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A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making music. Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. In principle, anything that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument. Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies The term "musical instrument", however, is generally reserved for items that have a specific musical purpose such as a piano. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology. Organology (from Greek: - organon "instrument" and λόγος - logos "study" is the science of Musical instruments and

Contents

Archeology and anthropology

Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task. A slit drum is a hollow Percussion instrument, usually of Bamboo or wood which is made more Resonant through one or more slits in it [1] It is likewise misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship since all cultures advance at different levels and have access to different materials. For example, anthropologists attempting to compare musical instruments made by two cultures that existed at the same time but who differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive". [2] Ordering instruments by geography is also partially unreliable, as one cannot determine when and how cultures contacted one another and shared knowledge. German musicologist Curt Sachs, one of the most prominent musicologists in modern times,[3] proposed that a geographical chronology is preferable, however, due to its limited subjectivity. Curt Sachs ( June 29, 1881 - February 5, 1959) was a German musicologist. [4]

Archaeological evidence of musical instruments was discovered in excavations at the Royal Cemetery in the Sumerian city of Ur. Ur ( Sumerian:urim; Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. These instruments include nine lyres, two harps, a silver double flute, sistra and cymbals. The lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity and later The harp is a Stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. A sistrum (plural sistrums, sistra) is a Musical instrument of the percussion family chiefly associated with ancient Egypt. Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument Cymbals consist of thin normally round plates of various Cymbal alloys; see Cymbal making for a discussion of their These excavations, carried out by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, uncovered non-degradable fragments of instruments and the voids left by the degraded segments which, together, have been used to reconstruct them. Sir Charles Leonard Woolley ( 17 April 1880 &ndash 20 February 1960) was a British Archaeologist best known for his Excavations [5] The graves to which these instruments were related have been carbon dated to between 2600 and 2500 BCE, providing evidence that these instruments were being used in Sumeria by this time. Radiocarbon dating is a Radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring Radioisotope Carbon-14 (14C to determine the age of The 26th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2600 BC to 2501 BC The 25th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2500 BC to 2401 BC [6]

A cuneiform tablet from Nippur in Mesopotamia dated to 2000 BCE indicates the names of strings on the lyre and represents the earliest known example of music notation. A tablet is a mixture of active substances and Excipients usually in powder form pressed or compacted into a solid Nippur (URUENLIL; Sumerian: Nibru Akkadian: Nibbur) from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil is modern ? in Afak Al Qadisyah Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The 20th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2000 BC to 1901 BC See also Modern musical symbols Music notation or musical notation is any system which represents aurally perceived Music through the use [7]

History

Until the 19th century, written musical histories began with mythological accounts of how musical instruments were invented. Such accounts included Jubal, descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ", Pan, inventor of the panpipes, and Mercury, who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into the first lyre. Pan ( Greek, Genitive) is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks of mountain wilds hunting and rustic music paein means to pasture The pan flute or pan pipe (also known as panflute or panpipes) is an ancient Musical instrument based on the principle of the Closed "Alipes" redirects here For the Centipede Genus, see Alipes (centipede. Tortoises or land Turtles are land-dwelling Reptiles of the family of Testudinidae', order Testudines. The lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity and later Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropologically proven information. Scholars agree that there was no definitive "invention" of the musical instrument since the definition of the term "musical instrument" is completely subjective to both the scholar and the would-be inventor. For example, a Homo habilis slapping his body could be the makings of a musical instrument regardless of the being's intent. Homo habilis (ˈhoʊmoʊ ˈhæbəlɪs ("handy man" "skillful person" is a Species of the genus Homo, which lived [8]

