Download Musical Instruments 2

Musical
Instruments
2
Musical
Instruments
Saxophone
•The saxophone is a member of the woodwind family.
•Saxophones are usually made of brass and are played with
a single-reed mouthpiece similar to the clarinet.
•The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in 1841.
•He wanted to create an instrument that would both be the
loudest of the woodwinds and the most versatile of the brass,
and would fill the then vacant middle ground between the two
sections.
•He patented the sax in 1846 in two groups of seven
instruments each: various sizes in alternating transposition.
•While proving very popular in its intended niche of military
band music, the saxophone is most commonly associated
with popular music, big band music, blues, early rock
and roll, ska and particularly jazz.
• There is also a substantial repertoire of concert music
• Saxophone players are called saxophonists.
•Ravel's scoring for the instrument in Bolero features
famous Sax solo
•.In the 1920s the bass saxophone
was used often in classic jazz
recordings, since at that time it was
easier to record than a tuba or
double bass.
•It is also used in the original score
(and movie) of Leonard Bernstein's
West Side Story.
•The saxophone has been more recently introduced into the symphony
orchestra, where it has found increased popularity
Maracas
•Maracas is a native instrument of
Puerto Rico.
•Maracas They are simple percussion
instruments (idiophones=produce sound
by vibrating themselves)
•Maracas are usually played in pairs
•Maracas consist of a dried calabash or
gourd shell or coconut shell filled with
seeds or dried beans. They may also be
made of leather, wood, or plastic.
•Often one maraca is pitched high and
the other is pitched low.
•There are in existence clay maracas
used by the Indians of Colombia, 1500
years ago.
•Maracas are also very popular with children
•The word maraca is thought to have come from the Tupi language of Brazil, where it is pronounced
'ma-ra-KAH'. They are known in Trinidad as shac-shacs.
•Although a simple instrument, the method of playing the maracas is not obvious. The seeds must
travel some distance before they hit the leather, wood, or plastic, so the player must anticipate the
rhythm. One can also strike the maraca against one's hand or leg to get a different sound.
•Band leader Vincent Lopez hosted a radio program in the early 1950s called Shake the Maracas in
which audience members competed for small prizes by playing the instrument with the orchestra.
•Maracas are heard in many forms of Latin music and are also used in pop and classical music.
•They are considered characteristic of the music of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela,
Mexico, Jamaica and Brazil.
•Maracas are often played at celebrations and special events. In rock and roll, they are probably
most identified with Bo Diddley, who wrote the song "Bring it to Jerome" about his maraca player,
Jerome Green.
Balalaika
•The balalaika is a stringed
instrument of Russian origin,
• Blalaika has characteristic
triangular body and 3 strings (or
sometimes 6, in 3 courses).
•The balalaika family of
instruments includes: the prima,
sekunda, alto, bass and
contrabass balalaika.
•All have three-sided bodies,
spruce or fir tops and backs
made of from 3-9 wooden
sections, and all have 3 strings.
•The prima balalaika is played
with the fingers, the sekunda
and alto either with the fingers
or a pick depending on the
music being played, and the
basses and contrabasses
•The most common solo
instrument is the prima, tuned
E-E-A
•The term first appeared in the Ukrainian language in the 18th century in documents from 17171732. It is thought that the term was borrowed into Russian where it first appeared a poem by V.
Maikov "Elysei" in 1771.
•In the 1880s Vassily Vassilievich Andreyev developed a standardized balalaika made with the
assistance of violin maker V. Ivanov. Since then it was widely used for Russian folk music.
Xylophone
•The xylophone (from the Greek words ξύλον - xylon,
"wood" + φωνή - phone, "voice", meaning "wooden
sound") is a percussion family instrument
•It consists of wooden bars of various lengths that are
struck by plastic, wooden, or rubber mallets.
•Each bar is tuned to a specific pitch
•The xylophone originated independently in Asia and
Africa.
•An older theory states that the instrument was invented
in Indonesia and spread subsequently to Africa
•. Wooden bars were originally seated on a series of hollow gourds,
and the gourds generated the resonating notes that are produced on
modern instruments by metal tubes.
•For centuries, xylophone makers struggled with methods of tuning
the wooden bars. Old methods consisted of arranging the bars on
tied bundles of straw, and, as still practiced today, placing the bars
adjacent to each other in a ladder-like layout.
•The earliest evidence of a xylophone is from the 9th Century in
southeast Asia according to the Vienna Symphonic Library, and
there is a model of a similar hanging wood instrument, dated to ca.
2000 BC in China.
•It is likely that the xylophone reached Europe during the Crusades
•By 1830, the xylophone had been popularized to some extent by a
Russian virtuoso named Michael Josef Gusikov, who through
extensive tours, made the instrument known.
•Gusikov was praised by noted musicians, including Felix
Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, and Franz Liszt.
Harp
•A harp is a stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings
positioned perpendicular to the soundboard.
•Harp can also be used as percussion instrument
•All harps have a neck, resonator and strings.
•Some, known as frame harps, also have a forepillar; those lacking
the forepillar are referred to as open harps.
•Depending on its size (which varies considerably), a harp may be
played while held in the lap or while stood on the floor.
•A person who plays the harp is called a harpist or a harper.
•Various types of harps are found in Africa, Europe, North, and South
America, and a few parts of Asia.
•Harp's origins may lie in the sound of a plucked
hunter's bow string
•Harps were most likely independently invented in
many parts of the world in remote prehistory
•The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar are
from 4000 BC in Egypt and 3000 BCE in Persia
•In antiquity harps and lyres were very prominent in
nearly all musical cultures, but they lost popularity in
the early 19th century with Western music composers,
being thought of primarily as a woman's instrument after
Marie Antoinette popularised it as an activity for women.
