Hot answers tagged history
15
Technically, there are no reasons, but practically, there are quite a few. Obviously, we've reached the point where we can construct instruments that are fully chromatic, so there is no need to change crooks and play only the overtone series.
The practical reasons are many, and mostly stem from the fact that if all instruments were pitched in C, any time ...
11
The TL;DR answer:
Some instrument families (saxophones, clarinets, double reeds) have variants which change the instrument range by something other than an octave. To make it easy to switch to them, the parts for these instruments are transposed so the same written note has the same fingering, but produces a different actual pitch.
Even when the range of ...
9
Well, no. You can't really prove the theory of music. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Pythagoras probably wasn't the first human to speculate on the relationships of pleasing sounds, but he may well have been the first to appreciate the value of integer ratios in string length (or he may just be the earliest case we have records about).[*]
As to ...
8
It actually goes back to the Medieval period when music that was not church music nor followed the church's rules was the devil's music. Madrigals were considered the devil's music because they were mostly about sex. Ending a piece on a minor chord was also forbidden which gave us the Piccardi third (raising the third of the final chord of a piece in a minor ...
7
As Indrek pointed out, this gives at least partial answers to your questions.
In short, the answer to who first put foot pedals on a piano is not known exactly, but the practice seems to originate in England. A piano of Americus Backers from 1772 might be the first one to use foot pedals instead of knee levers.
Then you have a different question in the ...
6
Interestingly enough, the English Horn is commonly known by the French term 'cor anglais', but in fact originated in Germany! To make matters worse, the French Horn is a descendant of the English hunting horn.
The term 'horn' has had varying meanings throughout history and genre. At the most basic level, it simply refers to the cylindrical shape of an ...
5
The sound variance of violins is surely greater than the difference in their optical appearance, so I assume different shapes are possible. Note, that the viola da gamba family, which also has a soprano member (not sounding sooo different) sports C-shaped holes, and baryton has nearly unregular ones so the effect of hole shape seems very minor.
I found a ...
5
The shape also has to do with structural integrity. A violin would be of no use if it were built in a shape that would not support the high tension of the strings, thus causing the violin body to collapse after being used for some length of time. Instruments in the violin family, among all musical instruments, are notoriously durable; there are individual ...
4
There is a recording listed in Allmusic.com that lists Rostropovich as the composer and performer of his Humoresque for Cello and Piano, Op 5:
feat. artist: Mstislav Rostropovich
Label: Brilliant
Rovi ID: MQ0000908851
Rovi Work ID: MC0002507948
AMG ID: F 1686750
AMG Work ID: C 380960
Work Title: Humoresque for cello & piano, Op. 5
...
4
Actually, "book" style players predate Mr Jaquards loom.
They progression really got started with music boxes & pins stuck in drums or disks.
Next came the "book style" where holes were punched in panels and the panels were hinged together in various ways, and later on the paper rolls that are well known now.
But the real question is related to ...
4
There is an overarching reason for transposition of wind instruments, which can be corroborated by anyone who has played woodwind doubles in a pit orchestra.
Regardless of the reason transposing instruments came into practice in the first place, the practice is still standard in writing circles (besides the valid observation that there alr4eady exists a ...
4
From J.R.'s answer on the English Language and Usage Stack Exchange site it dates back at least as far as 1885 since J.R. unearthed a charming quote from Educational Plans in Music Teaching, in The Quarterly Music Review, Vol. 1, 1885 where it is attributed it to a "government schoolmistress".
4
The first thing that comes to mind is «backmasked» messages (i. e. hidden by the means of recording it backwards) with sinister and supposedly satanic contents:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cul5.htm
http://www.nauglefest.net/backmask.htm
The best example of such message is the classic passage from reversed «Stairway to Heaven»:
"All yours, ...
4
According to the note "H" in German musical nomenclature
The German nomenclature merely sought to give each pitch-class that ocurred in the system a unique name. Later, when the letter b was employed to effect mutation into other, more distant tetrachords (or hexachords), the German nomenclature was never modified to accomodate it, and its use as a flat ...
4
In the late medieval system there were six normal notes, C D E F G A, and one note that had two forms, soft B (b) which was a semitone above A and hard B (♮) which was a whole tone above A. As written in the earliest sources, hard B looked a bit like an H with an added crossbar which may have been the reason for the change to H (or it was the next letter of ...
