Music Articles and Life Enrichment

Whether you admit it or not, music imbeds our daily life, weaving its beauty and emotion through our thoughts, activities and memories. So if you're interested in music theory, music appreciation, Beethoven, Mozart, or other composers, artists and performers, we hope you'll spend some time with here and learn from these music articles of note for all ages and tastes.
When I first started studying the history of music, I did not realize what I was getting into. I had thought that music history was somewhat of a trivial pursuit. In fact, I only took my history of classical music class because I needed the credits. I did not realize how completely fascinating music history is. You see, in our culture many of us do not really learn to understand music. When I began to learn about the history of Western music, however, it changed all that for me. I have had some experience playing musical instruments, but I have never mastered one enough to really understand what music is all about. When most of us think about the history of music, we think of the history of rock music. We assume that the history is simple because the music is simple. The history of music, whether you're talking about classical music, rock music, jazz music, or any other kind, is always complicated. I got all the music history books that I could find.

Piano Story

A Piano Story...

The story of the piano is the story of a superstar. Like most superstars of a certain age, it has had its fair share of face-lifts, and more than its fair share of implants. Unlike the average superstar, however, it has stubbornly refused to be typecast. What, after all, is the piano but the plaything of kings, and the bottle-scarred veteran of cheap saloons and dockland brothels (where Brahms earned his keep as a boy); the tender confidante of well-bred maidens, and a notorious agent of seduction; the fire-breathing dragon of the super-virtuoso, and the infinitely subtle voice of the poet; the very ornament of middle-class respectability, a triumph of industrial technology, a money-spinner in a million, and a victim of mass burnings in the streets (in New Jersey in 1904, the sentence being passed by the annual congress of American piano retailers on all instruments deemed to be "out of date")?

From the 1830s right up to the First World War, concert pianists on both sides of the Atlantic were the pop idols of their day, and their love affairs were the the talk of high society and low. Piano teachers swarmed like ants, and of their even more numerous pupils, nine out of ten would themselves become teachers. Publishers, of course, cleaned up. In the living rooms, salons and parlours of the world, pianos groaned beneath the weight of accumulated sheet music, 90 percent of which has long turned to dust. In the more sophisticated homes, however, that music included some of the greatest ever conceived:

It was for the piano that Mozart wrote his 27 piano concertos, most of which are widely held to be his finest instrumental music; that Beethoven wrote his epoch-making sonatas; that Schubert wrote his beautiful waltzes and impromptus; that Chopin and Liszt wrote music which opened up a whole new world of sound and raised virtuosity to heights never before imagined; that Mendelssohn wrote his "Song Without Words", and that Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf wrote arguably the greatest songs with words ever written. And where would the world of chamber music be without the piano? Without duo sonatas, the piano trios, quartets and quintets of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, for a start.

And can anyone imagine ragtime and jazz without Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson? Or popular song without Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and his fellow song pluggers in New York's Tin Pan Alley? What would the cinema (and particularly the silent cinema) have been without the piano, or today's pop world without the electronic keyboard? The piano has been at the centre of almost every music development in Western music since the last quarter of the 18th century. It has weathered political and industrial upheaval, world wars and the computer revolution. Yet with the advent of electricity, the gramophone record, the radio and the cinema, there was no shortage of critics who were writing its obituaries.

When we talk of the "piano", however, we are not talking about one instrument, but many. Even today it is still evolving, though now very slowly, but with the potential alliance of the traditional piano and the computer; no one should write it off as having reached the end of the line at last. What began, in the very early 18th century, as a lightweight contraption that could be carried about by a single person has reached its maturity as a gleaming black titan, nine and a half feet in length and weighing more than a ton.

