1.
Yooka-Laylee
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Yooka-Laylee is an upcoming platform video game developed by Playtonic Games and published by Team17 for Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It was originally also in development for Wii U, but was cancelled in favour of the Switch version due to unforeseen technical issues. It is being developed by Playtonic Games, a group of several key personnel from Rare during the Nintendo 64 era, as a spiritual successor to their game series Banjo-Kazooie. Among them, Banjo-Kazooie staff Chris Sutherland, Steve Mayles, Steven Hurst, similar to the title of Banjo-Kazooie being a play on the banjo and kazoo musical instruments, the title of Yooka-Laylee is a play on the ukulele. Quack from absorbing all the literature and converting it into pure profit. Gameplay bears resemblance to Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel, Banjo-Tooie, featuring items, during their adventures, Yooka and Laylee will explore worlds contained within magical books and complete challenges to collect Pagies, golden book pages that act as the main currency in the game. Players can use their Pagies to either unlock new worlds or expand those which have already been unlocked, each world will contain a boss battle. The characters abilities will include sonar blasting, tongue whipping, sky soaring, eating berries for temporary powers such as breath. Most of these use a power meter that is filled by collecting butterflies. Butterflies are earned by collecting enough quills to purchase them from Trowzer, atoms known as Mollycools are used in order help an octopus-like scientist named Dr. Puzz give Yooka and Laylee various transformations that grant them exclusive abilities. Play Tonics are RPG-style ability modifiers that are purchased from Vendi, a vending machine. Rex named Rextro Sixtyfourus, a homage to the Nintendo 64, there will be a quiz show challenge featured before the final boss, similar to the Banjo-Kazooie games. Furthermore, 2D and 3D mine cart sequences will be included, similar to those of Donkey Kong Country, the game will feature a local cooperative multiplayer mode for two players. There will also be a 2–4 player adversarial local multiplayer mode with eight different minigames, on 8 September 2012, a group of former Rare employees announced their intent to create a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. They joined under the Twitter handle Mingy Jongo, a boss from the game Banjo-Tooie, with cooperation from ex-Rare developers, the account was left abandoned and the project confirmed to be on indefinite hiatus by Kirkhope in a Reddit AMA. Later, the account was revived under its current name Playtonic Games, Playtonic then announced that they were planning a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie franchise titled Yooka-Laylee, formerly codenamed Project Ukulele. Yooka-Laylee is believed to have been the result of Mingy Jongos work, the games funding project was announced on Kickstarter on 1 May 2015. Playtonic Games later sent out a statement thanking all their supporters
2.
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
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Plucked string instrument
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Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate, plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the family, which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck. The zither family does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard, in the harp family, the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The harpsichord does not fit any of these categories but is also a string instrument. Bowed string instruments, such as the violin, can also be plucked in the known as pizzicato, however, as they are usually played with a bow. Struck string instruments can be plucked as an extended technique. Plucked string instruments are not a category in the Sachs-Hornbostel classification, as some of them are simple chordophones and others are composite
9.
Cavaquinho
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The cavaquinho is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wire or gut strings. A cavaquinho player is called a cavaquista, the most common tuning is D–G–B–D, other tunings include D–A–B–E and G–G–B–D and A–A–C♯–E. Guitarists often use D–G–B–E tuning to emulate the highest four strings of the guitar, the origins of this Portuguese instrument are elusive. The author holds that the cavaquinho and the guitar may have brought to Braga by the Biscayans. There are different kinds of cavaquinho and it is a very important instrument in Brazilian music, especially for samba and choro. The standard tuning in Brazil is D–G–B–D, some of the most important players and composers of the instruments Brazilian incarnation are, Waldir Azevedo, Paulinho da Viola and Mauro Diniz. The samba cavaco is the connection between the rhythm and harmony sections, playing the rhythm comping and it is played with a pick, with sophisticated percussive strumming beats. The cavaquinho is also found in other places, in Cape Verde the cavaquinho was introduced in the thirties from Brazil. The present-day Cape-Verdean cavaquinho is very similar to the Brazilian one in dimensions and it is generally used as a rhythmic instrument in Cape-Verdean music genres but it is occasionally used as a melodic instrument. In the United States, it was introduced by Portuguese and became an important part of the music of that place. The Hawaiian islands have an instrument very similar to the cavaquinho, called the ukulele, the Hawaiian ukulele also has four strings, though tuned differently, and a shape somewhat similar to the cavaquinho. The machete was introduced into Hawaii by Augusto Dias, Manuel Nunes, Viola braguesa Rabeca Gaita transmontana Ukulele Cuatro Tenor guitar Richards, Tobe A. The Cavaquinho Chord Bible, DGBD Standard Tuning 1,728 Chords, — A comprehensive chord dictionary instructional guide for the Brazilian and Portuguese cavaquinho. All the Cavaquinhos types at Associação Cultural Museu Cavaquinho Cavaquinho at Grupo de Cavaquinhos do Porto
10.
