Caoineadh song contained lyrics in which the singer lamented for Ireland after having been forced to emigrate due to political or financial reasons
30.
Octave mandolin
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The octave mandolin is a fretted string instrument with four pairs of strings tuned in fifths, G, D, A, E, an octave below a mandolin. It has a 20 to 23-inch scale length and its construction is similar to instruments in the mandolin family. Alternate tunings of G, D, A, D and A, D, A, D are often employed by Celtic musicians, Octave mandolins are sometimes used in mandolin orchestras in place of mandolas. The mandolinists thus avoid learning to read music on the alto clef, music for the mandolin is usually written on the more familiar treble clef. The names of the mandolin family instruments vary between Europe and the United States. The instruments that are known in the USA as the mandola and the octave mandolin tend to be known in Great Britain and Ireland as the tenor mandola, also, octave mandola is sometimes applied to what in the U. S. is a mandocello. In Europe outside the British isles, mandola is the larger GDAE tuned instrument while the smaller CGDA tuned one is known as alt-mandoline and this geographic distinction is not crisp, and there are cases of each term being used in each country. Jimmy Moon, a Scottish luthier calls his version of the instrument by both names and Paul Shippey, an English luthier, uses the term octave mandolin, confusion will likely continue as the terms continue to be used interchangeably. Irish bouzouki Mandocello Mando-bass Stringed instrument tunings Octave mandolin at Banjolin gives an explanation of why Europeans use the term Octave Mandola. John McGann on Octave Mandolin John McGann, author of Guide to Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki proposes standardized terminology, theMandolinTuner, a mandolin site focusing on mandolin tuning, chords and tabs Richards, Tobe A. The Octave Mandolin Chord Bible, GDAE Standard Tuning 2,160 Chords, a Guide to Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki
31.
Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
32.
Octave
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In music, an octave or perfect octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. It is defined by ANSI as the unit of level when the base of the logarithm is two. The octave relationship is a phenomenon that has been referred to as the basic miracle of music. The most important musical scales are written using eight notes. For example, the C major scale is typically written C D E F G A B C, two notes separated by an octave have the same letter name and are of the same pitch class. Three commonly cited examples of melodies featuring the perfect octave as their opening interval are Singin in the Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave. The octave has occasionally referred to as a diapason. To emphasize that it is one of the intervals, the octave is designated P8. The octave above or below a note is sometimes abbreviated 8a or 8va, 8va bassa. For example, if one note has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note one octave above is at 880 Hz, the ratio of frequencies of two notes an octave apart is therefore 2,1. Further octaves of a note occur at 2n times the frequency of that note, such as 2,4,8,16, etc. and the reciprocal of that series. For example,55 Hz and 440 Hz are one and two away from 110 Hz because they are 1⁄2 and 4 times the frequency, respectively. After the unison, the octave is the simplest interval in music, the human ear tends to hear both notes as being essentially the same, due to closely related harmonics. Notes separated by a ring together, adding a pleasing sound to music. For this reason, notes an octave apart are given the note name in the Western system of music notation—the name of a note an octave above A is also A. The conceptualization of pitch as having two dimensions, pitch height and pitch class, inherently include octave circularity, thus all C♯s, or all 1s, in any octave are part of the same pitch class. Octave equivalency is a part of most advanced cultures, but is far from universal in primitive. The languages in which the oldest extant written documents on tuning are written, leon Crickmore recently proposed that The octave may not have been thought of as a unit in its own right, but rather by analogy like the first day of a new seven-day week
33.