4
Variations in pitch and tuning systems stem all the way back to Renaissance / pre-Renaissance. Before a standard tuning system was codified, musicians in each city basically had their own tuning system, and instrument makers were limited with what they could do. The result was that if musicians from different towns / cities met, they wouldn't be able to ...
3
The Musica Universalis stretches the idea of music, in the same way that describing courtship as a "dance" stretches the idea of dance. As such, your hope to find melody in there is optimistic at best.
Middle C - C4 - is 261.62 Hz; that is 261.62 vibrations per second. C-1 is 8.17 Hz, which you get by halving the frequency 5 times. It's inaudible, but it ...
3
Bela Bartok was an Ethnomusicologist too.. he was known to have collected some gypsy songs, for example:
->
If you are searching for a book on this subject,
Bela Bartok's Studies ...
3
A point for dropping to Eb is that it gives you open strings which have sustain. The style of jazz accompaniment, as epitomized by Freddie Green, is closed and muted strings all over the neck, on archtop guitars that are notable for the punchy attack but minimal sustain, so the benefit you get is being on the position marker rather than off it. I don't doubt ...
2
The answer is probably in history. When the first guitar-like instruments were created, things they played were more right-hand-demanding, and only later complexity moved to the left hand, while traditions left unchanged.
I am left-handed, but play 'righty' guitar, and I've always felt it more natural (as of contemporary stuff).
2
So... Do you want a long-winded rant???
Actually, this question is difficult to answer because the range of "Spanish Music" is vast, even for the guitar. There's Spanish Baroque guitar music, which uses a 5-course guitar, all but the highest course double-strung. There's a strong movement of people playing this music on period instruments (I have one ...
2
I'm not sure if anyone has actually pinned down the date or composer. Searches on Google or Trombone History books don't yield very much. According to a quote from one link I found:
Its first deliberate use in performance is fairly recent in the long history of the trombone, and its acceptance as a legitimate technique came somewhat later.
Also:
...
2
The basis for note duration is strictly in the context of the piece regardless of any other influences. The time a note is played is relative to the notes preceding it and following it, and if the note is a part of chord etc. The context will determine the physiological influences. There are no rules regarding how long or short a note is to be played other ...
2
The lowest note in the Greek scale was Proslambanomenos, an octave below the primary note, Mese. The eight notes between Proslambanomenos and Mese (inclusive) in the Greek diatonic genus form the A aeolian minor scale. This is probably why musicians chose to place A, the first letter, on the lowest and most central note.
By the later Middle Ages, it ...
2
HISTORY AND ORIGINS OF PLAYER PIANOS
Automatic musical instruments have been around for over two millennia.
It all really started in 1800, France, when Jacquard Mills develops a loom controlled by punched cards. The cards programmed looms that created elaborately designed fabrics. They "instructed" the pathway for threads to follow to create the designs and ...
2
Replying to Michael Thibodeau: I would love to see any reference to non-church music being called the devil's music during the medieval period that cites medieval sources. I've been working on medieval music history for quite some time and never seen any reference to any of this history. The reference to the tritone being the devil's interval can't be traced ...
2
Overly-broad question that's dangerously close to off-topic, but I have to quote this famous song from a pioneer in Christian rock, Larry Norman (1947-2008). With lyrics.
The title quote, "Why should the Devil have all the good music"? has been attributed to none other than Martin Luther(1483-1546)
...
2
I believe this could be it. There's also a cheaper piano reduction available. Here is a sample page. From the description:
Like every other great 19th-century solo concerto, Dvorák’s famous Cello Concerto was a collaboration between composer and virtuoso. It has long been known that certain solo passages in Dvorák’s autograph score were actually written ...
1
Unlike other mnemonics for key signature layouts such as BEAD GCF (Greatest Common Factor) or, for sharps, Fat cats go dancing at elegant balls, the mnemonic for flats, Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father, can be reversed as "Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle" to give the order of sharps. That doesn't help with the etymology, but it explains ...
1
In actuality, Dvorak accepted many of Wihan's changes; Wihan even wrote some of them directly into the autograph score. Dvorak most notably rejected Wihan's suggested insertion of a virtuosic cadenza just before the close of the third movement. The original edition includes "ossias" (alternative readings) for some passages where Wihan had contributed a ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