Hawaiian language
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The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaiʻi, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is a language of the state of Hawaii. King Kamehameha III established the first Hawaiian-language constitution in 1839 and 1840, Hawaiian was essentially displaced by English on six of seven inhabited islands. In 2001, native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to under 0. 1% of the statewide population, linguists were unsure that Hawaiian and other endangered languages would survive. Nevertheless, from around 1949 to the present day, there has been an increase in attention to. Public Hawaiian-language immersion preschools called Pūnana Leo were started in 1984, the first students to start in immersion preschool have now graduated from college and many are fluent Hawaiian speakers. The federal government has acknowledged this development, for example, the Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 changed the names of several national parks in Hawaiʻi, observing the Hawaiian spelling. A pidgin or creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi is Hawaiian Pidgin and it should not be mistaken for the Hawaiian language nor for a dialect of English. The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters, five vowels and seven consonants and it contains an additional consonantal sound okina which is a glottal stop. The island name was first written in English in 1778 by British explorer James Cook and they wrote it as Owhyhee or Owhyee. Explorers Mortimer and Otto von Kotzebue used that spelling, the initial O in the name is a reflection of the fact that unique identity is predicated in Hawaiian by using a copula form, o, immediately before a proper noun. Thus, in Hawaiian, the name of the island is expressed by saying O Hawaiʻi, the Cook expedition also wrote Otaheite rather than Tahiti. The spelling why in the name reflects the pronunciation of wh in 18th-century English, the spelling hee or ee in the name represents the sounds, or. Putting the parts together, O-why-ee reflects, an approximation of the native pronunciation. American missionaries bound for Hawaiʻi used the phrases Owhihe Language and Owhyhee language in Boston prior to their departure in October 1819 and they still used such phrases as late as March 1822. However, by July 1823, they had begun using the phrase Hawaiian Language, in Hawaiian, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi means Hawaiian language, as adjectives follow nouns. Hawaiian is a Polynesian member of the Austronesian language family and it is closely related to other Polynesian languages, such as Marquesan, Tahitian, Māori, Rapa Nui, and less closely to Samoan and Tongan. According to Schütz, the Marquesans colonized the archipelago in roughly 300 CE followed by waves of immigration from the Society Islands
11.
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
12.
Nylon
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Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers, more specifically aliphatic or semi-aromatic polyamides. They can be melt-processed into fibers, films or shapes, the first example of nylon was produced on February 28,1935, by Wallace Carothers at DuPonts research facility at the DuPont Experimental Station. Nylon polymers have significant commercial applications in fibers, in shapes. Nylon is made of repeating units linked by bonds and is a type of polyamide and is frequently referred to as such. Nylon was the first commercially successful synthetic thermoplastic polymer, commercially, nylon polymer is made by reacting monomers which are either lactams, acid/amines or stoichiometric mixtures of diamines and diacids. Mixtures of these can be polymerized together to make copolymers, Nylon polymers can be mixed with a wide variety of additives to achieve many different property variations. Nylon was invented accidentally by Julian W. Hill, a chemist for DuPont under Wallace Carotherss supervision and it was only given this name at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair. The patents were owned by DuPont, Nylon was intended to be a synthetic replacement for silk and substituted for it in many different products after silk became scarce during World War II. It replaced silk in military applications such as parachutes and flak vests, after initial commercialization of nylon as a fiber, applications in the form of shapes and films were also developed. The main market for nylon shapes now is in auto components, in 1940, John W. Eckelberry of DuPont stated that the letters nyl were arbitrary and the on was copied from the suffixes of other fibers such as cotton and rayon. A later publication by DuPont explained that the name was intended to be No-Run. Since the products were not really run-proof, the vowels were swapped to produce nuron, for clarity in pronunciation, the i was changed to y. Most nylons are made from the reaction of an acid with a diamine or a lactam or amino acid with itself. In the first case, the structure is so-called ABAB similar to polyesters and polyurethanes, in the second case, the repeating unit corresponds to the single monomer. It is difficult to get the proportions exactly correct, and deviations can lead to termination at molecular weights less than a desirable 10,000 daltons. To overcome this problem, a crystalline, solid nylon salt can be formed at room temperature, using an exact 1,1 ratio of the acid, the salt is crystallized to purify it and obtain the desired precise stoichiometry. Heated to 285 °C, the salt reacts to form nylon polymer with the production of water, Wallace Carothers at DuPont patented nylon 66, but overlooked the possibility to use lactams. That synthetic route was developed by Paul Schlack at IG Farben, leading to nylon 6, the peptide bond within the caprolactam is broken with the exposed active groups on each side being incorporated into two new bonds as the monomer becomes part of the polymer backbone
13.
Catgut
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Catgut is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fibre found in the walls of animal intestines. Catgut makers usually use sheep or goat intestines, but occasionally use the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, mules, despite the name, catgut manufacturers do not use cat intestines. The word catgut may have been an abbreviation of the word cattlegut, alternatively, it may derive by folk etymology from kitgut or kitstring—the word kit, meaning fiddle, having at some point been confused with the word kit for a young cat. Most musical instruments produced today use strings with cores made of other materials, many acoustic guitarists moved away from gut strings in the early 1900s when the C. F. Martin & Company introduced steel strings, which gave greater volume to the guitar. The demand for steel came from players, who couldnt make themselves heard clearly without it. Within a few years the majority of Martin guitars were made with steel strings to accommodate the demand, after World War II, most classical and flamenco guitarists switched from catgut to the new nylon strings for their greater smoothness, durability, and stability of intonation. Before 1900, the best strings for musical instruments were reputedly from Italy, musicians believed the best were from Naples, though Rome and other Italian cities also produced excellent strings. Today high quality gut strings are produced mostly in Italy, Germany, and they are also made elsewhere, for example in India and Morocco, for local use. Catgut suture was once a widely used material in surgical settings, there is debate about whether to continue using catgut in a medical setting, since cotton is usually cheaper and wounds closed with either cotton or synthetic threads are less prone to infection. Catgut sutures remain in use in developing countries where they are less expensive. Natural gut is still used as a string in tennis racquets. To prepare catgut, workers clean the small intestines, free them from fat, then they scrape off the external membrane with a blunt knife, and steep the intestines again for some time in potassium hydroxide. Then they smooth and equalize the intestines by drawing them out, lean animals yield the toughest gut. Next, they twist the prepared gut strands together to make string, string diameter is determined by the thickness of the individual guts, and by the number used. A thin string, such as a violin E, uses three or four guts, whereas a double bass string may use twenty or more. After twisting and drying, workers polish the strings to the required diameter, before the twentieth century, the strings were simply rubbed with an abrasive to smooth them. Today they are ground down to the desired diameter using a centerless grinder. After drying and polishing, workers bleach and disinfect the strings using sulfur dioxide, dye them if necessary, notes Sources This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Catgut
14.
