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 ...
thirds and also gave access to a wider range of pitches than the single flageolet. In 1843, Robert Clarke invented a cheap flageolet that became known as the tin whistle or pennywhistle. The instrument was immensely popular in Ireland, where it remains a favourite in performances of folk music. Introduction | Woodwind Instruments Instruments | Transverse Flutes Around the ...
gives a rumbling sound when shaken. Gershwin wrote for four tuned car horns in An American in Paris (1928), and Leonard Bernstein (1918–90) instructs the timpanist to blow a police whistle to break up the fight scene in West Side Story (1961). There is a starting pistol in Erik Satie’s (1866–1925) ballet Parade (1917), which also includes a typewriter and a ...
sections within the basic structure of the music. The ensemble is directed by the mestre (master), who will play in the group and give signals to the performers using a whistle (apito). Make-Up of a Samba Band Typically a samba bateria will comprise a group of drums and a shaker (ganzá), scraper (reco-reco) and the agogo, a double- or triple-cone-shaped ...
The medieval pipe was played by blowing directly into a mouthpiece, like a recorder or penny whistle. Although it usually had only three holes to finger, by varying the force of blowing, players could achieve a working range of about one-and-a-half octaves. It was played with the right hand; the left hand held a thick, stubby beater ...
emerges into a usually rectangular or ‘D’-shaped window cut in the tube to hit the sharpened tone-producing edge on its far side. No-Holed Whistles It is possible to make a whistle by sliding the bark off a sappy willow stick, cutting a notch in the bark tube, and reinserting a short length of the stick with one side shaved ...
Bagpipe Somewhere, perhaps in Mesopotamia, about 7,000 years ago, a shepherd may well have looked at a goat skin and some hollow bones and had an idea for a new musical instrument: the bagpipe. In the early Christian era, the instrument spread from the Middle East eastward into India and westward to Europe. By the seventeenth ...
The term ‘woodwind’ refers collectively to the orchestral instruments whose sound is generated by reeds or by passing air across (as opposed to directly into) a mouthpiece: this covers the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon. All woodwind instruments sound different pitches in the same way as brass instruments – using enclosed columns of air, based on the principles ...
Puccini visited the Metropolitan Opera in New York during 1907 to see the US premieres of Manon Lescaut and Madama Butterfly. While there he saw David Belasco’s play The Girl of the Golden West and his next opera began to take shape. La fanciulla del West is notable particularly for the vital part the vast orchestra plays in depicting the characters’ ...
and soon chart hit after chart hit (‘Please Forgive Me’, ‘Babylon’) snatched mass radio airplay, bolstered by a middle-aged fan base and anyone who liked a tune they could whistle underpinned by danceable rhythms, a winning formula perfected in his home studio. 2005’s Life In Slow Motion found Gray in a darker but no less successful place. Styles & ...
and the rigours of the road to forge a new American folk music that would influence country music for generations. Rodgers wrote songs like ‘T.B. Blues’, ‘Travelin’ Blues’, ‘Train Whistle Blues’ and his 13 ‘blue yodels’. Rodgers’ voice and inherent honesty attracted legions of listeners. Rodgers developed his guitar-playing and lyrics during 10 years working on southern and western railroads. ...
(drums, died 1972 and replaced by Jerry Nolan, died 1992). The 1973 debut New York Dolls was promoted by a legendary appearance on British television’s The Old Grey Whistle Test. The album was not a big seller and record company Mercury dropped the Dolls after a similar failure of the 1974 follow-up Too Much Too Soon. Future Sex Pistols ...
If Jimmie Rodgers is the father of country music, Uncle Dave Macon its first radio star and the Carters its first family group, Roy Acuff (1903–92) has a claim to be called the father of the country-music business. Not only was he a key figure in the Grand Ole Opry – indeed, for many, its figurehead – ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1982–present) Formed in North London around gifted songwriter Shane MacGowan (vocals). Other long-term members include Spider Stacey (tin whistle, vocals), Jem Finer (banjo, guitar), Phil Chevron (guitar) and Andrew Ranken (drums). They breathed fresh, punky life into Irish music on excellent albums Rum, Sodomy And The Lash (1985) and If I Should Fall From ...
uillean – elbow – pipes were fast being lost, seriously threatening the existence of Ireland’s unique instrument. Now, the pipes, bodhran, fiddle, melodeon and tin whistle are regular ingredients of the informal sessions that take place all over Ireland virtually every night of the week, and the legend of ‘the craic’ now dominates the image of ...
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