Slide guitar
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Slide guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. Instead of altering the pitch of the strings in the manner, an object called a slide is placed upon the string to vary its vibrating length. This slide can then be moved along the string without lifting, creating smooth transitions in pitch and allowing wide, Slide guitar is most often played, With the guitar in the normal position, using a slide on one of the fingers of the left hand. This same technique is used to play steel guitar and the Dobro resonator guitar used in Bluegrass music. The technique of using a slide on a string has been traced to one-stringed African instruments similar to a Diddley bow, the technique was made popular by African American blues artists. The first musician recorded using the style was Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two solo pieces Guitar Blues and Guitar Rag in 1923, Blues legend Muddy Waters was also very influential, particularly in developing the electric Chicago blues slide guitar from the acoustic Mississippi Delta slide guitar. Texas blues musician Johnny Winter developed his style through years of touring with Waters. Slide player Roy Rogers honed his skills by touring with blues artist John Lee Hooker. John Lees cousin Earl Hooker may have been the first to use wah-wah, the sound has since become commonplace in country and Hawaiian music. The Rolling Stones featured a guitar as early as their 1963 recording of the John Lennon/Paul McCartney song I Wanna Be Your Man. Guitarist Brian Jones played slide in a very blues-oriented style, Jones was also one of the first English guitarists to play slide and during the bands early years, he was considered one of the best slide guitarists in the music world. His successors Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood also displayed their own slide guitar skills while with the band, the album Let It Bleed features Keith Richards on slide guitar for the majority of the album, since the band were in-between guitarists during the making of the album. Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger has also played guitar on occasion. Canned Heats Alan Wilson also helped bring slide guitar to music in the late 1960s. George Harrison experimented with slide guitar during the half of The Beatles career, first using the technique on an early outtake recording of Strawberry Fields Forever. The 1965 songs Drive My Car, and Run For Your Life have slide guitar, Harrison later used slide extensively in his solo career, on songs such as My Sweet Lord, Give Me Love, This Is Love, and Cheer Down. He played slide in the Traveling Wilburys as well as on The Beatles 1995 and 1996 reunion singles Free as a Bird, slides may be used on any guitar, but slides generally and steels in particular are often used on instruments specifically made to play in this manner. Often, the strings are raised a little higher off the fingerboard than they would be for conventional guitar playing—especially if the player isnt going to use the fingers for fretting
34.
Rhythm guitar
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Therefore, the basic technique of rhythm guitar is to hold down a series of chords with the fretting hand while strumming rhythmically with the other hand. More developed rhythm techniques include arpeggios, damping, riffs, chord solos, in big band music, the guitarist is considered part of the rhythm section, alongside bass and drums. In some musical situations, such as a solo singer-guitarist, the guitar accompaniment provides all the rhythmic drive, in the most commercially available and consumed genres, electric guitars tend to dominate their acoustic cousins in both the recording studio and the live venue. However the acoustic guitar remains a popular choice in country, western and especially bluegrass music, most rhythms in rock and blues are based on 4/4 time with a backbeat, however, many variations are possible. A backbeat is a syncopated accentuation on the off beat, in a simple 4/4 rhythm these are beats 2 and 4. This requires rhythm guitarists to have a knowledge of how to use chord voicings, riffs. Three-chord progressions are common in pop and rock, using various combinations of the I, IV and V chords. Minor and modal chord progressions feature in popular music. One departure from the basic strummed chord technique is to play arpeggios, if this is done rapidly enough, listeners will still hear the sequence as harmony rather than melody. Arpeggiation is often used in folk, country, and heavy metal and it is also prominent in 1960s pop, such as The Animals House of the Rising Sun, and jangle pop from the 1980s onwards. Rhythm guitarists who use arpeggio often favor semi-acoustic guitars and twelve string guitars to get bright, the Soukous band TPOK Jazz additionally featured the unique role of mi-solo, guitarist, playing arpeggio patterns and filling a role between the lead and rhythm guitars. In some cases, the progression is implied with a simplified sequence of two or three notes, sometimes called a riff, that is repeated throughout the composition. In heavy metal music, this is expanded to more complex sequences comprising a combination of chords, single notes. The rhythm guitar part in compositions performed by more technically oriented bands often include riffs employing complex lead guitar techniques, in bands with two or more guitarists, the guitarists may exchange or even duplicate roles for different songs or different sections within a song. In those with a single guitarist, the guitarist may play lead and rhythm at different times or simultaneously, some rhythm techniques cross over into lead guitar playing. In guitar-bass-and-drums power trios guitarists must double up between rhythm and lead, for instance Jimi Hendrix combined full chords with solo licks, double stops and arpeggios. A recent innovation is the use of a pedal to record a chord sequence or riff over which the lead line can then be played. As a result, rhythm and lead players may use different guitars and amplifiers, Rhythm guitarists may employ an electric acoustic guitar or a humbucker-equipped electric guitar for a richer and fatter output
35.
