(Vocal group, 1969–79) An experimental German outfit, Can were significantly influential on both rock and dance music. The band was founded by students of avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen: Holger Czukay (bass) and Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), with Michael Karoli (guitar), Jaki Liebezeit (drums) and, briefly, David Johnson (flute). American singer Malcolm Mooney joined for Can’s debut album Monster ...
to take part in music-making. D-Beam Controllers that require no physical contact have made their way into mainstream instruments, notably in the form of Roland’s D-Beam system, which can be found augmenting the control panels of instruments such as the V-Synth. Buchla Thunder The Buchla Thunder, designed by Don Buchla, is an array of 36 touch-sensitive pads ...
is fed by a small hand-pumped bellows) and the cornemuse (which has a conical chanter) joined the court’s instrumental ensembles. These French instruments had embroidered bags and ivory pipes; they can be heard to wonderful effect in music such as the shepherd’s dance in Rameau’s Les fêtes d’Hébé. Styles & Forms | Late Baroque | Classical Instruments | Fortepiano | Classical ...
drone, and achieving a continuous tone by circular breathing, have been common among reed-pipe players for millennia; plugging the reed-pipes into a bag is a logical development. Bagpipes can be seen in the art of the Middle Ages, and there is evidence that they were in use at least 1,000 years before that. Construction The basic components ...
knees and played with a bow; it usually carries six strings which the bow sounds directly. It has a number of strings (up to 40) which are concealed and which can be plucked by the thumb or allowed to vibrate in sympathy. These run underneath the fingerboard over which the six active strings are stretched, across the belly and over ...
march – such as the double tap played towards the end of the final phrase as a signal that the music is about to end. Lambeg Drum A bass drum can be very loud. The lambeg drums of Northern Ireland (90 cm/36 in diameter and 60 cm/24 in wide) are capable of playing at above 120 dB – the same volume ...
the Heckel bassoon has a compass extending from Bb' to at least a' and possibly up to e''. Some composers, notably Wagner, have written for a bassoon that can play a low A', but this requires an extra-long bell and an additional key that most players believe destabilizes the instrument too much to become a standard feature. Although the ...
decorated with hanging bells like the 13,760-kg (131⁄2-ton) hour bell known as ‘Big Ben’ in the tower that forms part of the Houses of Parliament in London. Construction Bells can be made from wood, stone, glass or terracotta, although metal is the most common material. They are usually cast in bronze. In shape they range from spherical ...
universal icon. When the tenor sax was adopted by the jazz world it was imbued with the dangerous allure the electric guitar held for a different generation. A tenor sax can deliver both the emotional immediacy and the lack of precision in tuning and note placing which horrified many classical composers and attracted jazz performers. The mouth’s direct contact with the ...
1800, while a two-loop version developed later in the nineteenth century following the Crimean War (1853–56). This instrument was used for military calls and signals, some of which can be traced back to the instrument’s pre-military life on the hunting field. Keyed bugles were developed by Joseph Halliday in Dublin (1810) and these were taken up in early nineteenth-century ...
capacity to play complex music. Celesta Music The celesta was first used by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) to represent the Sugar Plum Fairy in his ballet The Nutcracker (1891–92). It can create a range of ethereal effects, playing runs and arpeggiated chords with great agility. The celesta is used extensively in Bartók’s music, in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony and in ...
the finger and holding it down with the sustain of the note. Since only a single finger of one hand is needed to sound each note, the accomplished player can, using three or four fingers of both hands simultaneously, produce complex passages of music comprising bass, harmony and lead lines all at once. Chapman’s Vision The Chapman ...
led to its adoption by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), who quickly developed a new, individual style of keyboard writing. On the other hand, instrumental developments can come about because composers or performers demand them. In the 1970s, for example, polyphonic synthesizers were developed because monophonic synthesizers, which could only play one note at ...
a constant member of military and concert bands, often used in the orchestra and hardly ever in solo or chamber music. It has a shrill, penetrating tone that can easily carry over a full orchestra. For this reason, it is usually used in moments of extreme tension. It does have a more playful side, however, that ...
vastly greater than that of the clavichord, but once the key has been depressed and the hammer has hit the string, there is little or nothing the finger can do to affect the sound. On the clavichord, the strings are set in vibration not by a hammer but with a tangent (a small, upright wedge, originally ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.