Accordion
Accordion
Accordion
History
The accordion is a free reed instrument and is in the same family as other instruments such as
the sheng and khaen. The sheng and khaen are both much older than the accordion and this type of
reed inspired the kind of free reeds in use in the accordion as it is currently known.
The accordion's basic form is believed to have been invented in Berlin, in 1822, by Christian Friedrich
Ludwig Buschmann, although one instrument has been recently discovered that appears to have
been built earlier.
The earliest history of the accordion in Russia is poorly documented. Nevertheless, according to
Russian researchers, the earliest known simple accordions were made in Tula, Russia, by Timofey
Vorontsov from 1820, andIvan Sizov from 1830.[ By the late 1840s, the instrument was already very
widespread;[14] together the factories of the two masters were producing 10,000 instruments a year.
By 1866, over 50,000 instruments were being produced yearly by Tula and neighbouring villages, and
by 1874 the yearly production rate was over 700,000. By the 1860s, Novgorod, Vyatka and Saratov
governorates also had significant accordion production. By the 1880s, the list
included Oryol, Ryazan, Moscow, Tver, Vologda, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and Simbirsk, and
many of these places created their own varieties of the instrument.
The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that use free reeds
driven by a bellows. An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian, of
Armenian origin, in Vienna.[notes 6] Demian's instrument bore little resemblance to modern
instruments. It only had a left hand buttonboard, with the right hand simply operating the bellows.
One key feature for which Demian sought the patent was the sounding of an entire chord by
depressing one key. His instrument also could sound two different chords with the same key, one for
each bellows direction (a bisonoric action). At that time in Vienna, mouth harmonicas
with Kanzellen (chambers) had already been available for many years, along with bigger instruments
driven by hand bellows. The diatonic key arrangement was also already in use on mouth-blown
instruments. Demian's patent thus covered an accompanying instrument: an accordion played with
the left hand, opposite to the way that contemporary chromatic hand harmonicas were played, small
and light enough for travelers to take with them and used to accompany singing. The patent also
described instruments with both bass and treble sections, although Demian preferred the bass-only
instrument owing to its cost and weight advantages.
By 1831, the accordion had appeared in Britain. The instrument was noted in The Times of that year as
one new to British audiences and not favourably reviewed, but nevertheless it soon became
popular.[ It had also become popular with New Yorkers by the mid-1840s.[
After Demian's invention, other accordions appeared, some featuring only the right-handed
keyboard for playing melodies. It took English inventor Charles Wheatstone to bring both chords and
keyboard together in one squeezebox. His 1844 patent for what he called a concertina also featured
the ability to easily tune the reeds from the outside with a simple tool.
The musician Adolph Müller described a great variety of instruments in his 1833 book Schule für
Accordion. At the time, Vienna and London had a close musical relationship, with musicians often
performing in both cities in the same year, so it is possible that Wheatstone was aware of this type of
instrument and may have used them to put his key-arrangement ideas into practice.
Jeune's flutina resembles Wheatstone's concertina in internal construction and tone colour, but it
appears to complement Demian's accordion functionally. The flutina is a one-sided bisonoric melody-
only instrument whose keys are operated with the right hand while the bellows is operated with the
left. When the two instruments are combined, the result is quite similar to diatonic button
accordions still manufactured today.
Further innovations followed and continue to the present. Various buttonboard and keyboard
systems have been developed, as well as voicings (the combination of multiple tones at different
octaves), with mechanisms to switch between different voices during performance, and different
methods of internal construction to improve tone, stability and durability.
Construction
Accordions have many configurations and types. What may be technically possible to do with one
accordion could be impossible with another:
Some accordions are bisonoric, producing different pitches depending on the direction of
bellows movement
Others are unisonoric and produce the same pitch in both directions. The pitch also depends on
its size.
Some use a chromatic buttonboard for the right-hand manual
Others use a diatonic buttonboard for the right-hand manual
Yet others use a piano-style musical keyboard for the right-hand manual
Some can play in different registers
Craftsmen and technicians may tune the same registers differently, "personalizing" the end
result, such as an organ technician might voice a particular instrument.