Reentrant tuning
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On a stringed instrument, a break in an otherwise ascending order of string pitches is known as a re-entry. A re-entrant tuning, therefore, is a tuning where the strings are not all ordered from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch, most common re-entrant tunings have only one re-entry. In the case of the ukulele, for example, the re-entry is between the third and fourth strings, while in the case of the Venezuelan cuatro it is between the first and second strings. Ukuleles other than the tenor and baritone are most commonly tuned in re-entrant fashion and these conventional re-entrant tunings are sometimes known as high 4th tunings. Non re-entrant tunings, also known as low 4th tunings, exist for these instruments, the Andean charango, a small 5-course, 10-string guitar frequently made from an armadillo shell, is most usually tuned in re-entrant fashion, with re-entry between the third and second courses. Other members of the family, such as the hualaycho and charangon are usually similarly tuned, the ronroco is often. The ten string guitar was originally designed for a specific re-entrant tuning invented by Narciso Yepes. Both this and other re-entrant tunings, such as the Marlow tunings, are now used and these tunings may also be used on related instruments, such as ten string electric and jazz guitars. The Venezuelan cuatro is a member of the family, smaller in size. The cuatro is similar in size and construction to the ukulele and it is one of several South American instruments by the name of cuatro, despite of the name, not all instruments called Cuatro have four strings, but the Venezuelan Cuatro, preserves this number of strings. The traditional Camburpinton tuning is re-entrant, but with the re-entry between the second and first strings, rather than third and fourth as in the ukulele. The results are different in tone. Other tunings of the Venezuelan cuatro are not re-entrant however they are not as popular as the Camburpinton tuning, note that there is also a 10-string/5-course Puerto Rican cuatro which is not tuned re-entrantly, but in straight fourths. A variety of tunings are used for the four string tenor guitar, one example of a re-entrant tuning for tenor guitar is D4–G3–B3–E4 with strings 3–1 as for the normal 6-string guitar, but string 4 tuned to D an octave above the 4th string of the 6 string guitar. The five string banjo is used in bluegrass music and old-time music. The four string plectrum banjo, and the four string tenor banjo, lack this shorter string, see also the detailed articles on particular instruments
36.
Banjo
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The banjo is a four-, five- or six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is made of plastic, although animal skin is still occasionally but rarely used. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, the banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a place in African American traditional music. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music and it is also very frequently used in Traditional Jazz. The modern banjo derives from instruments that had used in the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West Africa. Written references to the banjo in North America appear in the 18th century, the etymology of the name banjo is uncertain. The word could have come from the Yoruba word Bami jo and it may derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza. A Banza, a five double string courses Portuguese viuhela with two short strings, mbanza is a string African instrument that has been built after the Portuguese Banza. Banza is quite similar to Banjo, various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin head and gourd body. Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century, 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, banza, bonjaw, banjer and banjar. Instruments similar to the banjo have been played in many countries, another likely relative of the banjo is the akonting, a spike folk lute played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Early, African-influenced banjos were built around a body and a wooden stick neck. These instruments had varying numbers of strings, though often including some form of drone, the five-string banjo was popularized by Joel Walker Sweeney, an American minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage and his version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth string. This new banjo was at first tuned dGdf♯a, though by the 1890s this had been transposed up to gcgbd, Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeneys group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls. In the Antebellum South, many black slaves played the banjo, two techniques closely associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand fingering pattern that consist of eight notes that subdivide each measure
37.