Among the first devices external to the human body considered to be instruments are rattles, stampers, and various drums. A rattle is a Percussion instrument. It consists of a hollow body filled with small uniform solid objects like sand or nuts The drum is a member of the percussion group technically classified as a Membranophone. These earliest instruments evolved due to the human motor impulse to add sound to emotional movements such as dancing. [9] Eventually, some cultures assigned ritual functions to their musical instruments. Those cultures developed more complex percussion instruments and other instruments such as ribbon reeds, flutes, and trumpets. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for their basic operation and function rather than any resemblance to modern instruments. [10] Among early cultures for whom drums developed ritual, even sacred importance are the Chukchi people of the Russian Far East, the indigenous people of Melanesia, and many cultures of East Africa. Chukchi, or Chukchee (чукчи ( plural) ru чукча ( singular) are an Indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula Russian Far East (Да́льний Восто́к Росси́и ˈdalʲnʲɪj vʌˈstok rʌˈsʲiɪ is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i Melanesia (from Greek: μέλας black, νῆσος island) means "islands of the black-skinned people" East Africa is the Easternmost Region of the African Continent. One East African tribe, the Wahinda, even believed that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan. [11]

Humans eventually developed the concept of using musical instruments for producing a melody. In Music, a melody (from Greek μελῳδία - melōidía, "singing chanting" also tune, voice, or Until this time in the evolutions of musical instruments, melody was common only in singing. Similar to the process of reduplication in language, instrument players first developed repetition and then arrangement. Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated An early form of melody was produced by pounding two stamping tubes of slightly different sizes—one tube would produce a "clear" sound and the other would answer with a "darker" sound. Such instrument pairs also included bullroarers, slit drums, shell trumpets, and skin drums. The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and means of communicating over extended distances A slit drum is a hollow Percussion instrument, usually of Bamboo or wood which is made more Resonant through one or more slits in it Cultures who used these instrument pairs associated genders with them; the "father" was the bigger or more energetic instrument, while the "mother" was the smaller or duller instrument. Musical instruments existed in this form for thousands of years before patterns of three or more tones would evolve in the form of the earliest xylophone. The xylophone (from the Greek words ξύλον - xylon, "wood" + φωνή - phone, "voice" meaning "wooden [12] Xylophones originated in the mainland and archipelago of Southeast Asia, eventually spreading to Africa, the Americas, and Europe. [13] Along with xylophones, which ranged from simple sets of three "leg bars" to carefully-tuned sets of parallel bars, various cultures developed instruments such as the ground harp, ground zither, musical bow, and jaw harp. The musical bow is a simple string Musical instrument consisting of a string supported by a flexible string bearer usually made out of Wood. The Jew's harp, juice harp, jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, or marranzano pancake is thought to be one of the oldest Musical [14]

Classification

Main article: Musical instrument classification

There are many different methods of classifying musical instruments. At various times and in various different cultures various schemes of Musical instrument classification have been used All methods examine some combination of the physical properties of the instrument, how music is performed on the instrument, the range of the instrument, and the instrument's place in an orchestra or other ensemble. In Music, the range of a Musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play An orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string brass woodwind sections and possibly a percussion section as well Some methods arise as a result of disagreements between experts on how instruments should be classified. While a complete survey of the systems of classifications is beyond the scope of this article, a summary of major systems follows.

Ancient systems

An ancient system, dating from at least the 1st century BC, divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings; instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air; percussion instruments made of wood or metal; and percussion instruments with skin heads, or drums. The 1st century BC started the first day of 100 BC and ended the last day of 1 BC. The drum is a member of the percussion group technically classified as a Membranophone. Victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. Victor-Charles Mahillon (born March 10, 1841 in Brussels; died June 17, 1924 in St He was the curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in Brussels, and for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups: string instruments, wind instruments, percussion instruments, and drums. Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is Year 1888 ( MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a Musical instrument that produces Sound by means of Vibrating strings In the Hornbostel-Sachs A wind instrument is a Musical instrument that contains some type of Resonator (usually a tube in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing

