As keyboard instruments, from the harpsichord to the new-fangled pianoforte, became available in a variety of European households, they were widely played by well-to-do young ladies, eager to develop what was seen as an important accomplishment. Jane Austen’s novels present illuminating portrayals of women amateurs, from those to whom playing was simply a way of attracting ...
Keyboard percussion instruments include the western xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel, the log xylophones and marimbas of Africa and Central America, and the barred instruments played in the Indonesian gamelan. The orchestral xylophone, marimba and glockenspiel have thin wooden or metal rectangular bars laid out like a chromatic piano keyboard. The back row of bars – ...
‘reeds’ (now generally made of tempered steel) are set in vibration by a rectangular bellows. The bellows are operated by the left hand, which also – as in all keyboard instruments – manipulates the so-called bass keyboard, in this case a collection of buttons, rather than keys proper, which produce both single notes and certain pre-ordained chords. ...
There are many different instrumental interfaces through which it is possible to control synthesized or sampled sounds – the most common being the piano-style keyboard. The electronic musician is also able to access a wide range of sounds through electric guitar, string, percussion and wind instruments. These devices are, to a large extent, quite recognizably conventional, ...
The celesta is a type of keyboard glockenspiel, with a range of four octaves upwards from middle C, and a damping pedal like a piano. Inside the body of the instrument is a series of chromatically tuned metal bars, which are struck with felt hammers when the performer plays the keyboard. Creation of the Celesta The celesta was ...
the piano in the 1770s, for instance, 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 ...
The dulcimer is a type of box zither whose name derives from dulce melos or ‘sweet sound’. Usually with four sides, none of them running parallel to each other (though as this is an instrument to be found under various names in practically every country on earth, it is difficult to be definite), it has several strings but no ...
One of the oldest keyboard instruments, the clavichord has its origins in the late-fourteenth century, and was used throughout Western Europe during the Renaissance. It maintained its popularity in German lands into the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when, like its cousin the harpsichord, it was decisively superseded by the piano. Pitch and Timbre The ...
long as the key was depressed, but upon release the string was immediately damped by the yarn. A series of pickup selector rocker switches to the left of the keyboard enabled the player to alter the tone of the instrument, making it rich and full or thin and biting. Other controls include overall brightness and volume settings. The sound ...
such as Sibelius or Finale – to produce musical scores. Effectively, musical desktop-publishing systems enable the user to input music on to staff notation using a combination of MIDI keyboard, qwerty keyboard and mouse. In this way, passages of music can be edited and laid out on the printed page in much the same way as a word ...
The affectionately nicknamed ‘squeeze box’ is the smallest of all conventional keyboard instuments, and the lowliest cousin of the organ (except the shirt-pocket harmonica). Strictly speaking, however, it has neither keys nor a keyboard. Nor has it a uniform shape. Playing Technique Whereas the standard English concertina is hexagonal, German and American models are square. The basic ...
During the sixteenth century the harp was in danger of falling into disuse as chromatic keyboards raised composers’ expectations of what plucked strings could achieve. But in the third quarter of the century, instrument-builders began to experiment with the double harp, constructed with a second row of strings running next to the first. Arrangements of strings varied as makers ...
At its simplest, to make a double reed the end of a piece of reed or similar plant tube is flattened so its sides nearly touch. Putting this flattened end into the mouth and blowing causes the two sides to briefly close against each other then spring back, hundreds of times a second. This causes a regular stream of ...
– developed extensive drum solos, like that in Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’, which John Bonham could extend to 30 minutes in live performance. Introduction | Percussion Instruments Instruments | Keyboard Percussion ...
CP-80. Though still large and heavy, the Yamaha CP pianos were relatively portable due to the fact that they could be split into two sections – one containing the keyboard and hammer mechanism, the other containing the actual strings on the harp-like frame. Behaving like an acoustic piano, the sound of the CP-70 and CP-80 could be still ...
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