Eddie Condon
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Albert Edwin Condon, better known as Eddie Condon, was an American jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in Chicago jazz, he played piano. Condon was born in Goodland, Indiana, the son of John and he grew up in Momence, Illinois, and Chicago Heights, Illinois, where he attended St. Agnes and Bloom High School. After playing ukulele, he switched to banjo and was a musician by 1921. He was based in Chicago for most of the 1920s, and played with such notables as Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden. In 1928, Condon moved to New York City and he frequently arranged jazz sessions for various record labels, sometimes playing with the artists he brought to the recording studios, including Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. He organised racially integrated recording sessions—when these were still rare—with Waller, Armstrong and he played with the band of Red Nichols for a time. Later, from 1938 he had an association with Milt Gablers Commodore Records. A handful of records were issued under his own name, a July 28,1928 two-song session was recorded for OKeh, on October 30,1928, an OKeh was issued as Eddie Condon and his Footwarmers, featuring Jack Teagarden. A further session on February 8,1929 yielded a record issued under the name Eddie Hot Shots, in 1933, a further two sessions were recorded for Brunswick consisting of 6 recordings, only 2 of which were released in the US. From 1938 on, Condon recorded for Commodore and one session for Decca, from the late 1930s on he was a regular at the Manhattan jazz club Nicks. The sophisticated variation on Dixieland music which Condon and his colleagues created there came to be nicknamed Nicksieland, by this time, his regular circle of musical associates included Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, George Brunies, Edmond Hall, and Pee Wee Russell. In 1939, he appeared with Bobby Hacket and Band in the Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film musical short-subject, Condon did a series of jazz radio broadcasts from New Yorks Town Hall during 1944–45 which were nationally popular. These recordings survive, and have issued on the Jazzology label. In the 1950s Condon recorded a sequence of albums for Columbia Records. Condon toured Britain in 1957 with a band including Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder and his last tour was in 1964, when he took a band to Australia and Japan. Condons men, on tour, were top mainstream jazz musicians, Buck Clayton, Pee Wee Russell, Vic Dickenson, Bud Freeman, Dick Cary, Jack Lesberg, Cliff Leeman. In 1948, Condons autobiography We Called It Music was published, Eddie Condons Treasury of Jazz was a collection of articles co-edited by Condon and Richard Gehman
38.
Bob Brozman
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Bob Brozman was an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist. Brozman was born to a Jewish family living on Long Island, New York and he began playing the guitar when he was 6. He performed in a number of styles, including jazz, calypso, blues, ragtime, Hawaiian music. He also collaborated with musicians from diverse backgrounds, from India, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea. He has been called a wizard and a walking archive of 20th Century American music. Brozman maintained a steady schedule throughout the year, touring constantly throughout North America, Europe, Australia, Asia and he recorded numerous albums and has won the Guitar Player Readers Poll three times in the categories Best Blues, Best World and Best Slide Guitarist. In 1999, Brozman and Woody Mann founded International Guitar Seminars, which hosts over 120 students annually at sites in California, New York, from 2000 to 2005 his collaborations landed in the European Top 10 for World Music five times. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Contemporary Music Studies at Macquarie University, in Sydney. Brozman was well known for his use of National resonator instruments from the 1920s and 1930s and he also used Weissenborn-style hollow-neck acoustic steel guitars. Among his National instruments were a version of the tricone guitar. This instrument is now part of Nationals range of products, Brozman committed suicide on April 23,2013. Your Pal Blue Hula Stomp Snapping the Strings Hello Central. Give Me Dr, six Days in Down, with Dónal OConnor and John McSherry Fire in the Mind Douse, Cliff. The Guitarist Book of Guitar Players, Music Maker Books,1994, ISBN 978-1870951227 Gregory, the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Third edition, Macmillan,1998, ISBN9780195313734 Bob Brozman at the Internet Movie Database Bob Brozman biography - from his website. Santa Cruz Weekly article on his death Bear Creek Guitars Bob Brozman page Homespuntapes. com The Department of Contemporary Music Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia 2006 Interview
39.
Louis Armstrong
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Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo or Satch, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s and he was also skilled at scat singing. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to cross over and he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were restricted for black men of his era. Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4,1900, although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date, August 4,1901, was discovered by the researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records. Armstrong was born into a family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He spent his youth in poverty, in a neighborhood known as the Battlefield. His father, William Armstrong, abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and his mother, Mary Mayann Albert, then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins, in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times his uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother, her relatives and he attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille, after dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble, Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong to play by ear at Dago Tonys Tonk in New Orleans, although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. It has given me something to live for and he also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk-hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family, knowing he lived without a father and he later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La. the Year of 1907. Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them, how to live—real life, professor Peter Davis instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader, the home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career. At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new stepmother, Gertrude, Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponces, where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night, later, he played in brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as going to the University, in 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Orys band, Armstrong replaced him
40.