Hornbostel-Sachs

Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs later took up the ancient scheme and published an extensive new scheme for classification in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Erich Moritz von Hornbostel ( February 25, 1877 - November 28, 1935) was an Austrian Ethnomusicologist and scholar of Curt Sachs ( June 29, 1881 - February 5, 1959) was a German musicologist. Their scheme is widely used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Hornbostel-Sachs (or Sachs-Hornbostel) is a system of Musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs

The original Sachs-Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups:

Sachs later added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means. The fifth top-level group electrophone category was added to the Hornbostel Sachs musical instrument classfication system by Sachs in 1940 to describe instruments involving electricity [19] Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, but remains widely used by ethnomusicologists and organologists. This article is about the concept For the society and academic journal see Society for Ethnomusicology. Organology (from Greek: - organon "instrument" and λόγος - logos "study" is the science of Musical instruments and

Schaeffner

Andre Schaeffner, a curator at the Musée de l'Homme, disagreed with the Hornbostel-Sachs system and developed his own system in 1932. The Musée de l'Homme ( French for "Museum of Man" was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet, for the event of the Exposition Internationale Schaeffner believed that the physical structure of a musical instrument, rather than its playing method, should determine its classification. His system divided instruments into two categories: instruments with solid, vibrating bodies and instruments containing vibrating air. [20]

Range

Western instruments are also often classified by their musical range in comparison with other instruments in the same family. These terms are named after singing voice classifications:

Some instruments fall into more than one category: for example, the cello may be considered either tenor or bass, depending on how its music fits into the ensemble, and the trombone may be alto, tenor, or bass and the French horn, bass, baritone, tenor, or alto, depending on which range it is played. This article is related to a series of articles under the main article Voice type. The flute is a Musical instrument of the Woodwind family Unlike other woodwind instruments a flute is a Reedless wind instrument that produces its The recorder is a woodwind Musical instrument of the family known as Fipple Flutes ' or internal duct flutes &mdash whistle-like The violin is a bowed String instrument with four strings usually tuned in Perfect fifths It is the smallest and highest-pitched member Alto is a musical term derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" that has several possible interpretations "Hautbois" redirects here for the strawberry variety see Hautbois strawberry. The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a Musical instrument in the Woodwind family The viola is a bowed String instrument. It is the middle voice of the Violin family, The tenor is the highest male voice within the Modal register, just above the Baritone voice The trombone is a Musical instrument in the brass family Like all brass instruments it is a lip-reed Aerophone: sound is produced when the player’s The clarinet is a Musical instrument in the Woodwind family The name derives from adding the suffix -et meaning little to the Italian word The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the Saxophone family a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s This article is related to a series of articles under the main article Voice type. The bassoon is a Woodwind instrument in the Double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and Tenor registers and occasionally The cor anglais, or English horn, is a Double reed Woodwind Musical instrument in the Oboe family The baritone saxophone, often called " bari sax " (to avoid confusion with the Baritone horn, which is often referred to simply as "baritone" is The baritone horn, or simply baritone, is a member of the brass family of instruments The bass clarinet is a Musical instrument of the Clarinet family The violoncello (abbreviated to cello, or 'cello, plural cellos or celli —the c is tʃ Bass (ˈbɛɪs as in base) when used as an adjective is used to describe tones of low Frequency or range. The contrabassoon is a larger version of the Bassoon sounding an octave lower The bass saxophone is the second largest existing member of the Saxophone family (not counting the subcontrabass Tubax) The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed String instrument used in the modern symphony orchestra. Mediatubaogg -->The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched Brass instrument.