USES OF ACCORDION
Use in various music genres
The accordion has traditionally been used to perform folk or ethnic music, popular music, and
transcriptions from the operatic and light-classical music repertoire. Today the instrument is
sometimes heard in contemporary pop styles, such as rock and pop-rock and occasionally even in
serious classical music concerts, as well as advertisements.
Use in traditional music
Invented in 1829, its popularity spread rapidly: it has mostly been associated with the common
people, and was spread by Europeans who emigrated around the world. The accordion in both
button and piano forms became a favorite of folk musicians and has been integrated into traditional
music styles all over the world: see the list of music styles that incorporate the accordion.
Use in popular music
The accordion appeared in popular music from the 1900s to the 1960s. This half-century is often
called the "golden age of the accordion".[24] Five players, Pietro Frosini, the two brothers
Count Guido Deiro and Pietro Deiro and Slovenian brothers Vilko Ovsenik and Slavko Avsenik, Charles
Magnante were major influences at this time
Use in classical music
Although best known as a folk instrument, it has grown in popularity among classical composers. The
earliest surviving concert piece is Thême varié très brillant pour accordéon methode Reisner, written in
1836 by Louise Reisner of Paris. Other composers, including the Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the
Italian Umberto Giordano, and the American Charles Ives, wrote works for the diatonic button
accordion.
TRUMPET
Etymology
The English word "trumpet" was first used in the late 14th century.[3] The word came from Old
French "trompette", which is a diminutive of trompe.[3] The word "trump", meaning "trumpet," was
first used in English in 1300. The word comes from Old French trompe "long, tube-like musical wind
instrument" (12c.), cognate with Provençal tromba, Italian tromba, all probably from a Germanic
source (compare Old High German trumpa, Old Norse trumba "trumpet"), of imitative origin."
History
The earliest trumpets date back to 1500 BC and earlier. The bronze and silver trumpets
from Tutankhamun's grave in Egypt, bronze lurs from Scandinavia, and metal trumpets from China
date back to this period. Trumpets from the Oxus civilization (3rd millennium BC) of Central Asia
have decorated swellings in the middle, yet are made out of one sheet of metal, which is considered
a technical wonder
The Shofar, made from a ram horn and the Hatzotzeroth, made of metal, are both mentioned in the
Bible. They were played in Solomon's Temple around 3000 years ago. They were said to be used to
blow down the walls of Jericho. They are still used on certain religious days. The Salpinx was a
straight trumpet 62 inches (1,600 mm) long, made of bone or bronze. Salpinx contests were a part of
the original Olympic Games.
The Moche people of ancient Peru depicted trumpets in their art going back to AD 300.[9] The earliest
trumpets were signaling instruments used for military or religious purposes, rather than music in the
modern sense;[10] and the modern buglecontinues this signaling tradition.
Improvements to instrument design and metal making in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance led
to an increased usefulness of the trumpet as a musical instrument. The natural trumpets of this era
consisted of a single coiled tube without valves and therefore could only produce the notes of a
single overtone series. Changing keys required the player to change crooks of the instrument.[7] The
development of the upper, "clarino" register by specialist trumpeters—notably Cesare Bendinelli—
would lend itself well to the Baroque era, also known as the "Golden Age of the natural trumpet."
During this period, a vast body of music was written for virtuoso trumpeters. The art was revived in
the mid-20th century and natural trumpet playing is again a thriving art around the world. Many
modern players in Germany and the UK who perform Baroque music use a version of the natural
trumpet fitted with three or four vent holes to aid in correcting out-of-tune notes in the harmonic
series.
