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The birthplace of free reeds seems to have been eastern Asia. There, it is typical to place a small free reed, made of metal or bamboo, into a bamboo tube cut to the appropriate length so that its air column resonates at the reed’s frequency, increasing the volume and allowing the player to allow it to sound ...

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

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1968–73) Fronted by charismatic Paul Rodgers, Free was a catalyst in the popular shift from blues-dominated rock to heavy-metal forms. Rodgers left Brown Sugar to form Free with guitarist Paul Kossoff, whose playing on the hit ‘All Right Now’ sealed its popularity in 1970. Not long thereafter, tensions and drug abuse began to weaken the ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1968–71, 1972–73) Comprising Paul Rodgers (vocals), Simon Kirke (drums), Paul Kossoff (guitar) and Andy Fraser (bass), Free made headlines in 1970. After two respected albums, Tons Of Sobs (1968) and Free (1969), had been promoted in Britain and, via a support slot to Eric Clapton’s supergroup Blind Faith, the States, their primal blues ...

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

John Abercrombie (b. 1944) is a stylist who has managed to incorporate flavours of folk and rock along with world-music influences into his jazz-based repertoire. He was a highly influential fusion guitarist in the late Sixties and Seventies and has had an abundant career, working solo and with a multitude of collaborators, including Billy Cobham, Ralph Towner, ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Blues and hard-rock guitarist Paul Kossoff, son of British actor David Kossoff, was born in Hampstead, London in 1950. He studied classical guitar as a child, but had given it up by his early teens. Inspired by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, featuring Eric Clapton, he resumed playing and teamed up with drummer Simon Kirke in the ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Free jazz is seen by many as an avant-garde art form rather than a type of jazz, with its unpredictable rhythm and chord progressions. Evolving out of bebop in the 1940s and 1950s the exponents of free jazz abandoned traditional forms to expand the music’s creative possibilities, challenging mainstream listeners and players alike. The first documented free jazz recordings ...

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

As part of the Renaissance (literally ‘rebirth’), which began in Italy in around 1450, the Baroque era was a revolution within a revolution. It saw a break from the Medieval view of humanity as innately sinful. Instead, Renaissance thinking cast individuals as a dynamic force in their own right and gave free rein to human imagination, ingenuity and ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Glinka, the ‘father of Russian music’, was the first composer to forge a distinctively Russian style. Previously, during the reigns of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, music at the Imperial court had been directed by leading Italian opera composers such as Baldassare Galuppi (1706–85), Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816) and Domenico ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Forms such as the toccata and prelude, which began in the Renaissance as improvised ‘warm-up’ pieces, became more substantial virtuoso keyboard compositions in the late Baroque era, though they retained their introductory function. Alessandro Scarlatti’s harpsichord toccatas expanded the form to embrace a series of contrasting sections, some of them in strict styles – perhaps fugal or ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Almost no Texan musicians have ever herded cattle, but most like to think of themselves as cowboys nonetheless. They imagine themselves pulling out an acoustic guitar after dinner and singing a song about the adventures and frustrations they have known. And not just any old song – it has to be one they wrote and it has to be more ...

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

Country music today retains little of the regional identity that characterized it in its early days. There are pockets of resistance to this homogeneity and to the hegemony of Nashville – a honky-tonk dance circuit and a fiercely independent singer-songwriter tradition in Texas, for example – but overall the scene is one of major stars playing huge venues. The middle ...

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

The cornet is very similar to the trumpet in looks and playing technique. It is thought to have been invented by the instrument maker Jean-Louis Antoine in the 1820s. Antoine, who worked for the Parisian firm Halary, was one of a number of makers experimenting with the new valve technology that was revolutionizing brass instruments at the time. His ...

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

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

A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who have come together to play music. In theory, an ensemble could contain any number of instruments in any combination, but in practice, certain combinations just don’t work very well, either for musical reasons or because of the sheer practicality of getting particular instruments and players ...

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

A small free-reed instrument, the harmonica, or mouth organ, is placed between the lips and moved to and fro to reach the rows of channels which house vibrating reeds, played by blowing into it. The arrival of the Chinese sheng in Europe in the eighteenth century encouraged a great deal of experimentation with free-reed instruments. In 1821 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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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...

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