Course (music)
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A course, on a stringed musical instrument, is two or more adjacent strings that are closely spaced relative to the other strings, and typically played as a single string. The strings in each course are tuned in unison or an octave. Course may also refer to a single string normally played on its own on an instrument with other multi-string courses, an instrument with at least one course is referred to as coursed, while one whose strings are all played individually is uncoursed. Eventually, however, they came to be employed to alter the characteristics of instruments as well. A typical piano, for example, contains courses with one, all members of the mandolin family, except some versions of the lowest-pitched, have courses each of two or three strings, most commonly eight strings in four courses. The exception is some varieties of mando-bass, which have four individual strings, the baroque guitar has five courses, with the bottom four always double strung, and the top string either double or single. There are also several patterns of modern ten-string guitar but all have ten single strings, the twelve-string guitar has twelve strings, in six courses. The lowest three courses are tuned at octaves, with the primary string uppermost and the octave below it. The G course is either unison or at octaves, on some electric twelve-string guitars, and most notably the Rickenbacker 360/12, the octave strings are below the primary strings. The national instrument of Columbia, the tiple Colombiano, has four courses of three strings each and its higher-pitched relative, the tiple requinto, is similarly triple-strung. The American tiple, a smaller instrument loosely derived from the Columbian tiple, the electric twelve-string bass has twelve strings in four triple courses. Basses have also built with six double courses and other configs
15.
Portugal
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Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, to the west and south it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east and north by Spain. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 kilometres long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union, the republic also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments. The territory of modern Portugal has been settled, invaded. The Pre-Celts, Celts, Carthaginians and the Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigothic, in 711 the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Moors, making Portugal part of Muslim Al Andalus. Portugal was born as result of the Christian Reconquista, and in 1139, Afonso Henriques was proclaimed King of Portugal, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the worlds major economic, political and military powers. Portugal monopolized the trade during this time, and the Portuguese Empire expanded with military campaigns led in Asia. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to almost all its overseas territories, Portugal has left a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe and a legacy of over 250 million Portuguese speakers today. Portugal is a country with a high-income advanced economy and a high living standard. It is the 5th most peaceful country in the world, maintaining a unitary semi-presidential republican form of government and it has the 18th highest Social Progress in the world, putting it ahead of other Western European countries like France, Spain and Italy. Portugal is a pioneer when it comes to drug decriminalization, as the nation decriminalized the possession of all drugs for use in 2001. The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in South Western Europe, the name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale. Other influences include some 5th-century vestiges of Alan settlements, which were found in Alenquer, Coimbra, the region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula. These were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing. Chief among these tribes were the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Northern Portugal, the Lusitanians of central Portugal, the Celtici of Alentejo, a few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements were also founded in the Algarve region by Phoenicians-Carthaginians. Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC, during the last days of Julius Caesar, almost the entire peninsula had been annexed to the Roman Republic. The Carthaginians, Romes adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies and it suffered a severe setback in 150 BC, when a rebellion began in the north
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Hawaii
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Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States of America, having received statehood on August 21,1959. Hawaii is the only U. S. state located in Oceania and it is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is the only U. S. state not located in the Americas, the state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian archipelago, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles. At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight main islands are—in order from northwest to southeast, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi. The last is the largest island in the group, it is called the Big Island or Hawaiʻi Island to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania, Hawaii has over a million permanent residents, along with many visitors and U. S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii is the 8th-smallest and the 11th-least populous, but the 13th-most densely populated of the fifty U. S. states. It is the state with an Asian plurality. The states coastline is about 750 miles long, the fourth longest in the U. S. after the coastlines of Alaska, Florida, the state of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, Hawaiʻi. A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of Hawaiʻi is that was named for Hawaiʻiloa and he is said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled. The Hawaiian language word Hawaiʻi is very similar to Proto-Polynesian *Sawaiki, cognates of Hawaiʻi are found in other Polynesian languages, including Māori, Rarotongan and Samoan. According to linguists Pukui and Elbert, lsewhere in Polynesia, Hawaiʻi or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the home, but in Hawaii. A somewhat divisive political issue arose in 1978 when the Constitution of the State of Hawaii added Hawaiian as an official state language. The title of the constitution is The Constitution of the State of Hawaii. Article XV, Section 1 of the Constitution uses The State of Hawaii, diacritics were not used because the document, drafted in 1949, predates the use of the okina and the kahakō in modern Hawaiian orthography. The exact spelling of the name in the Hawaiian language is Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaii Admission Act that granted Hawaiian statehood, the government recognized Hawaii as the official state name. Official government publications, department and office titles, and the Seal of Hawaii use the spelling with no symbols for glottal stops or vowel length
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Portuguese immigration to Hawaii
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Portuguese immigration to Hawaii began in 1878 when Portuguese residents made up less than 1% of the Island population. The Hawaiian census of 1878 showed that, out of a kingdom of 57,985 people, only 438 residents, most of these Portuguese residents had been born in either the Cape Verde or Madeira Islands, and nearly all had arrived as sailors on whaling ships. Although a few of them brought, or had sent for, their wives, despite the fact that prior to 1878 so few Portuguese had made their way to the Hawaiian Islands, those that did found opportunity and tended to stay. Conditions in Hawaii in 1878 were conducive to immigration, because the native Hawaiian workers had been decimated by disease, there were not enough laborers to supply the sugarcane plantations, which led in 1852 to the first importation of Chinese workers. So many Chinese were brought in that by 1878 they made up nearly 10% of the population, although the Chinese worked hard, they were accused of gambling, prostitution and opium use, and a search began for alternate sources of labor. Portuguese colonists had first settled these islands in the Middle Ages, intrigued by Perrys suggestion, the Planters Society began recruiting Portuguese contract workers, first in 1878 from the Madeira Islands, and then two years later from the Azores as well. Prior to independence in 1975, many Cape Verdeans emigrated to Hawaii from drought-stricken Portuguese Cape Verde, because these people arrived using their Portuguese passports, they were registered as Portuguese immigrants by the Hawaiian authorities. Portuguese immigration to the islands slowed after 1887, which was the year that King Kalākaua was stripped of power. Nonetheless, Portuguese immigration continued, and by the end of 1911 almost 16,000 Portuguese had arrived, though many left, many stayed and by 1910 Portuguese residents made up 11. 