Tony Parenti
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Tony Parenti was an American jazz clarinettist and saxophonist born in New Orleans, perhaps best known for his decades of work in New York City. Parenti was a musical prodigy, first on violin, then on clarinet. As a child he substituted for Alcide Nunez in Papa Jack Laines band, in New Orleans he also worked with Johnny Dedroit. During his early teens Parenti worked with the Nick LaRocca band, Parenti led his own band in New Orleans in the mid-1920s, making his first recordings there, before moving to New York City at the end of the decade. From 1939-1945 Parenti, with Ted Lewiss band, played alongside Muggsy Spanier, in 1944, he recorded and appeared in concert with Sidney Bechet and Max Miller in Chicago. He often appeared at such New York jazz spots as Nicks and Jimmy Ryan’s, Parenti remained active until the 1960s in clubs, and died in New York City on April 17,1972. Over his career, Parenti recorded on the labels of Jazzology, Southland and Fat Cat, dixie By The 7 UAL 28000/ Que JLS5000 Tony Parenti & His New Orleanians with Wild Bill Davison, Jimmy Archey, Art Hodes, Pops Foster, Arthur Trappier Ragtime Jubilee Ragtime. John Chilton, Da Capo,1972 Metronome Magazine, Dec 1946, Article by George Hoefer
41.
Hawaiian music
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The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaiis musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks, Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. Music of Hawaiian people is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting, Hawaiian music has had a notable impact on the music of other Polynesian islands, Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics. Aprils Aloha Week is a popular tourist attraction, as is the Molokai Music Festival held around Labor Day, there was also a Hawaii International Jazz Festival, which ran from 1993 until 2007. The annual Pacific Rim Jazz Festival occurs in mid-autumn at the Hawaii Convention Center, the annual Manoa Jazz & Heritage Festival takes place in early autumn at the Andrews Amphitheatre on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus. Large music venues in Hawaii include the University of Hawaii at Hilo Performing Arts Center, a 560-seat venue and cultural exhibition center on Kauai is the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. In Honolulu, the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena, Concert Hall, other venues for Hawaiian music on Oahu include the Waikiki Shell an establishment used primarily for concerts and entertainment purposes. Over the years local, as well as international artists have graced the stage there. It is unique outdoor theater located in Kapiolani Park and this venue seats 2,400 persons, with the capacity to hold up to 6,000 more on the lawn area. Concerts, graduation ceremonies and hula shows are popular at this site. The historic Lanai Theatre is a landmark on Lanai, dating back to the 1930s. Hawaii is home to a number of renowned institutions in several fields. The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is an important part of the musical history. The Orchestra has collaborated with local institutions, like the Hawaii Opera Theatre and the Oʻahu Choral Society, which sponsors the Honolulu Symphony Chorus. Numerous businesses have been created supporting the musical styles and instruments suited to the Hawaiian musical tradition. Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting and music meant for highly ritualized dance, Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology, and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is complex and rich in the poetry, accompanying mimetic dance, and subtleties of vocal styles
42.
Delmore Brothers
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Alton Delmore and Rabon Delmore, billed as The Delmore Brothers, were country music pioneers and stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s. The brothers were born into poverty in Elkmont, Alabama, as the sons of tenant farmers amid a rich tradition of gospel music and their mother, Mollie Delmore, wrote and sang gospel songs for their church. The Delmores blended gospel-style harmonies with the guitar work of traditional folk music. In addition to the regular six-string acoustic guitar, the duo was one of the few to use the rare tenor guitar, in 1925, 16-year-old Alton wrote his first song, which he co-wrote with his mother. It was published by Athens Music Co, the Brothers did their first recording session for Columbia in 1931, recording Ive Got the Kansas City Blues and Alabama Lullaby, which became their theme song. They signed a contract with Victors budget label Bluebird in 1933, within three years, they had become the most popular act on the show. Disagreements with Opry management led to the leaving the show in 1939. While they continued to play and record throughout the 1940s. In 1941, their song When Its Time for the Whippoorwill to Sing made the Billboard Hillbilly top three and their Freight Train Boogie is regarded by some as the first rock and roll record. Over the course of their careers, the Delmores wrote more than one thousand songs, some of the most popular were Browns Ferry Blues, Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar and Fifteen Miles from Birmingham. Rabon died of cancer in 1952, a day after his 36th birthday. Following Rabons death, Alton suffered an attack, the loss of his father and his daughter Susan. He moved back to Huntsville, Alabama and he taught some guitar, did odd jobs, and devoted his creative energies to writing prose. He wrote a series of stories and his autobiography, Truth is Stranger than Publicity. The Delmore Brothers were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and their pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Bob Dylan was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, on November 10,1985 as saying The Delmore Brothers, God, I think theyve influenced every harmony Ive ever tried to sing. 1920s, First Prize, duo awarded one sack of flour, martin & Co.180 Years of American Music History
43.