The melody-dominated homophony of the classical and romantic periods relegated the trumpet to a
secondary role by most major composers owing to the limitations of the natural
trumpet. Berlioz wrote in 1844:
Notwithstanding the real loftiness and distinguished nature of its quality of tone, there are few
instruments that have been more degraded (than the trumpet). Down to Beethoven and Weber,
every composer – not exceptingMozart – persisted in confining it to the unworthy function of filling
up, or in causing it to sound two or three commonplace rhythmical formulae.[12]
The attempt to give the trumpet more chromatic freedom in its range saw the development of
the keyed trumpet, but this was a largely unsuccessful venture due to the poor quality of its sound
Although the impetus for a tubular valve began as early as 1793, it was not until 1818 that Friedrich
Bluhmel and Heinrich Stölzel made a joint patent application for the box valve as manufactured by
W. Schuster. The symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and as late as Brahms, were still played on
natural trumpets. Crooks and shanks (removable tubing of various lengths) as opposed to keys or
valves were standard, notably in France, into the first part of the 20th century. As a consequence of
this late development of the instrument's chromatic ability, the repertoire for the instrument is
relatively small compared to other instruments. The 20th century saw an explosion in the amount
and variety of music written for the trumpet
Construction
The trumpet is constructed of brass tubing bent twice into a rounded oblong shape. As with all brass
instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound into
the mouthpiece and starting a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the trumpet. The
player can select the pitchfrom a range of overtones or harmonics by changing the lip aperture and
tension (known as the embouchure).
The mouthpiece has a circular rim, which provides a comfortable environment for the lips' vibration.
Directly behind the rim is the cup, which channels the air into a much smaller opening (the back bore
or shank) that tapers out slightly to match the diameter of the trumpet's lead pipe. The dimensions
of these parts of the mouthpiece affect the timbre or quality of sound, the ease of playability, and
player comfort. Generally, the wider and deeper the cup, the darker the sound and timbre.
Common Uses
The trumpet is used for many things. Trumpets are used in bands like jazz, opera's, and
orchestra's. Trumpets have been known to be played during a battle for communication.
CLARINET
The clarinet is a musical-instrument family belonging to the group known as the woodwind
instruments. It has a single-reed mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an almost
cylindrical bore, and a flared bell. A person who plays a clarinet is called a clarinetist (sometimes
spelled clarinettist).
While the similarity in sound between the earliest clarinets and the trumpet may hold a clue to its
name, other factors may have been involved. During the Late Baroque era, composers such
as Bach and Handel were making new demands on the skills of their trumpeters, who were often
required to play difficult melodic passages in the high, or as it came to be called, clarion register.
Since the trumpets of this time had no valves or pistons, melodic passages would often require the
use of the highest part of the trumpet's range, where the harmonics were close enough together to
produce scales of adjacent notes as opposed to the gapped scales or arpeggios of the lower register.
The trumpet parts that required this specialty were known by the term clarino and this in turn came
to apply to the musicians themselves. It is probable that the term clarinet may stem from the
diminutive version of the 'clarion' or 'clarino' and it has been suggested that clarino players may have
helped themselves out by playing particularly difficult passages on these newly developed "mock
trumpets".[1]
Johann Christoph Denner is generally believed to have invented the clarinet inGermany around the
year 1700 by adding a register key to the earlierchalumeau. Over time, additional keywork and
airtight pads were added to improve the tone and playability.
These days the most popular clarinet is the B♭ clarinet. However, the clarinet in A, just a semitone
lower, is commonly used in orchestral music. Since the middle of the 19th century the bass
clarinet (nowadays invariably in B♭ but with extra keys to extend the register down a few notes) has
become an essential addition to the orchestra. The clarinet family ranges from the (extremely rare)
BBB♭ octo-contrabass to the A♭ piccolo clarinet. The clarinet has proved to be an exceptionally
flexible instrument, equally at home in the classical repertoire as in concert bands, military
bands, marching bands, klezmer, and jazz.
Uses of the Clarinet Today
Today, the clarinet can be found in many different ensembles including orchestras, concert or
classical bands, and jazz bands. One reason clarinets can be found in so many ensembles is because
the clarinet can produce many styles of music. For example, the clarinet can produce arpeggios,
marcato passages, legato passages, staccatos, tenutos, fortissimos, pianissimos, and everything in
between.