More than any other instrument, the piano has relied for its extraordinary success not only on its musical merits and uses, but on its acceptability as an item of furniture in homes ranging from those of the humblest labourer to the salons and palaces of the unimaginably wealthy. In the case of the former, a fantastic amount of ingenuity and expertise has gone into effectively "shrinking" the piano to the point where there was scarcely a household in the industrialized world that could not accommodate it. At the other extreme, the casework has received if anything even greater attention than the mechanism housed within it. Spouting gargoyles, bow-clenching Cupids, intertwining serpents, flute-playing automata, paintings by some of the best artists of the day, nothing has been considered too much for the adornment of this uniquely potent instrument - potent not only as a musical phenomenon and article of furniture, but as a spur to the imagination and aspiration of many different classes of many different societies, and, hardly less, as a symbol of social and industrial standing. The sheer snobbery (both horrifying and hilarious) that has been lavished on the piano, like the unscrupulousness of its shabbier manufacturers and salesmen, is sometimes breathtaking. So is the astounding inventiveness of some of its more eccentric pioneers, of whom there were more than a few.

Many spirits, then, have inhabited the piano. But the journey, for all its byways, has always been first and foremost a musical one. The star of the show, after all (and we should not forget this) is first, last and always a "musical" instrument.

- this excerpt was taken from The Piano, by Jeremy Siepmann, London: Carlton Books Limited, 1996.

Guitar History

GUITAR HISTORY

Many people which can play guitar, but a few/little knowing his history. Following we will glance at guitar history from time to time. In fact very long guitar history, but remember limited room, this discourse will just evaluate marginally.

First of all: From Babilonia till six string.

Guitar history trusted to be started by Near East region. Among debrises which finding in Babilonia, what most relevant is guitar made at 1900-1800 BC (Before Century). From a period of that, till year 1650, natural guitar of evolution which is complicated so multifarious and of manner. So much types and each owning different name.

Some circles have a notion otherly, assuming guitar exactly come from state of Spanyol because guitar castanets like is samely castanets of Spanyol the so calledness of Vihuela circulating in the early of century of 16th. this New appliance (guitar) have the way of is same making with castanets of ukulele (from Indonesia). Guitar first time which made fairish in fact very small as well as only owning four wire, like ukulele.

At a period of classical many there are publications conducted by makers of song as well as musicians. Like Fernando Sor, Mauro Guiliani, Matteo Carcassi, Fernando Caulli, and still many creatorses which was method developing play guitar which finally become public playing and can be accepted.

Important instrument of contribution of in growth of guitar is instrument of Cittern. This Instrument also in form of looking like pear fruit with backside which flatten, by four or five tide of string strand from metal and with fretting the permanentness whether that diatonic like Appalachian Dulcimer and or chromatic like modern guitar. Head Tuning have been attached to loo like like mandolin or guitar. Of him is equal to mandolin fifths with and fingering of chord the sameness and played with or plectrum of pick.

Four Course Guitar have 4 tide of string, body in form of and guitar of soundboard which flatten, bridge of backside and lute made semi arching but not too form circle. This instrument is fairish like children guitar.

Five Course Guitar emerge around year 1490 and look like with guitar course four with addition one tide of senar bass. This instrument is named also English Guitar.

There is also Vihuela De Mano come from Spanyol and is instrument by six tide of string. Of big enough him like classic guitar of era now and have some holes voice above him. This instrument use bridge fixed and possibility are direct ancestors of guitar 12 sting USA which step into North America through Mexico, Texas and of Louisiana.

Still many other guitar types continuing expand. Guitar such as we recognize now, that is practicing six string, newly emerge around 1750. And during about 90 next year ( untill 1840), guitar of six string this fast enough expand in Spanyol.

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy for instrument-music.blogspot.com

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at hansipudin@indosat.net.id.

At instrument-music.blogspot.com, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by instrument-music.blogspot.com and how it is used.

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, instrument-music.blogspot.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons
instrument-music.blogspot.com does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include Google Adsense, Commission Junction, Widget Bucks, Adbrite, Clickbank, Azoogle, Chitika, Linkshare, Amazon, Kontera.

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on instrument-music.blogspot.com send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

instrument-music.blogspot.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. instrument-music.blogspot.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.