6% of the population of Hawaii. Native Hawaiian speakers called the Portuguese immigrants who came to their country Pokiki and these newcomers were devout followers of the Roman Catholic faith with strong family ties. Most were short, with slender builds, and dark skin from long hours of working out under the sun in the cane fields. Many in fact were so dark that their race on some of the early U. S. census returns is listed as black, which contributed to prejudice against them. Because few of these immigrants could read or write, they had strong oral traditions and they were first made by Hawaiian residents from the Madeira and Azores Islands, who would use up butter and sugar prior to Lent by cooking malasadas. These pastries are an important part in Madeira and the Azores of the Terça-feira Gorda and this day in Hawaii is called Malasada Day, and it dates back to the time of the 19th-century sugarcane plantations. Another popular Portuguese tradition in Hawaii is the Holy Ghost Festival and this three-day event is not an official church holiday, but a traditional observance that began in the 18th century with the Cult of the Holy Spirit in the Azores. It usually starts on a Friday night, followed on Saturday by decorating religious statues for the festivities to follow, then on Sunday a young woman is chosen as Queen Isabel, the 6th queen of Portugal, and she and her court lead a colorful parade. The final event is a mass with a Blessing of the meat and bread by a priest, a feast is then held in a tradition of charity and feeding the poor, where food is served to all present. The foods of this feast typically include malasadas, paodoce, bean soup, Portuguese sausages, the best-known Portuguese contribution to Hawaiian culture is the ukulele, based on the traditional Portuguese braguinha
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Madeira
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Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago situated in the north Atlantic Ocean, southwest of Portugal. Its total population was estimated in 2011 at 267,785, the capital of Madeira is Funchal, located on the main islands south coast. The archipelago is just under 400 kilometres north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, since 1976, the archipelago has been one of the two Autonomous regions of Portugal. It includes the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas, the region has political and administrative autonomy through the Administrative Political Statue of the Autonomous Region of Madeira provided for in the Portuguese Constitution. Madeira was claimed by Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1419, the archipelago is considered to be the first territorial discovery of the exploratory period of the Portuguese Age of Discovery, which extended from 1415 to 1542. Today, it is a popular resort, being visited every year by about one million tourists. The region is noted for its Madeira wine, gastronomy, historical and cultural value, its flora and fauna, landscapes which are classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and embroidery artisans. Its annual New Year celebrations feature the largest fireworks show in the world, Madeira is the second richest region of Portugal by GDP per capita, only surpassed by Lisbon. They are called the Isles of the Blessed, archeological evidence suggests that the islands may have been visited by the Vikings sometime between 900-1030. During the reign of King Edward III of England, lovers Robert Machim and they were driven off their course by a violent storm and their ship went aground along the coast of an island, that may have been Madeira. Later this legend was the basis of the naming of the city of Machico, knowledge of some Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before their formal discovery and settlement, as the islands were shown on maps as early as 1339. The following year, an expedition, under the captaincy of Zarco, Vaz Teixeira. Subsequently, the new settlers observed a black cloud suspended to the southwest. Their investigation revealed it to be the island they called Madeira. The first Portuguese settlers began colonizing the islands around 1420 or 1425, grain production began to fall and the ensuing crisis forced Henry the Navigator to order other commercial crops to be planted so that the islands could be profitable. The planting of sugarcane, and later Sicilian sugar beet, allowed the introduction of the salt into Europe. These specialised plants, and their associated industrial technology, created one of the major revolutions on the islands, the expansion of sugar plantations in Madeira began in 1455, using advisers from Sicily and financed by Genoese capital. The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders, who were keen to bypass Venetian monopolies, by 1480 Antwerp had some seventy ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade, with the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp
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Azores
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Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which is becoming the major service activity in the region. In addition, the government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service, the main settlement of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. There are nine major Azorean islands and a cluster, in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo, to the west, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre, and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and they extend for more than 600 km and lie in a northwest-southeast direction. All the islands have volcanic origins, although some, such as Santa Maria, have had no recorded activity since the islands were settled, mount Pico, on the island of Pico, is the highest point in Portugal, at 2,351 m. The Azores are actually some of the tallest mountains on the planet, measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean to their peaks, which thrust high above the surface of the Atlantic. The climate of the Azores is very mild for such a location, being influenced by its distance to continents. Due to the influence, temperatures remain mild year-round. Daytime temperatures normally fluctuate between 16 °C and 25 °C depending on season, temperatures above 30 °C or below 3 °C are unknown in the major population centres. It is also generally wet and cloudy, the culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these once-uninhabited and remote islands were settled sporadically over a span of two centuries. However, these kinds of structures have always used in the Azores to store cereals. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking and it is unclear whether these structures are natural or man-made and whether they predate the 15th-century Portuguese colonization of the Azores. Solid confirmation of a human presence in the archipelago has not yet been published. The islands were known in the century and parts of them appear in the Atlas Catalan. In 1427, a captain sailing for Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, rediscovered the Azores, but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashes 1813 work, A History of the Azores, the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges and he stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other stories note the discovery of the first islands by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims. Although it is said that the archipelago received its name from the goshawk
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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Music
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Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. The word derives from Greek μουσική, Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to my ears point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, There is no noise, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. There are many types of music, including music, traditional music, art music, music written for religious ceremonies. For example, it can be hard to draw the line between some early 1980s hard rock and heavy metal, within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art or as an auditory art. People may make music as a hobby, like a teen playing cello in a youth orchestra, the word derives from Greek μουσική. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the music is derived from mid-13c. Musike, from Old French musique and directly from Latin musica the art of music and this is derived from the. Greek mousike of the Muses, from fem. of mousikos pertaining to the Muses, from Mousa Muse. In classical Greece, any art in which the Muses presided, Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. With the advent of recording, records of popular songs. Some music lovers create mix tapes of their songs, which serve as a self-portrait. An environment consisting solely of what is most ardently loved, amateur musicians can compose or perform music for their own pleasure, and derive their income elsewhere. Professional musicians sometimes work as freelancers or session musicians, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings, There are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians, in community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles such as community concert bands and community orchestras. However, there are many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is also recorded and distributed. Live concert recordings are popular in classical music and in popular music forms such as rock, where illegally taped live concerts are prized by music lovers