The clarinet is and always has been an important part of classical music. In fact, the clarinet has been
in concertos and symphonies dating back to Mozart. He felt the clarinet was an extraordinary
instrument which should be brought in orchestral music. From then on, clarinets have always been
an important part in symphonies and other orchestral works. Many other composers began to like
the trend, and included the clarinet. Some of those composers include Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy,
Stravinski, and Tchaikovski.
Another composer who featured the clarinet was Gershwin. But as many people know, he didn't
write classical music. Rather, he wrote jazz and upbeat musicals. One of his most noted works for
clarinet is "Rhapsody in Blue." Yet another composer who used the clarinet in jazz was Louis Prima,
who wrote "Sing, Sing, Sing." To this day, clarinets are still portrayed in these jazz works, as well as
many others.
There are also many small ensemble groups that include the clarinet. Chamber music, duets, trios,
quartets, quintets, and many other orchestrations reserve important roles for clarinets. Over all
though, the clarinet is a popular and important instrument of today.
The clarinet is a wonderful instrument that with time, could be further perfected. With its flexibility
in pitch and ease in articulation, the clarinet can accomplish almost anything. Many musicians have
demonstrated the power and versatility of the clarinet. Some were famous composers, while others
still perform today. And while we know about its past and present, its future holds as much mystery
as its mellow tone.
UKULELE
The name 'ukulele' is the traditional Hawaiian name that was given to a small instrument called the
machete (machete de braga), which was originally developed in the Madeira Islands of Portugal. The
machete itself is a descendent of the early European and Middle Eastern plucked stringed
instruments (such as the lute), is a member of the guitar family, and goes by several different names
including the cavaquinho, braguinha, manchhete and cavaco. The machete was brought into Hawaii
by Portuguese immigrants, who moved to the islands to work in the sugar cane fields in the late
1800's. Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and Jose do Espirito Santo, who arrived in Hawaii on the
Ravenscrag in 1879 from the Portuguese Islands of Madeira are believed to have been the first
makers of the Hawaiian 'ukulele'.
There are several different legends about how the machete got its Hawaiian name; the 'ukulele' -
although there is not enough evidence to prove that any one of these stories is, in fact, the truth.
The word 'ukulele' itself translates roughly to 'jumping flea' in English. One story of how the ukulele
got its name states that when one of the passengers on the Ravenscrag, Joao Fernandes, reached
the Honolulu port, he was so overjoyed after four months at sea that he immediately jumped off the
ship and began playing folk songs from Madeira on the wharf. The Hawaiians who saw Fernandes
play the instrument thought that his fast-moving fingers looked like fleas jumping over the
fingerboard - and so the name for the instrument was born. Another account of how the ukulele got
its name is based on the understanding that the Englishman Edward Purvis played the instrument.
Edward Purvis acted as an Assistant Chamberlain to King David Kalakaua, the last reigning King of
Hawaii, and a man who was very influential in the early life of the ukulele. Purvis was thought to have
been nicknamed 'ukulele' due to his small stature and his energetic personality. Eventually, it is
thought that the instrument that he played for the King also adopted this name. Yet more tales
about how the ukulele got its name survive, with several different translations of the term being
used as evidence. The last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, has been recorded as explaining
that the term 'ukulele' in fact means 'the gift that came here' (with 'uku' translating to 'gift or
reward' and 'lele' translating to 'to come') which indeed is a much different perspective, and one
that has nothing at all to do with fleas!