Louvin Brothers
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The Louvin Brothers were an American musical duo composed of brothers Ira Lonnie Loudermilk and Charlie Elzer Loudermilk, better known as Ira and Charlie Louvin. The brothers are cousins to John D. Loudermilk, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member, the brothers wrote and performed secular country music, as well as fire and brimstone Gospel music. Ira played virtuoso mandolin and generally sang lead vocal in the range, while Charlie played rhythm guitar. They helped popularize the technique of close harmony in country. Ira died in a accident in 1965. They were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001, the brothers adopted the name Louvin Brothers in the 1940s as they began their career in gospel music. Their first foray into music was the minor hit The Get Acquainted Waltz. Other hits included Cash on the Barrelhead and When I Stop Dreaming and they joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and stayed there until breaking up in 1963. Their songs were influenced by their Baptist faith and warned against sin. Nevertheless, Ira Louvin was notorious for his drinking, womanizing, when performing and drinking, Ira would sometimes become angry enough on stage to smash his mandolin when he was unable to tune it, and - when sober - glue it back together. Charlie strummed a guitar, grinned like a vaudevillian and handled the bottom register and this was more than close-harmony singing, each instance was an act of transubstantiation. In 1963, fed up with Iras drinking and abusive behavior, Charlie started a solo career, Ira died on June 20,1965, at the age of 41. A drunken driver struck their car head-on, and both Ira and Anne were killed instantly, at the time, a warrant for Iras arrest had been issued on a DUI charge. Charlie died of cancer in January,2011 at age 83. Country-rock band The Byrds recorded the Louvin-penned The Christian Life for their 1968 release Sweetheart of the Rodeo, in 2001, The Louvin Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The tribute CD Livin, Lovin, Losin, Songs of the Louvin Brothers, produced by Carl Jackson and Kathy Louvin and released in 2003, won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Country Album. Although the brothers are still remembered today for their talent, they are also remembered for the unusual cover used for their 1959 album. While some reviewers count this as being one of the greatest iconic album covers of all time, the cover can also be found today on several Web sites celebrating unusual or bizarre album covers
44.
Everly Brothers
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The Everly Brothers were American country-influenced rock and roll singers, known for steel-string acoustic guitar and close harmony singing. Isaac Donald Don Everly and Phillip Phil Everly were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, Don was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, in 1937, and Phil two years later in Chicago, Illinois. Their parents were Isaac Milford Ike Everly, Jr. a guitar player, actor James Best, also from Muhlenberg County, was the son of Ikes sister. Margaret was 15 when she married Ike, who was 26, Ike worked in coal mines from age 14, but his father encouraged him to pursue his love of music. Ike and Margaret began singing together, the Everly brothers spent most of their childhood in Shenandoah, Iowa. They attended Longfellow Elementary School in Waterloo, Iowa, for a year, but then moved to Shenandoah in 1944, Ike Everly had a show on KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah in the mid-1940s, first with his wife and then with their sons. The brothers sang on the radio as Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil, the family sang as the Everly Family. Ike, with guitarists Merle Travis, Mose Rager, and Kennedy Jones, was honored in 1992 by the construction of the Four Legends Fountain in Drakesboro, the family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1953, where the brothers attended West High School. In 1955, the moved to Madison, Tennessee, while the brothers moved to Nashville. Don had graduated high school in 1955, and Phil attended Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville. Both could now focus on recording, while in Knoxville, the brothers caught the attention of family friend Chet Atkins, manager of RCA Victors studio in Nashville. The brothers became a duo and moved to Nashville, despite affiliation with RCA, Atkins arranged for the Everly Brothers to record for Columbia Records in early 1956. Their Keep a-Lovin Me, which Don wrote and composed, flopped, Atkins introduced them to Wesley Rose, of Acuff-Rose music publishers. Rose told them he would get them a deal if they signed to Acuff-Rose as songwriters. They so signed in late 1956, and in 1957 Rose introduced them to Archie Bleyer, the Everlys signed and made a recording in February 1957. Bye Bye Love had been rejected by 30 other acts and their record reached No.2 on the pop charts, behind Elvis Presleys Teddy Bear, and No.1 on the country and No.5 on the R&B charts. The song, by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, became the Everly Brotherss first million-seller. Working with the Bryants, they had hits in the United States and the United Kingdom, the biggest being Wake Up Little Susie, All I Have to Do Is Dream, Bird Dog, and Problems
45.
