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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Clavinet

A Clavinet is an electrophonic keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various models were produced over the years, including the models I, II, L, C, D6, and E7. Most models consist of 60 keys and 60 associated strings, giving it a five-octave range from F1 to E6.Each key uses a small rubber tip to perform a "hammer on" (forcefully fret the string) to a guitar-type string when it is pressed, as with a conventional clavichord. The end of each string farthest from the pickups passes through a weave of yarn. When the key is released, the yarn makes the string immediately stop vibrating. This mechanism is completely different from the other Hohner keyboard products, the Cembalet and Pianet, which use the principle of plectra or sticky pads plucking metal reeds.

Banjo


The banjo is a stringed instrument with, typically, four or five strings, which vibrate a membrane of plastic material or animal hide stretched over a circular frame. Early forms of the instrument were primarily developed by enslaved Africans in Colonial America, adapted from several African instruments. There are several ideas on where the name banjo came from. It may derive from the Kimbundu term mbanza. Some etymologists believe it comes from a dialectal pronunciation of the Portuguese "bandore" or from an early anglicisation of the Spanish word "bandurria", though other research suggests that it may come from a Senegambian term for a bamboo stick formerly used for the instrument's neck.


The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, and mouth organ is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country music, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes (reed chambers) or multiple holes. The pressure caused by blowing or drawing air into the reed chambers causes a reed or multiple reeds to vibrate up and down creating sound. Each chamber has multiple, variable-tuned brass or bronze reeds, which are secured at one end and loose on the other end, with the loose end vibrating and creating sound.


The sopranissimo or soprillo saxophone is the smallest member of the saxophone family. It is pitched in one octave above the soprano saxophone, although the keywork only extends to a written high E rather than F. Due to its small size, the upper octave key has to be placed in the mouthpiece. It is difficult to build an instrument so small, and only recently has a true sopranissimo saxophone been produced. The soprillo is 12 inches in length (13 inches with the mouthpiece).
Because it is so small and requires such a small and focused embouchure, the soprillo is difficult to play, particularly in its upper register. Additionally, the market demand for soprillos is comparatively small, so the economy of scale is reduced, thereby making a soprillo more expensive relative to other, larger saxophones such as the alto or tenor


A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Depressing a key on the keyboard causes the instrument to produce sounds, either by mechanically striking a string or tine (piano, electric piano, clavichord); plucking a string (harpsichord); causing air to flow through a pipe (organ); or strike a bell (carillon). On electric and electronic keyboards, depressing a key connects a circuit (Hammond organ, digital piano, synthesizer). Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the "piano keyboard".


The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China. The term "citre" is also used more broadly, to describe the entire family of stringed instruments in which the strings do not extend beyond the sounding box, including the hammered dulcimer, psaltery, Appalachian dulcimer, guqin, guzheng (Chinese zither), koto, gusli, kantele, gayageum, đàn tranh, kanun, autoharp, santoor, yangqin, piano, harpsichord, santur, swarmandal, and others. Modern electric zithers exist, as well as a wide variation of experimental zithers like the Kitaras of Harry Partch, the Shruti Stick and the Moodswinger.


The smallest of the trumpet family is the piccolo trumpet. The most common of these instruments are built to play in both B-flat and A, with separate leadpipes for each key. The tubing in the B-flat piccolo trumpet is exactly one-half the length of that in a standard B-flat trumpet. Piccolo trumpets in G, F, and even high C are also manufactured, but are rarer.


The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.It is played by compressing or expanding a bellows whilst pressing buttons or keys, causing valves, called pallets, to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds, that vibrate to produce sound inside the body.[notes 1]
The instrument is sometimes considered a one-man-band as it needs no accompanying instrument. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand manual, and the accompaniment—consisting of bass and pre-set chord buttons—on the left-hand manual.The accordion is often used in folk music in Europe, North America and South America. It is commonly associated with busking. Some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is sometimes used in both solo and orchestra performances of classical music.

Saturday, May 1, 2010


The recorder or English flute is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It is distinguished from other members of the family by having holes for seven fingers (the lower one or two often doubled to facilitate the production of semitones) and one for the thumb of the uppermost hand. The bore of the recorder is tapered slightly, being widest at the mouthpiece end and narrowest at the top on Baroque recorders, or flared almost like a trumpet at the bottom on Renaissance instruments.


The tambora (Marathi), tambura (South India), tamburo (Gujarati), or tanpura (North India) is a long necked plucked lute, a stringed instrument found in different versions in different places. The tanpura in its bodily shape somewhat resembles the sitar, but it has no frets, as only the open strings are played as a harmonic accompaniment to the other musicians. It has four or five (rarely, six) wire strings, which are plucked one after another in a regular pattern to create a harmonic resonance on the basic note (bourdon or drone function).


The sopranissimo or soprillo saxophone is the smallest member of the saxophone family. It is pitched in one octave above the soprano saxophone, although the keywork only extends to a written high E rather than F. Due to its small size, the upper octave key has to be placed in the mouthpiece. It is difficult to build an instrument so small, and only recently has a true sopranissimo saxophone been produced. The soprillo is 12 inches in length (13 inches with the mouthpiece).
Because it is so small and requires such a small and focused embouchure, the soprillo is difficult to play, particularly in its upper register. Additionally, the market demand for soprillos is comparatively small, so the economy of scale is reduced, thereby making a soprillo more expensive relative to other, larger saxophones such as the alto or tenor.


A laser harp is an electronic musical instrument consisting of several laser beams to be blocked, in analogy with the plucking of the strings of a harp, in order to produce sounds. It was popularized by Jean Michel Jarre in his concerts.
It has subsequently been used in a number of different designs, including a MIDI version invented by Philippe Guerre, and a recent one created by Yan Terrien. They have also been used in public art installations such as those created by Jen Lewin on display at Lincoln Center in 2000 and Burning Man 2005