After its arrival in Hawaii, the ukulele was quickly adopted into Hawaiian culture. King David Kalakaua
was very fond of the small instrument, which is acknowledged as a key factor that led to the ukulele
becoming so popular. King Kalakaua was passionate about developing Hawaiian culture in the face
of the opposition posed by missionary groups, who themselves saw native cultures as uncivilized,
and whose aim was to convert native peoples to Christian worship and Christian values. King
Kalakaua promoted the fusion of modern art forms with traditional aspects of Hawaiian culture in
order to re-ignite interest in Hawaiian culture. It is King Kalakaua who promoted the ukulele as a
Hawaiian instrument, and used the instrument at formal royal functions, to play traditional Hawaiian
music, and to accompany hula.
After the Portuguese settlers Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and Jose do Espirito Santo had finished
their work on the early Hawaiian sugar plantations, they are thought to have returned to their
woodworking roots in Honolulu, the capital city of Hawaii. In 1889, all three men were listed in the
city directory as being 'guitar makers'. As the ukulele became more popular under the patronage of
King David Kalakaua, more ukuleles were made by these three men. The most successful of the three
was Manuel Nunes, who continued to make ukuleles after the instrument was introduced to the
American mainland, and whose sons continued to manufacture ukuleles after him.
While the machete travelled around the world along with Portuguese settlers, the Hawaiian take on
the small four-stringed instrument was not introduced to a mainstream American audience until the
early 1900's. The ukulele made a particular impression on mainland Americans during the Panama
Pacific International Exposition that was held in San Francisco in 1915. The Exposition featured
performances by Hawaiian ukulele players, performing as both soloists and in groups, who were very
popular with the fair visitors. After the ukulele began to acquire fans in mainland America, the
ukulele was then adopted by local mainland musicians, who used it to play traditional Hawaiian music
(which, along with the ukulele, had become more popular among American citizens), and
additionally introduced the ukulele into other genres. The popularity of the ukulele boomed through
1915-1920, with Hawaiian music becoming as popular as current mainland music. Mainland American
instrument manufacturers saw an opportunity in making ukuleles, and manufacturers in New York
and other major American cities began producing and marketing the instrument; causing some
tension between the Hawaiian-based and the larger mainland American manufacturers. Despite this
tension the popularity of the ukulele kept growing in America well into the 1920's, and ukulele sales
in general continued to increase.
The increasing popularity of the ukulele led to the manufacturing of inexpensive models which gave
many people access to learning the ukulele. The ukulele built up a reputation as a good beginner's
instrument because of its relatively low price and small, portable size. Thousands of ukuleles were
produced through the 1920's, and the ukulele became one of the musical icons of the Jazz age.
The ukulele slowly declined in popularity through the 1930's, momentarily being revived in the late-
1940's through to the 1950's with some American servicemen bringing the instrument home with
them from Hawaii after World War Two. The popularity of pop-rock music caused the ukulele to fade
into the background in the 1960's, although it still existed in mainstream consciousness with the likes
of The Arthur Godfrey Show and Tiny Tim's 1968 hit Tiptoe through the Tulips. The insanely popular
band 'The Beatles' were very fond of the ukulele, however rarely played the instrument and despite
their endorsement the little ukulele lay very quietly in its case from the 1970's until its revival in the
1990's.
USES OF UKELELE
The ukulele is once again enjoying a period of popularity with modern audiences around the western
world. The uke has been picked up from music stores, (or pulled out of the attic) and is again being
celebrated for its versatility, easy-travelling small-size and its ease of learning. The internet has
played a significant role in the ukulele boom, with websites and video tutorials being dedicated to
providing easy-learning resources for beginners, many of which are frequented by new players in
their hundreds.
The ukulele has also been widely celebrated for its increasingly social side. The ease of strumming
along to sung melodies and playing together has made this little instrument a popular choice as a
second instrument, and has also led to the formation of ukulele clubs, orchestras and social groups
around the world. Ukulele performers often encourage concert-goers to bring along their own ukes
and join in for a song or two, and group-learning of the ukulele is increasingly popular (as opposed to
formal, one-on-one lessons). The ukulele has also been more widely used as a beginners' instrument
for children in recent years.