22.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
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Portuguese people
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Portuguese people are an ethnic group indigenous to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and their predominant religion is Christianity, Portuguese people were a key factor to the Age of Exploration, discovering several lands unknown to the Europeans in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania, helping to pave the way for Globalization. There are around 10 million native Portuguese in Portugal, out of a population of 10.34 million. A small minority of about 15,000 speak the Mirandese language, in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso, all of the speakers are bilingual with Portuguese. An even smaller minority of no more than 2,000 people speak Barranquenho, some people from the former colonies have been migrating to Portugal since the 1900s. More recently, a number of Slavs, especially Ukrainians, Moldovans, Romanians and Russians. There is also a Chinese minority, in addition, there is a small minority Gypsies of about 40,000 people, Muslims about 34,000 people and an even smaller minority of Jews of about 5,000 people. Between 1886 and 1966, Portugal lost to more than any West European country except Ireland. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, about 40 million Brazilians have relatively recent Portuguese background, due to massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About 1.2 million Brazilian citizens are native Portuguese, significant verified Portuguese minorities exist in several countries. Portuguese Sephardic Jews are also in Israel, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Venezuela, Brazil, in Brazil many of the colonists were also originally Sephardic Jews, who, converted, were known as New Christians. In the United States, there are Portuguese communities in New Jersey, the New England states, in the Pacific, Hawaii has a sizable Portuguese element that goes back 150 years, Australia and New Zealand also have Portuguese communities. Canada, particularly Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, has developed a significant Portuguese community since 1940, argentina and Uruguay had Portuguese immigration in the early 20th century. So has Chile where an estimated 50,000 descendants live, an estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the countrys African possessions gained independence in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution, while others moved to Brazil and South Africa. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Equatorial Guinea, in 1989 some 4,000,000 Portuguese were living abroad, mainly in France, Germany, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States. Portuguese constitute 13% of the population of Luxembourg, in areas such as Thetford and the crown dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey, the Portuguese form the largest ethnic minority groups at 30% of the population, 20% and 3% respectively. The British capital London is home to the largest number of Portuguese people in the UK, with the majority being found in the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth and Westminster. The Portuguese diaspora communities still are very attached to their language, their culture and their national dishes, in colonial times, over 700,000 Portuguese settled in Brazil, and most of them went there during the gold rush of the 18th century
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Cape Verde
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Located 570 kilometres off the coast of West Africa, the islands cover a combined area of slightly over 4,000 square kilometres. The Cape Verde archipelago was uninhabited until the 15th century, when Portuguese explorers discovered and colonized the islands, ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, the islands grew prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, attracting merchants, privateers, and pirates. The end of slavery in the 19th century led to economic decline, Cape Verde gradually recovered as an important commercial center and stopover for shipping routes. Incorporated as a department of Portugal in 1951, the islands continued to agitate for independence. Since the early 1990s, Cape Verde has been a representative democracy. Lacking natural resources, its economy is mostly service-oriented, with a growing focus on tourism. Its population of around 512,000 is mostly of mixed European and sub-Saharan African heritage, a sizeable diaspora community exists across the world, slightly outnumbering inhabitants on the islands. Historically, the name Cape Verde has been used in English for the archipelago and, since independence in 1975, for the country. In 2013, the Cape Verdean government determined that the Portuguese designation Cabo Verde would henceforth be used for official purposes, such as at the United Nations, Cape Verde is a member of the African Union. The name of the stems from the nearby Cap-Vert, on the Senegalese coast. In 1444 Portuguese explorers had named that landmark as Cabo Verde, on 24 October 2013, the countrys delegation announced at the United Nations that the official name should no longer be translated into other languages. Instead of Cape Verde, the designation Republic of Cabo Verde is to be used, before the arrival of Europeans, the Cape Verde Islands were uninhabited. The islands of the Cape Verde archipelago were discovered by Genoese and Portuguese navigators around 1456, according to Portuguese official records, the first discoveries were made by Genoa-born António de Noli, who was afterwards appointed governor of Cape Verde by Portuguese King Afonso V. Other navigators mentioned as contributing to discoveries in the Cape Verde archipelago are Diogo Gomes, Diogo Dias, Diogo Afonso, in 1462, Portuguese settlers arrived at Santiago and founded a settlement they called Ribeira Grande. Ribeira Grande was the first permanent European settlement in the tropics, in the 16th century, the archipelago prospered from the Atlantic slave trade. Pirates occasionally attacked the Portuguese settlements, sir Francis Drake, an English corsair privateering under a letter of marque granted by the English crown, twice sacked the capital Ribeira Grande in 1585 when it was a part of the Iberian Union. After a French attack in 1712, the town declined in relative to nearby Praia. Decline in the trade in the 19th century resulted in an economic crisis
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SS Ravenscrag
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Ravenscrag is the name of several ships, some being sailing vessels and some steamships. One of the vessels is historically significant for bringing to the Hawaiian Islands in 1879 Portuguese immigrants who subsequently introduced the ukulele to island culture. The ship left the Madeiran port of Funchal on 23 April 1879 and took four months to cross the Atlantic Ocean, round Cape Horn. Among the passengers were Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias, Jose do Espirito Santo, and Joao Fernandes and this was the second ship of Portuguese immigrants to reach the Islands, having been preceded on 30 September 1878 by the German bark SS Priscilla. Biggam, still under the employ of the Allan Line, is shown as captain of the Ravenscrag in an 1885 trade journal and it was then sold in 1896 to F. G. Two years later the New York Times on 7 April 1898 reported that the British ship Ravenscrag. has not arrived here and is reported missing. The article further states that the Ravenscrag was a vessel, built at Greenock in 1893, hails from South Shields. Allowing for misspellings and incorrect reporting of dates, this is clearly the same ship that Captain Biggam and 419 Portuguese immigrants sailed 19 years earlier to the Hawaiian Islands. Though feared lost a sea, the Ravenscrag did arrive at the port of Callao several days late, the Norwegian firm of Johanson Joh. & Co. of Oslo in 1901 purchased the Ravenscrag, and renamed it the SV Armenia. The ship at this time was full rigged for sail. The official testimony of one of the rescued sailors describes the Ravenscraig as a bark of about 400 tons, hailed from Kirkcaldie, but sailed from Dundee. The owner of this bark was Ninian Lockart, Esq. of Kirkcaldy, Scotland and it was, in fact, the first ship launched from the companys new ship yard. The SS Ravenscraig was sold in 1907, and taken off the lakes, when it was sold again in 1917 it was renamed the Edward F. Cragin. It remained in service until 1923, when it was scrapped in Italy, Portuguese immigration to Hawaii Sir Hugh Allen, Shipbuilder and capitalist
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Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
27.