Many instruments have their range as part of their name: soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, baritone horn, alto flute, bass flute, alto recorder, bass guitar, etc. The soprano saxophone was invented in 1840 and is a variety of the Saxophone, a Woodwind instrument. The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the Saxophone family a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s The baritone saxophone, often called " bari sax " (to avoid confusion with the Baritone horn, which is often referred to simply as "baritone" is The baritone horn, or simply baritone, is a member of the brass family of instruments The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a Musical instrument in the Woodwind family The bass flute is the bass member of the Flute family It is in the key of C pitched one octave below the Concert flute. The recorder is a woodwind Musical instrument of the family known as Fipple Flutes ' or internal duct flutes &mdash whistle-like The electric bass guitar (also called electric bass, or simply bass; ˈbeɪs as in "base" is a Stringed instrument played primarily with the Additional adjectives describe instruments above the soprano range or below the bass, for example: sopranino saxophone, contrabass clarinet. The sopranino saxophone is one of the smallest members of the Saxophone family The contrabass clarinet is the largest member of the Clarinet family that has ever been in regular production or significant use

When used in the name of an instrument, these terms are relative, describing the instrument's range in comparison to other instruments of its family and not in comparison to the human voice range or instruments of other families. For example, a bass flute's range is from C3 to F♯6, while a bass clarinet plays about one octave lower.

Construction

Musical instrument construction is a specialized trade that requires years of training, practice, and sometimes an apprenticeship. Most makers of musical instruments specialize in one genre of instruments; for example, a luthier makes only stringed instruments. Some make only one type of instrument such as a piano.

User interfaces

Regardless of how the sound in an instrument is produced, many musical instruments have a keyboard as the user-interface. Keyboard instruments are any instruments that are played with a musical keyboard. A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a Musical keyboard. A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a Musical instrument, particularly the piano Every key generates one or more sounds; most keyboard instruments have extra means (pedals for a piano, stops for an organ) to manipulate these sounds. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers An organ stop (or just stop) is a component of a Pipe organ which admits pressurized air (known as wind) to a set of Organ pipes Its name They may produce sound by wind being fanned (organ) or pumped (accordion), vibrating strings either hammered (piano) or plucked (harpsichord), by electronic means (synthesizer) or in some other way. The organ (from Greek όργανον – organon "organ instrument tool" is a Keyboard instrument of one or more divisions each The accordion is a portable box-shaped Musical instrument of the hand-held Bellows -driven free-reed aerophone family sometimes referred to as a Squeezebox The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. Sometimes, instruments that do not usually have a keyboard, such as the glockenspiel, are fitted with one. The glockenspiel ( German, "set of bells quot or "play-bells" also known as orchestra bells and in its portable Though they have no moving parts and are struck by mallets held in the player's hands, they have the same physical arrangement of keys and produce soundwaves in a similar manner.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Sachs 1940, p. The following is a list of Musical instruments categorized by section A folk instrument is an instrument that developed among common people and usually doesn't have a known Inventor. An experimental musical instrument (or custom-made instrument) is a Musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments Extended techniques are performance techniques used in Music to describe unconventional unorthodox or "improper" techniques of Singing, or of While many individuals are content to play a Musical instrument " by ear " or by practicing individual pieces until a reasonable proficiency is achieved others wish An orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string brass woodwind sections and possibly a percussion section as well  60
  2. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  61
  3. ^ Brown 2008
  4. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  63
  5. ^ de Schauensee 2002, pp.  1-16
  6. ^ Moorey, P. R. S. (1977). "What Do We Know About the People Buried in the Royal Cemetery?". Expedition 20 (1): 24–40.  
  7. ^ West, M. L. (May 1994). "The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts". Music & Letters 75 (2): 161–179.  
  8. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  25
  9. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  26
  10. ^ Sachs 1940, pp.  34–52
  11. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  35
  12. ^ Sachs 1940, pp.  52–53
  13. ^ Marcuse 1975, pp.  24–28
  14. ^ Sachs 1940, pp.  53–59
  15. ^ Marcuse 1975, p.  177
  16. ^ Marcuse 1975, p.  549
  17. ^ Marcuse 1975, p.  3
  18. ^ Marcuse 1975, p.  117
  19. ^ Sachs 1940, p.  447
  20. ^ Kartomi 1990, p.  174–175

References

Dictionary

musical instrument

-noun

  1. A device, object, contrivance or machine used to produce musical notes or sounds.
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