The bell may have been the instrument most widely and frequently heard in the European Middle Ages. Handbells had survived into the medieval period from antiquity; in addition, large bells were hung in church towers. Their loud sound was believed to keep away demons, so they may have offset the fear of churchyards. Bells were made of bronze; the ...
Bells are a feature of ceremony and ritual. They are used for meditation and prayer, and to mark significant life events such as funerals and weddings. Bells are used to mark out the timetable of our daily lives – appearing as alarm bells, warning signals and in mechanized chimes in clocks. In Japan, bonsho temple bells are rung ...
Tubular bells, also known as orchestral or symphonic chimes, are a set of tuned steel tubes with a chrome finish, hanging vertically in a stand with a pedal damper. The optimum range for a chromatic set of tubular bells is 11⁄2 octaves rising from middle C (c'–f''), as notes above or below this range are difficult to tune ...
with 16 pipes and 16 strings, all within a single clock. In 1736, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) wrote and arranged numerous pieces for a clock that played both bells and organ pipes. In 1790 Mozart composed a great masterpiece expressly for a form of barrel organ. Hand-cranked barrel pianos first appeared, in Italy, late in the eighteenth ...
piano that used a piano hammer action to play graduated steel tuning forks or prongs instead of bars. Auguste took the keyboard-operated glockenspiel of the eighteenth century (used for Papageno’s bells in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, 1791), and added a box resonator to each metal bar. He also improved the piano’s hammer action so that the celesta could be played like ...
these instruments orchestrally, including a piccolo, a cor anglais, a clarinet in Eb, a contrabassoon as well as a keyed bugle, an ophicleide and tubular bells in his Symphonie fantastique of 1827. The harp, which had been used as a folk instrument for hundreds of years, was gaining a higher profile, recent improvements ...
Drumming in West Africa is a rural indigenous art form, and it accompanies dance and singing. Master drummers are members of the griot class of professional musical entertainers. These men lead the drumming and promote the tradition by teaching students. The two main types of West African drum are goblet drums and hourglass drums made from a hollowed-out single log ...
offstage. In the twentieth century, further instruments were introduced, especially percussion instruments such as the piano, celeste, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, cimbalom and tubular bells and occasionally an organ, saxophone, guitar, mandolin, or ondes martenot. Since about 1950, non-western percussion instruments such as marimbas, tuned gongs, tom-toms and ...
to alter the sound. In addition to the ‘damper’ effect, which modern pianos preserve (nicknamed the ‘soft pedal’), there were pedals or stops to operate drums, triangles, bells and cymbals, and there were even bassoon, harpsichord and buzzer stops. Later makers abandoned these and concentrated instead on producing fortepianos that possessed two qualities: a wider compass ...
with the edge of the left hand while playing the drum with the right hand. The drum can also be played on the rim, and can have shakers and bells attached to the crossbars. The bodhrán is played in Irish traditional music and in Celtic folk-rock music. It also appears in Peter Maxwell Davies’ (b. 1934) Fifth Symphony. Introduction | Percussion ...
musical mainstream only in the eighteenth century. A series of glass vessels could be tuned by having the appropriate quantity of water poured into them; they were then struck like bells to produce a ringing sound, or the rims were dampened and then rubbed. Gluck played a concerto on such an instrument in the 1740s, but it was the ...
examples of Southeast Asian gongs that have a rising tone once struck. These include the Chinese jingluo, which is used in Chinese opera, and the Korean ching. Temple Bells In Japan and Tibet another form of gong is used in Buddhist ceremonies. These are called temple bells (dobachi), resting bells or singing bowls. These gongs are a basin of ...
greater refinement of performance. Made in Germany, it is called by its German name of ‘Geigenwerk’, or mechanical violin. Styles & Forms | Medieval Era | Classical Instruments | Bells | Medieval Era | Classical ...
does not normally play rolls. Before the nineteenth century, the orchestral glockenspiel was often operated by a keyboard. The glockenspiel is often used to represent delicate sounds like small bells, music boxes, fairies and birds – such as in the ‘Dance of the Hours’ from La gioconda (1876) by Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–86). Xylophone The xylophone (140 cm/56 in ...
cyclic and is constructed from several layers of interlocking melodic ideas, which combine to create the mesmeric effect believed to call the spirits. Introduction | Percussion Instruments Instruments | Bells | Percussion ...
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