Music education
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Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. Music training from preschool through post-secondary education is common in most nations because involvement with music is considered a component of human culture. Music, like language, is an accomplishment that distinguishes humans as a species, during the 20th century, many distinctive approaches were developed or further refined for the teaching of music, some of which have had widespread impact. The Dalcroze method was developed in the early 20th century by Swiss musician, the Kodály Method emphasizes the benefits of physical instruction and response to music. The Orff Schulwerk approach to music education students to develop their music abilities in a way that parallels the development of western music. The Suzuki method creates the environment for learning music that a person has for learning their native language. Gordon Music Learning Theory provides the music teacher with a method for teaching musicianship through audiation, conversational Solfège immerses students in the musical literature of their own culture, in this case American. The Carabo-Cone Method involves using props, costumes, and toys for children to basic musical concepts of staff, note duration. The concrete environment of the specially planned classroom allows the child to learn the fundamentals of music by exploring through touch, popular music pedagogy is the systematic teaching and learning of rock music and other forms of popular music both inside and outside formal classroom settings. The MMCP aims to shape attitudes, helping students see music not as static content to be mastered, but as personal, current, American fiddler Mark OConnor developed a method of violin education that is designed to guide students in developing musical techniques necessary to become a proficient violinist. During its tenure, the Mumbai-based Boss School of Music developed a method of education using audio-visual technology, simplified concepts. In primary schools in European countries, children learn to play instruments such as keyboards or recorders, sing in small choirs. In countries such as India, the harmonium is used in schools, students are normally taught basics of Indian Raga music. In some secondary schools, additional classes may also be available. In junior high school or its equivalent, music continues to be a required part of the curriculum. In addition, most North American and European universities offer music ensembles - such as choir, concert band, marching band, most universities also offer degree programs in music education, certifying students as primary and secondary music educators. Advanced degrees such as the D. M. A. or the Ph. D can lead to university employment. The study of art music is increasingly common in music education outside of North America and Europe, including Asian nations such as South Korea, Japan
28.
James Hill (Canadian musician)
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James Hill is a classically trained Canadian musician who has focused on the ukulele, both as his primary instrument and as a method of music instruction for school children. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of British Columbia, as a child, Hill benefited from a ukulele instructional program created by J. Chalmers Doane as shared in Teachers Guide to Classroom Ukulele,1977. The British Columbia school used Doanes system to teach music, and as a result, Hill participated in the ensemble for over ten years. Hill envisioned creating a program to spread this instrument and upon meeting Doane. Hill seldom makes an appearance without also conducting workshops. He has taught throughout Canada and the United States, as well as in Europe, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand. He regularly lectures at the Queens School of Music in Kingston, Ontario and has been a guest instructor at the Ukulele and Slack Key Guitar Institute held in Waimea, Hawaii each year. Traveling throughout the world, Hill has played such venues as The Kennedy Center in July 2009 and he is scheduled to appear at the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain in summer 2013. Hill plays a variety of ukuleles, he has several Mike DaSilva custom made ukuleles, all with spruce tops, as well as a Mya Moe Tenor, in 2009, Hill collaborated with Anne Janelle on cello and created the CD True Love Dont Weep. The Album won the 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards Traditional Album of the Year, in 2015, his album The Old Silo was nominated for the Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year – Solo. Currently Hill lives in Nova Scotia with his wife and touring partner Anne Janelle and they were married on 21 September 2013
29.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
30.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
31.