Although the ukulele is still associated with traditional Hawaiian music and culture, the development
of different types of ukulele has led to the popularization of the instrument in many different musical
settings. Over the past twenty years the ukulele revival has maintained momentum, with a number
of ukulele players becoming very popular well into the new millennium. The 1990's ukulele revival
has also led to the instrument being used increasingly in popular (pop) music performances and
recordings, as well as being a common instrument for performing covers of popular music too.
FLUTE
History
Chinese women playing flutes, from the 12th-century Song dynasty remake of the Night Revels of Han
Xizai, originally by Gu Hongzhong (10th century)
The oldest flute ever discovered may be a fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to
four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,000 years ago. However, this has
been disputed.[14][15] In 2008 another flute dated back to at least 35,000 years ago was discovered
in Hohle Fels cave nearUlm, Germany.[16] The five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made
from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the discovery officially published their findings
in the journal Nature, in August 2009.[17] The discovery was also the oldest confirmed find of any
musical instrument in history,[18] until a redating of flutes found in Geißenklösterle cave revealed
them to be even older with an age of 42,000 to 43,000 years.[3]
The flute, one of several found, was found in the Hohle Fels cavern next to theVenus of Hohle
Fels and a short distance from the oldest known humancarving.[19][not in citation given] On announcing the
discovery, scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established
musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe".[20] Scientists have also
suggested that the discovery of the flute may help to explain "the probable behavioural and
cognitive gulf between" Neanderthals andearly modern human.[18]
A three-holed flute, 18.7 cm 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)[21] was
discovered in 2004, and two flutes made from swanbones excavated a decade earlier (from the same
cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments.
A playable 9,000-year-old Gudi (literally, "bone flute") was excavated from a tomb inJiahu along with
29 defunct twins,[22] made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes with five to eight holes each,
in the Central Chinese province of Henan.[23]The earliest extant Chinese transverse flute is a chi (篪)
flute discovered in theTomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at the Suizhou site, Hubei province, China. It dates
from 433 BC, of the later Zhou Dynasty.[24] It is fashioned of lacquered bamboo with closed ends and
has five stops that are at the flute's side instead of the top. Chi flutes are mentioned in Shi Jing,
compiled and edited by Confucius, according to tradition.
The earliest written reference to a flute is from a Sumerian-language cuneiform tablet dated to c.
2600–2700 BCE.[25] Flutes are also mentioned in a recently translated tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh,
an epic poem whose development spanned the period of approximately 2100–600
BCE.[26] Additionally, a set of cuneiform tablets knows as the "musical texts" provide precise tuning
instructions for seven scale of a stringed instrument (assumed to be a Babylonian lyre). One of those
scales is named embūbum, which is an Akkadian word for "flute".[26]
The Bible, in Genesis 4:21, cites Jubal as being the "father of all those who play theugab and
the kinnor". The former Hebrew term is believed by some to refer to some wind instrument, or wind
instruments in general, the latter to a stringed instrument, or stringed instruments in general. As
such, Jubal is regarded in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the inventor of the flute (a word used in
some translations of this biblical passage).[27] Elsewhere in the Bible, the flute is referred to as "chalil"
(from the root word for "hollow"), in particular in 1 Samuel 10:5, 1 Kings 1:40, Isaiah 5:12 and 30:29,
and Jeremiah 48:36.[28] Archeological digs in the Holy Land have discovered flutes from both the
Bronze Age (c. 4000-1200 BCE) and the Iron Age (1200-586 BCE), the latter era "witness[ing] the
creation of the Israelite kingdom and its separation into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judea."[27]
Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). The flute has also always been an essential
part of Indian cultureand mythology,[29] and the cross flute believed by several accounts to originate
in India[30][31] as Indian literature from 1500BCE has made vague references to the cross flute
USES of FLUTE:
The flute is a wonderful instrument. You can use it to relax, make money by playing in weddings or
other events, transmit a feeling to your audience, develop your creativity, bond with other musicians
and even some scientist think that learning how to play the flute (or any other instrument really) will
help you strengthen your mental capacities, such as your memory.