1.
Tubular Bells
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Tubular Bells is the first album by English musician Mike Oldfield, recorded when he was 19 and released in 1973 when he was 20. It was the first album released by Virgin Records and a cornerstone of the companys success. Vivian Stanshall provided the voice of the Master of Ceremonies who reads off the list of instruments at the end of the first movement. The opening piano solo was used briefly in the soundtrack to the William Friedkin film The Exorcist, the following year the piece was orchestrated by David Bedford for The Orchestral Tubular Bells version. It had three sequels in the 1990s, Tubular Bells II, Tubular Bells III and The Millennium Bell, finally, the album was re-recorded as Tubular Bells 2003 at its 30th anniversary in 2003. A newly mixed and mastered re-issue of the album appeared in 2009 on Mercury Records. For the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, Oldfield rearranged segments from Tubular Bells for a segment about the National Health Service and this rendition appears on the soundtrack album, Isles of Wonder, and is included on the official BBC DVD release. The 19-year old Mike Oldfield played the majority of the instruments on the album as a series of overdubs, Oldfield was influenced by the pioneering recording techniques used by the Beatles in the late 1960s, classical music, and the minimalist work of Terry Riley. By blocking off the head of the tape machine, he could overdub using it. Oldfield approached several record labels with the demos, but was rejected on commercial grounds and he then played the demos to engineers at The Manor Studio, who along with manager Richard Branson, decided to record it. The two parts of Tubular Bells were recorded between autumn 1972 and spring 1973, Part One was recorded in just one week at the Manor, in between sessions by John Cale and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Part two was recorded intermittently during down-time at the Manor over several months, the album was recorded on an Ampex 2-inch 16-track tape recorder with Dolby stereo, which was The Manors main recording equipment at the time. The only electric guitar to be used on the album was a 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster which used to belong to Marc Bolan, Oldfield had added an extra Bill Lawrence pick-up and has since sold the guitar for £6500 and donated the money to the SANE charity. This guitar had been put up for auction a number of times by Bonhams in 2007,2008 and 2009 with estimates of £25, 000–35,000, £10, 000–15,000 and £8, 000–12,000 respectively. According to Phil Newell, the guitar used on the album was one of his Fender Telecaster Basses. All the guitars were recorded via direct injection into the mixing desk, the set of tubular bells that were used on the album had been left by an instrument hire company after John Cales sessions at the Manor, at the request of Oldfield. At 7,41 on Part 1, Oldfield can be heard counting.2.3 into the section of music. The Master of Ceremonies, introducing the instruments for the finale of Part One, was recorded at the end of the session, Vivian Stanshall had arrived at the Manor ready to start recording, and was asked by Oldfield to perform the narration
2.
The Chimes
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It is the second in his series of Christmas books, five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth, the Christmas books include The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man, the book was written in late 1844, during Dickens year-long visit to Italy. Two days later Forster received a letter from Dickens which read simply, We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow. Forster describes Dickens intentions in writing The Chimes as striking a blow for the poor. They had always been his clients, they had never forgotten in any of his books. He had come to have as little faith for the putting down of any serious evil, the latter had stirred his indignation to its depths just before he came to Italy, and his increased opportunities of solitary reflection since had strengthened and extended it. When he came therefore to think of his new story for Christmas time, Dickens returned to London for a week in December 1844 and gave readings of the finished book to friends prior to publication, to judge its impact. The artist Daniel Maclise, who had contributed two illustrations to The Chimes and attended two of these events, portrayed the reading of 3 December 1844 in a well-known sketch, the chimes are old bells in the church on whose steps Trotty Veck plies his trade. The book is divided into four parts named quarters, after the quarter chimes of a striking clock and his daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP, Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a few shillings to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman and he takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute, in the night, the bells seem to call Trotty. He is told that he fell from the tower during his climb and is now dead, there follows a series of visions which he is forced to watch, helpless to interfere with the troubled lives of Meg, Richard, Will and Lilian over the subsequent years. Richard descends into alcoholism, Meg eventually marries him in an effort to save him, will is driven in and out of prison by petty laws and restrictions, Lilian turns to prostitution. In the end, destitute, Meg is driven to contemplate drowning herself and her child, thus committing the mortal sins of murder and suicide. The chimes intention is to teach Trotty that, far from being naturally wicked, mankind is formed to strive for nobler things, and will fall only when crushed and repressed beyond bearing. At the end of the book, Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the ring in the New Year of the day Trotty originally climbed the tower. Meg and Richard have chosen to wed, and all of her friends have spontaneously chosen to provide a wedding feast, the author explicitly invites the reader to decide if this awakening is a dream-within-a-dream. The reader must choose between the harsh consequences of the behavior of the classes in Trottys vision, or the happiness of the wedding
3.