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
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The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a musical ensemble featuring ukuleles in different registers. They play and sing music from a variety of musical genres, founded in 1985, the orchestra has since performed in many venues worldwide, including New Yorks Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Londons Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury Festival. TV appearances have included, Jools Hollands Hootenanny, BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms, Blue Peter, The Slammer, Richard & Judy, This Morning, the band was formed to challenge people’s expectations of the ukulele, according to Uke Richie Williams. The Orchestra also compose and perform their own pieces, as well as arranging medleys - for example, David Bowies Life on Mars. is melded with My Way, For Once in My Life, Substitute, and more. Comedic elements are incorporated with the musicianship, including up to five members playing a single ukulele, albums include Live in London #1, Live in London #2, Still Live, Precious Little, The Secret of Life, Top Notch and a large back catalogue of recordings. They have released two DVDs, Anarchy in the Ukulele, recorded at the Barbican in London, as well as Prom Night and their version of Dy-na-mi-tee, reached #81 in the UK singles charts in 2005. Also featured on the CD single were covers of the instrumental Wonderful Land, and of Natural Woman, the latter with lead vocals provided by musical director George Hinchliffe. The orchestra has toured the USA, Canada, Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway, Ireland and Great Britain. Recent years have seen television appearances on such as Jools Hollands Hootenanny. High praise has been forthcoming from the press for live shows, the orchestra performed at the 50th anniversary VE day celebrations in Hyde Park, before an estimated audience of 170,000. Often the orchestra will provide advanced notice of an audience participation number and they provide a link to the piece online so that those that wish to participate can come prepared. In 2008, the group performed Dreamspiel, an opera, composed by George Hinchliffe. They have also, in 2010 and 2011, performed Ukulelescope where they played music to accompany silent movies from the British Film Institute archives. In 2012, Waly Waly on the Ukulele reworked arrangements of Cecil Sharps collected folk tunes for performances at the Birmingham Town Hall, in 2013 they issued a special collaboration with Ibiza Air for their Cover of the Song Bang Bang. They released an EP with 4 Remixes in different styles like Tech house, on Tuesday 18 August 2009 the UOGB performed in a late night prom in the BBC Proms 2009 Season at the Royal Albert Hall. The performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and received critical acclaim. A DVD of the performance, Prom Night, was released the same year, the orchestra has had varying line-ups over the past two decades, but since 2005 has performed as an octet, with eight ukulele players including one who plays bass ukulele. The members wear traditional dress for performances, with the men in black tie
32.
George Formby
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George Formby, OBE, was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage, screen and record he sang light, comical songs, usually playing the ukulele or banjolele, born in Wigan, Lancashire, he was the son of George Formby Sr, from whom he later took his stage name. After an early career as a boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921. His early performances were exclusively from his fathers act, including the same songs, jokes. In 1923 he made two career-changing decisions – he purchased a ukulele, and married Beryl Ingham, a performer who became his manager. She insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, and introduced the ukulele to his performance, after the war his career declined, although he toured the Commonwealth, and continued to appear in variety and pantomime. His last television appearance was in December 1960, two weeks before the death of Beryl, Formbys biographer, Jeffrey Richards, considers that the actor had been able to embody simultaneously Lancashire, the working classes, the people, and the nation. Formby was considered Britains first properly home-grown screen comedian and he was an influence on future comedians—particularly Charlie Drake and Norman Wisdom—and, culturally, on entertainers such as the Beatles, who referred to him in their music. Since his death Formby has been the subject of five biographies, George Formby was born George Hoy Booth at 3 Westminster Street, Wigan, Lancashire, on 26 May 1904. Booth was a music hall comedian and singer who performed under the name George Formby. One of his characters was that of John Willie, an archetypal Lancashire lad. In 1906 Formby Sr was earning £35 a week at the halls, which rose to £325 a week by 1920. Formby Sr was so popular that Marie Lloyd, the music hall singer and actress. Formby was born blind owing to an obstructive caul, although his sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old. Formby Sr sent his son away to work as he was worried Formby would watch him on stage, he was against Formby following in his footsteps, saying one fool in the family is enough. After a year working at Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scourfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, the film is now considered lost, with the last-known copy having been destroyed in 1940. Later in 1915, and with the closure of the English racing season because of the First World War, later that month he returned to England and raced for Lord Derby at his Newmarket stables. Formby continued as a jockey until 1921, although he never won a race, on 8 February 1921 Formby Sr succumbed to his bronchial condition and died, at the age of 45, he was buried in the Catholic section of Warrington Cemetery
33.
Banjo uke
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The banjolele is a four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. Banjolele, sometimes also spelled banjelele or banjulele is a nickname given to the instrument. The earliest known banjoleles were built by John A. Bolander and by Alvin D. Keech and its development was pushed by the need for vaudeville performers to have an instrument that played with the ease of the ukulele, but with more volume. Banjo ukuleles parallel banjo construction, on a scale, in terms of overall construction. Most are built of wood with metal accoutrements, although the mid-century Dixie brand featured banjoleles made from solid metal, the banjolele neck typically has sixteen frets and is the same scale length as a soprano or, less commonly, concert-sized ukulele. Banjo ukuleles may be open-backed, or may incorporate a resonator, Banjo ukulele heads were traditionally made of calf skin, but most modern instruments are fitted with synthetic heads. Some players prefer the natural skin heads for a traditional tone. The bridge floats on the head and is held in place by the tension of the strings, like standard ukuleles, banjo ukuleles were originally outfitted with gut strings. Nylon strings are now used, sometimes with a wound third string. The banjolele is commonly tuned G–C–E–A or A–D–F♯–B, with a re-entrant 4th string, the A–D–F♯–B tuning often produces a more strident tone, and is used for this reason. Both of these tunings are known as my dog has fleas tunings, the banjolele was the instrument played by British comedian George Formby, who developed his own style of playing in accompaniment to his comic songs. His name is associated with the instrument more than that of any other musician, other artists to make eminent use of the banjolele were Wendell Hall and Roy Smeck in the United States, and Billy Uke Scott in Great Britain. Wodehouses 1934 novel Thank You, Jeeves, valet Jeeves is driven to resign over his employer Bertie Woosters decision to take up the banjolele, in Season 2 of Orange Is the New Black, prison guard ONeill excitedly tells Caputo about his purchase of a banjolele. He later plays it for a group of nuns, George Harrison favoured the instrument in his later years, using it in several recordings. For example, he played it on his song Any Road, recent users have included Jeff Claus of The Horse Flies, Alan Randall, Andy Eastwood, comedian Frank Skinner, Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer, and Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar, the instrument can be heard in the theme song to the television show Arrested Development. Gibson Guitar Corporation Ludwig Slingerland Drum Company Kay / Stromberg-Voisinet John Grey & Sons Alvin Keech Current manufacturers Deering Banjo Company The Magic Fluke Company Oscar Schmidt Inc, recording King Luna Guitars DUKE Banjoleles Banjo Mandolin Cümbüş, A similar Turkish instrument
34.
