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(Electronic group, 1989–present) The main fountainhead of creativity was the highly collaborative Dr. Alex Patterson. The Orb redefined ambient music taking listeners on journeys irrespective of genre-fusing elements of dub and even progressive music into long extended pieces. Singles ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld’ (sampling Minnie Riperton’s ‘Loving You’) and ‘Little ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

Acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers are now some of the biggest acts in the world, while the ambient soundscapes of Future Sound Of London, The Orb and Orbital have also proved popular for mass-market consumption. Pushing in the opposite direction, artists like Madonna have worked with innovative producers like Mirwais and William Orbit, assimilating ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

, he released an online single, ‘Chicago – Change The World’, to promote awareness of the plight of computer hacker Gary McKinnon. In 2010, Gilmour collaborated with The Orb on Metallic Spheres and appeared onstage with Roger Waters at a charity event, leading to a joint performance of ‘Comfortably Numb’ in May 2011 at London’s O2 Arena during ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

White) Guy’ and resulting album Americana (1998) were deserved international hits. Their loud brand of catchy guitar tunes remains popular. Styles & Forms | Nineties | Rock Personalities | The Orb | Nineties | Rock ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

there was a need for a more relaxed accompaniment to the high-octane beats. Even at early acid house clubs, DJs like Alex Paterson, from ambient dub act The Orb, were in charge of providing a soothing musical antidote in a second room. Consequently, the late-1980s saw the release of classic ambient albums including The Orb’s dubby Adventures ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

The archlute had two peg boxes, one at the end of the neck and one just under half way up. The strings to be stopped ran to the lower one and were plucked by the fingernails of the right hand. One-and-a-half times as long, the unstopped strings ran to the higher one and were not touched by the player ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The history of musical instruments has always been very closely linked to the history of music itself. New musical styles often come about because new instruments become available, or improvements to existing ones are made. Improvements to the design of the piano in the 1770s, for instance, led to its adoption by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

From its roots, country music has been associated with simplicity – in melody, in subject-matter and in instrumentation, and it is this that has perhaps ensured its longevity. However, all good musicians make their craft look simple, and the history of country music is packed with virtuosos, from the pioneering banjoist Earl Scruggs, through ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

The drum kit is a collection of drums and cymbals played in all styles of rock, pop, jazz and blues. It is also widely used in urban music across the world, such as Afrobeat and reggae. Drum-Kit Construction A typical drum kit comprises a bass drum and hi-hat cymbal played with foot pedals, a snare drum, ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

The tape recorder, invented in 1935, had been used early on to record concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic, but it was not until 1948 that Pierre Schaeffer, a technician at the Radiodiffusion Française studio in Paris, conceived his Etude aux chemins de fer. This was the first piece of musique concrète, an experimental technique that ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Acoustic Guitar Throughout its history, the guitar has – perhaps more than any other instrument – managed to bridge the gap between the often disconnected worlds of classical, folk and popular music. Its roots go back to Babylonian times; by the 1500s it was prevalent in Spain, and is still sometimes called the Spanish guitar. Medieval versions – ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

An alternative to the archlute was the theorbo. It had a set of unstopped bass strings called ‘diapasons’, which lay just to one side of the fingerboard and ran directly from where they were attached to the bridge to a peg box at the end of a long neck. The stopped strings ran to a second peg box placed, as ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Varèse was particularly interested in the sounds of the modern urban world. His music takes a sound world derived from factories and industrialization and turns them into music. But it took the off-beat genius of Ligeti to compose a work entirely for special effects: his Poème symphonique (1962) has passed into musical folklore as the piece of music written for 100 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Few would deny that the blues has played a more important role in the history of popular culture than any other musical genre. As well as being a complete art form in itself, it is a direct ancestor to the different types of current popular music we know and love today. Without the blues there would have been no Beatles ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer

The story of classical music is not bound up simply with the traditions of any one country: it is tied up with the cultural development of Europe as a whole. This section attempts to pick out the composers from each successive age who, looked at from one point of view, exerted the greatest influence on their contemporaries and subsequent ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music, general editor Paul Du Noyer
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