Yamaha
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It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the worlds largest piano manufacturing company. Yamaha was established in 1887 as a piano and reed organ manufacturer by Torakusu Yamaha as Nippon Gakki Company, Limited in Hamamatsu, the companys origins as a musical instrument manufacturer are still reflected today in the groups logo—a trio of interlocking tuning forks. The YA-1, of which 125 were built in the first year of production, was named in honour of the founder and it was a 125cc, single cylinder, two-stroke, street bike patterned after the German DKW RT125. In 1955, the success of the YA-1 resulted in the founding of Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd, in 1989, Yamaha shipped the worlds first CD recorder. Yamaha purchased Sequential Circuits in 1988 and it bought a majority stake of competitor Korg in 1987, which was bought out by Korg in 1993. In the late 1990s, Yamaha released a series a portable battery operated keyboards under the PSS, in 2002, Yamaha closed down its archery product business that was started in 1959. Six archers in five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products and it acquired German audio software manufacturers Steinberg in January 2005, from Pinnacle Systems. K. Ltd, the UK piano sales & manufacturing arm was unaffected, on December 20,2007, Yamaha made an agreement with the Austrian Bank BAWAG P. S. K. Group BAWAG to purchase all the shares of Bösendorfer, intended to place in early 2008. Yamaha intends to continue manufacturing at the Bösendorfer facilities in Austria, the acquisition of Bösendorfer was announced after the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, on January 28,2008. As of February 1,2008, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH operates as a subsidiary of Yamaha Corp, Yamaha Corporation is also widely known for their music teaching programme that began in the 1950s. Yamaha electronic have proven to be successful, popular, and respected products, for example, the Yamaha YPG-625 was given the award Keyboard of the Year and Product of the Year in 2007 from The Music and Sound Retailer magazine. Other noteworthy Yamaha electronics include the SHS-10 Keytar, a keytar which offered MIDI output features normally found on much more expensive keyboards. Other companies in the Yamaha group include, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH, Vienna, Yamaha Motor Company Yamaha Fine Technologies Co. Ltd. Yamaha Golf Cart Company Yamaha Livingtec Corporation Yamaha Metanix Corporation Yamaha Music Communications Co. Ltd, Yamaha Pro Audio Kandō is a Japanese word used by Yamaha to describe their corporate mission. Kandō in translation describes the sensation of profound excitement and gratification derived from experiencing supreme quality, some reasonable English synonyms are emotionally touching or emotionally moving. The Yamaha Music Foundation is an established in 1966 by the authority of the Japanese Ministry of Education for the purpose of promoting music education. It continued a program of music classes begun by Yamaha Corporation in 1954, Yamaha expanded into many diverse businesses and product groups
4.
Percussion instrument
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A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater, struck, scraped or rubbed by hand, or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, the percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, percussive techniques can also be applied to the human body, as in body percussion. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony. Percussion is commonly referred to as the backbone or the heartbeat of an ensemble, often working in close collaboration with bass instruments. In jazz and other popular ensembles, the pianist, bassist, drummer. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, however, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments have been used, again generally sparingly. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music, in almost every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. In classic jazz, one almost immediately thinks of the rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word swing is spoken. Because of the diversity of instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed entirely of percussion. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are all represented in these ensembles, music for pitched percussion instruments can be notated on a staff with the same treble and bass clefs used by many non-percussive instruments. Music for percussive instruments without a pitch can be notated with a specialist rhythm or percussion-clef. The word percussion has evolved from Latin terms, percussio, as a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as the collision of two bodies to produce a sound. Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion, Most percussion instruments are classified as idiophones and membranophones.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks. 111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a mallet, such as the hang, gongs and the xylophone. 21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani, snare drum, (Included in most drum sets or 412. Stringed instruments played with such as the hammered dulcimer
5.
Musical instrument classification
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Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, the oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and dates from the 3rd millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. However, the Chou-Li, an anonymous treatise compiled from sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order, metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan, attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, more usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced. The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion, the scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division, but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips, many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, however, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves. Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme, for example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa also recognized the three classes in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun, a treatise on the origin. The division pervades Tboli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. This scheme was taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Electrophones, such as the guitar or electric bass, which produce sound through electricity and is required to be plugged in to an amplifier. Later Sachs added a category, electrophones, such as theremins. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category, within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, in 1932, comparative musicologist André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments. The Kpelle of West Africa also use this system and they distinguish the struck, including both beaten and plucked, and the blown
6.
Idiophone
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An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the instrument as a whole vibrating—without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four divisions in the original Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. The early classification of Victor-Charles Mahillon called this group of instruments autophones, most percussion instruments that are not drums are idiophones. Hornbostel–Sachs divides idiophones into four main sub-categories, the first division is the struck idiophones. This includes most of the percussion instruments familiar in the West. They include all idiophones made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand or indirectly, various types of bells fall into both categories. The other three subdivisions are rarer, other classifications use six main sub-categories, Concussion idiophones are instruments that produce sound by being struck against one another. Percussion idiophones produce sound by being struck with a foreign object. Examples of non-vibrating objects are mallets, hammers, and sticks, scraper idiophones are instruments that are scraped with a stick or other foreign objects to give off a sound. Plucked idiophones produce sound by plucking a flexible tongue from within the instrument itself, lastly, friction idiophones are rubbed to increase vibration and sound intensity. Idiophones are made of materials that give off unique sounds, the majority of idiophones are made out of glass, metal, ceramics, and wood. Idiophones are considered part of the section in an orchestra. A number of idiophones that are struck, such as vibraphone bars and cymbals
7.
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
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