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
35.
Tony Award
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at a ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre, several discretionary non-competitive awards are also given, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards are named after Antoinette Tony Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, the rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wings Tony Awards, which applies for that season only. It also forms the fourth spoke in the EGOT, that is someone who has won all four awards, the Tony Awards are also considered the equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Award in the United Kingdom and the Molière Award of France. From 1997 to 2010, the Tony Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in June and broadcast live on CBS television, except in 1999, in 2011 and 2012, the ceremony was held at the Beacon Theatre. From 2013 to 2015, the 67th, 68th, and 69th ceremonies returned to Radio City Music Hall, the 70th Tony Awards were held on June 12,2016 at the Beacon Theatre. The 71st Tony Awards will be held on June 11,2017, as of 2014, there are 24 categories of awards, plus several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years, some examples, the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called Best Author. The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards, for two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer and Best Costume Designer. It then went to a category, but in 2005 it was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a category was for directors of plays. A newly established non-competitive award, The Isabelle Stevenson Award, was given for the first time at the ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian. The category of Best Special Theatrical Event was retired as of the 2009–2010 season, the categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014-2015 season. Performance categories Show and technical categories Special awards Retired awards The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing headed by Brock Pemberton. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, At Jacob Wilks suggestion, proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting, at the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony
36.
Tessie O'Shea
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Teresa Mary Tessie OShea was a Welsh entertainer and actress. Born in Cardiff to James Peter OShea, a soldier who was the son of Irish emigrants and she performed on stage as early as age six, billed as The Wonder of Wales. By her teens she was known for her popular BBC Radio broadcasts and appeared on stages in Britain and she frequently finished her act by singing and playing a banjolele in the style of George Formby. While appearing in Blackpool in the 1930s, she capitalised on her size by adopting Two Ton Tessie from Tennessee as her theme song, in the 1940s, she was a frequent headliner at the London Palladium, and established herself as a hit recording artist in the 1950s. In 1963, Noël Coward created the part of the fish and chips peddler Ada Cockle specifically for OShea in his Broadway musical and her performance of traditional Cockney tunes charmed the critics and helped win her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. In 1963, OShea was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and she was popular enough that she came back in 1964 and shared the billing with The Beatles. Their joint appearance drew what was then the largest audience in the history of American television and she was a member of the repertory company on the short-lived CBS variety show The Entertainers. OShea starred in a short-lived British sitcom As Good Cooks Go and she appeared in London Town, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Blue Lamp, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. She regularly appeared on BBC TVs long running variety show, The Good Old Days, OShea died of congestive heart failure at age 82, at her home in East Lake Weir, Marion County, Florida. Hodbay The Word - Herself Tessie OShea at the Internet Broadway Database Tessie OShea at the Internet Movie Database
37.
The Ed Sullivan Show
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The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that ran on CBS from Sunday June 20,1948, to Sunday June 6,1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, in 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the series finished No.31 in TV Guide Magazines 60 Best Series of All Time, the format was essentially the same as vaudeville, and although vaudeville had died a generation earlier, Sullivan presented many ex-vaudevillians on his show. The last original Sullivan show telecast was on March 28,1971, with guests Melanie, Joanna Simon, Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, repeats were scheduled through June 6,1971. While most of the episodes aired live from New York City, the show aired live on occasion from other nations, such as the United Kingdom, Australia. For many years, Ed Sullivan was an event each Sunday evening. In those days, we had six acts. Then, each of our acts would do a leisurely ten minutes or so, Now they do two or three minutes. And in those early days I talked too much, I look up at me talking away and I say You fool. But I just keep on talking, Ive learned how to keep my mouth shut. The show enjoyed phenomenal popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s and he was regarded as a kingmaker, and performers considered an appearance on his program as a guarantee of stardom, although this sometimes did not turn out to be the case. The shows iconic status is illustrated by the song Hymn for a Sunday Evening from the 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie, in the song, a family of viewers expresses their regard for the program in worshipful tones. In September 1965, CBS started televising the program in compatible color, CBS had once backed its own color system, developed by Peter Goldmark, and resisted using RCAs compatible process until 1954. At that time, it built its first New York City color TV studio, Studio 72, in a former RKO movie theater at 2248 Broadway. One Ed Sullivan Show was broadcast on August 22,1954, from the new studio, CBS Studio 72 was demolished in 1986 and replaced by an apartment house. CBS Studio 50 was finally colorized in 1965, the 1965–66 season premiere starred the Beatles in an episode airing on September 12, which was the last episode to air in black and white. In the late 1960s, Sullivan remarked that his program was waning as the decade went on and he realized that to keep viewers, the best and brightest in entertainment had to be seen, or else the viewers were going to keep on changing the channel. Along with declining viewership, Ed Sullivan attracted a higher age for the average viewer as the seasons went on
38.
The Beatles
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The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. They acquired the nickname the Fab Four as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year, from 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road, after their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers of varying lengths. McCartney and Starr, the members, remain musically active. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in November 2001. The Beatles are the band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act, according to the RIAA, the Beatles are also the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazines list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, as of 2016 and they have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they were also collectively included in Time magazines compilation of the twentieth centurys 100 most influential people. In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a local group was already using the other name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he, in February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, after a month of Harrisons persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist. By January 1959, Lennons Quarry Bank friends had left the group, the three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They used the name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer. By early July, they had changed their name to the Silver Beatles, allan Williams, the Beatles unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August 1960