Rabon Delmore
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Alton Delmore and Rabon Delmore, billed as The Delmore Brothers, were country music pioneers and stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s. The brothers were born into poverty in Elkmont, Alabama, as the sons of tenant farmers amid a rich tradition of gospel music and their mother, Mollie Delmore, wrote and sang gospel songs for their church. The Delmores blended gospel-style harmonies with the guitar work of traditional folk music. In addition to the regular six-string acoustic guitar, the duo was one of the few to use the rare tenor guitar, in 1925, 16-year-old Alton wrote his first song, which he co-wrote with his mother. It was published by Athens Music Co, the Brothers did their first recording session for Columbia in 1931, recording Ive Got the Kansas City Blues and Alabama Lullaby, which became their theme song. They signed a contract with Victors budget label Bluebird in 1933, within three years, they had become the most popular act on the show. Disagreements with Opry management led to the leaving the show in 1939. While they continued to play and record throughout the 1940s. In 1941, their song When Its Time for the Whippoorwill to Sing made the Billboard Hillbilly top three and their Freight Train Boogie is regarded by some as the first rock and roll record. Over the course of their careers, the Delmores wrote more than one thousand songs, some of the most popular were Browns Ferry Blues, Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar and Fifteen Miles from Birmingham. Rabon died of cancer in 1952, a day after his 36th birthday. Following Rabons death, Alton suffered an attack, the loss of his father and his daughter Susan. He moved back to Huntsville, Alabama and he taught some guitar, did odd jobs, and devoted his creative energies to writing prose. He wrote a series of stories and his autobiography, Truth is Stranger than Publicity. The Delmore Brothers were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and their pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Bob Dylan was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, on November 10,1985 as saying The Delmore Brothers, God, I think theyve influenced every harmony Ive ever tried to sing. 1920s, First Prize, duo awarded one sack of flour, martin & Co.180 Years of American Music History
46.
Alton Delmore
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Alton Delmore and Rabon Delmore, billed as The Delmore Brothers, were country music pioneers and stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s. The brothers were born into poverty in Elkmont, Alabama, as the sons of tenant farmers amid a rich tradition of gospel music and their mother, Mollie Delmore, wrote and sang gospel songs for their church. The Delmores blended gospel-style harmonies with the guitar work of traditional folk music. In addition to the regular six-string acoustic guitar, the duo was one of the few to use the rare tenor guitar, in 1925, 16-year-old Alton wrote his first song, which he co-wrote with his mother. It was published by Athens Music Co, the Brothers did their first recording session for Columbia in 1931, recording Ive Got the Kansas City Blues and Alabama Lullaby, which became their theme song. They signed a contract with Victors budget label Bluebird in 1933, within three years, they had become the most popular act on the show. Disagreements with Opry management led to the leaving the show in 1939. While they continued to play and record throughout the 1940s. In 1941, their song When Its Time for the Whippoorwill to Sing made the Billboard Hillbilly top three and their Freight Train Boogie is regarded by some as the first rock and roll record. Over the course of their careers, the Delmores wrote more than one thousand songs, some of the most popular were Browns Ferry Blues, Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar and Fifteen Miles from Birmingham. Rabon died of cancer in 1952, a day after his 36th birthday. Following Rabons death, Alton suffered an attack, the loss of his father and his daughter Susan. He moved back to Huntsville, Alabama and he taught some guitar, did odd jobs, and devoted his creative energies to writing prose. He wrote a series of stories and his autobiography, Truth is Stranger than Publicity. The Delmore Brothers were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and their pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Bob Dylan was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, on November 10,1985 as saying The Delmore Brothers, God, I think theyve influenced every harmony Ive ever tried to sing. 1920s, First Prize, duo awarded one sack of flour, martin & Co.180 Years of American Music History