•The aeolian harp (wind harp), the autoharp, and all
forms of the lyre and Kithara are not harps because
their strings are not perpendicular to the soundboard;
they are related to pianos and harpsichords.
•Handel wrote a Harp Concerto in B flat and Mozart Concerto for Flute and Harp
Guitar
•Guitar is a stringed instrument
•Guitar’s strings are plucked or strummed
with the right hand while the fingers on the
left hand press down one or more strings.
•Guitar typically has six strings (E, A, D, G,
B, E), but four, seven, eight, ten, eleven,
twelve, thirteen and eighteen string guitars
also exist.
•Instruments similar to the guitar have been
popular for at least 4,000 years.
•The modern form of the guitar was
developed in Spain in late 1800s
•Until 20th c. it was mostly used in folk music
•Andres Segovia helped to establish the
guitar as instrument for classical music
•Guitars are recognized as one of the
primary instruments in flamenco, jazz,
blues, country, mariachi, rock music, and
many forms of pop.
•In classical music guitars are used as solo
•In classical music guitars usually have
nylon strings; in pop music – steel strings.
•Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers.
•The guitar player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer
•Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and
modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically
manipulate tone.
•Such electric guitars were introduced in the 1930s and continue to have a profound influence on
popular culture.
Triangle
•The triangle is an idiophone type of musical
instrument in the percussion family.
•It is a bar of metal (usually steel), bent into a
triangle shape with one of the angles is left open,
with the ends of the bar not quite touching.
•Open end causes the instrument to be of
indeterminate or not settled or decided pitch.
•Triangle is either suspended from one of the
other corners by a piece of thin wire or gut, leaving
it free to vibrate, or hooked over the hand.
•Triangle is usually struck with a metal beater,
giving a high-pitched, ringing tone.
•Early instruments were often formed as
isosceles triangles and had jingling rings
•In folk music, samba and rock music a triangle is
more often hooked over the hand so that one side
can be damped by the fingers to vary the tone. The
pitch can also be modulated slightly by varying the
area struck and by more subtle damping.
•In European classical music, the triangle has
been used in the western classical orchestra since
around the middle of the 18th century.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn and
•Angelika Kauffmann: L'Allegra, 1779
Ludwig van Beethoven all used it
•The first piece to make the triangle really prominent was Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1,
where it is used as a solo instrument
•A notable player of the triangle in popular culture is John Deacon of the rock group Queen. He
would play the triangle in live performances of Killer Queen, hanging it from his microphone.
Oboe
•The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the
woodwind family.
•Oboe was developed in France in 17th century
•In English prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois",
"hoboy", or "French hoboy".
• The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca. 1770 from
the Italian oboè, a transliteration in that language's orthography
of the 17th-century pronunciation of the French word hautbois,
a compound word made of haut ("high, loud") and bois ("wood,
woodwind").
•Oboe became popular as an orchestral instrument in Baroque
Period (1600-1750, ornate musical style)
•A musician who plays the oboe is called an oboist.
•Oboe player blows across the double reed at the mouthpiece
and presses the keys on the oboe body to change the sound
•The end of oboe is shaped like a bell, to give it a mellow sound
•There are three oboes in the modern symphony orchestra
•Standard orchestra contains an oboe with a lower range, an
English Horn (cor anglais)
•Oboe’s range is slightly more then two octaves in the treble clef (notes that are above middle C).
Careful manipulation of embouchure and air pressure allows the player to express a large range of
timbre and dynamics.
In comparison to other modern woodwind instruments, the oboe has a clear and penetrating
voice.
The voice is described in the play Angels in America as sounding like that of a duck if the duck
were a songbird
Oboe player has to learn to breath more slowly then normal, since little air is needed to play oboe
Flute
•The Flute is a woodwind musical
instrument
•The flute is a transverse (or sideblown) woodwind instrument that is
closed at the blown end.
•Flute is played by blowing a stream
of air over the embouchure hole.
•The flute has 16 circular finger holes
closed by keys, which can be used to
produce high and low sounds
depending on which finger holes are
opened or closed as well as the
direction and intensity of the air stream.
•The flute has been dated to prehistoric times: there is a three-holed flute, 18.7cm long, made
from a mammoth tusk (from the Geißenklösterle cave, near Ulm, in the southern German Swabian
Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago)
•The pan flute was used in Greece from the 7th
century BC, and spread to other parts of Europe.
•The recorder appeared in 14th century and was
popular during the renaissance, but its use declined
in the 18th century.
•The Swiss army used flutes for signaling, and this
helped the flute spread to all of Europe
•In the baroque era, flutes become used in the scores
of opera, ballet and chamber music: Bach, Telemann,
Blavet, Vivaldi and Handel used it
•Theobald Boehm is mainly responsible for making
flutes very similar to flutes known today.
Double
bass
•The double bass, (contrabass or upright bass)
is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string
instrument in the modern symphony orchestra.
•Double bass is used in classical music, jazz,
1950s-style blues and rock and roll,
rockabilly/psychobilly, bluegrass, and tango.
•Double basses are constructed from several
types of wood
•Double bass is either descendant of the viola
da gamba or from the violin (~15th century)
•The double bass is played either with a bow
(arco) or by plucking the strings (Pizz).
• In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both
bowing and plucking styles are used.
•In jazz music, the bass is mostly
plucked,
•Before the 20th century many
double basses had only three
strings
•A person who plays it is called a
bassist
•The earliest known concerto to
exist for the double bass was written
by Joseph Haydn ca.1763
•The double bass is the only
modern bowed string instrument
that is tuned in fourths (like viols),
rather than fifths