Since its release in October, Adele’s single “Hello” has been massively successful and while the world took to the Internet to make self-deprecating jokes about the tune’s emotional effect, what were laughs for some might actually be an important healing tool for others. While individuals can easily feel the emotional sway music can carry, according to therapists, that power can be used to treat everything from depression to speech impediments.
Jennifer Buchanan is a Canadian music therapist and the author of “Tune In: A Music Therapy Approach to Life.” Her patients range from a two-month-old with visual impairments to a 106-year-old with Alzheimer’s disease. Since listening to music can activate many parts of the brain, it can serve many different functions, she said. For psychological rehabilitation, for example, Buchanan believes that “intentional music listening” is key. This involves sitting in a quiet place and doing nothing but listening to the music. “The research is suggesting that we are looking at about 10 minutes to 20, 25 minutes of intentional music listening can put you right into that headspace,” Buchanan, told FoxNews.com. With her patients, Buchanan suggests creating different playlist for different moods and mood goals. To do so, they search through their music and categorize songs depending on the mood or emotion they elicit. From there, patients are asked to listen to the different playlists in increments, from their current mental state to where they would like to be. Dr. Gail Gross, a family, child and human behavior expert, agreed that music’s effect on mood can be used for positive change. She noted that research shows listening to relaxing music can have the same effect on our well-being that meditation does. “Music can change the way you breathe, so it can help your brain calm down,” she told FoxNews.com, adding that patients have to be selective about the music they to listen to, to ensure that it yields the desired outcome. Like many forms of medicine and therapy, there is no blueprint for a cure. This form of therapy is highly specific to each individual, Gross said. Since its depends so much on each individual’s emotional response to music, what works for some might have the complete opposite effect for others. Panayotis Mavromatis, an associate professor of music theory at New York University, said this may be because there are some overarching generalities in music’s construction that can alter our mood, but different cultures and lifestyles interpret music in their own ways. “Major scales and chords have traditionally been associated with happy feelings in recent western music, and likewise minor scales and chords have been ascribed a sad or dark affect,” Mavromatis told FoxNews.com. “Scientists conjecture there may be a genetic component to our degree and quality of response to music. Clearly there are no universal patterns, but music therapists can still experiment to find out what works or not with a given individual” he said. Listening to music can be helpful, but producing music, whether it be singing or playing an instruments, has its benefits as well. For example, “The King’s Speech” tells the true story of King George VI’s and his struggle with being the head of the British monarchy and an embarrassing stutter. His therapist instructs him to sing his words instead of speaking them and to King George’s surprise, it works. But how? Singing words is effective is because speech is stored in a different part of the brain than music’s lyrics and rhythm, said Dr. William Barr, an associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center. “People who have lost the ability to speak can’t retrieve words or maintain a rhythm in their speech,” he told FoxNews.com. But many of these people can still sing. The reason, Barr said, is that the words and rhythm of music are tied together and stored in a person’s memory, which makes them easy to recall. Again, the success varies on the patient and the extent of their condition. For some, music therapy is a great tool, for others, it offers only a moderate reprieve. Many patients who had been unable to speak are able to sing words and even express their feelings, but only in a musical rhythm. Whether it’s being used as a healing tool, or just as catharsis from an emotional event, turn on Adele and sing (or cry) your heart out. It’ll do your mind good. Read Original Article: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/03/music-therapy-shows-promise-in-treating-depression-speech-impediments.html One of jazz music's all-time greats, bandleader/pianist Count Basie was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music. "Count Basie was born on August 21, 1904, in Red Bank, New Jersey. A pianist, he played vaudeville before eventually forming his own big band and helping to define the era of swing with hits like "One O'Clock Jump" and "Blue Skies." In 1958, Basie became the first African-American male recipient of a Grammy Award. One of jazz music's all-time greats, he won many other Grammys throughout his career and worked with a plethora of artists, including Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald. Basie died in Florida on April 26, 1984." Read Entire Article: http://www.biography.com/people/count-basie-9201255#synopsis Which music genre says you're more creative, and which says you're selfish? Find out here.
"I love Slayer, Megadeth, and lots of cuddles" might not be as outlandish as it sounds. According to music psychology scholar Adrian North, PhD, who conducted a three-year study correlating the musical preferences and personality traits of more than 36,000 participants, heavy metal fans "are quite delicate things" who are "basically the same kind of person" as classical music lovers, only younger. Read on for more findings from North's awesome survey, plus many others that aim to explain the bond between you and your favorite music. Read Entire Article: http://www.rd.com/culture/favorite-music-personality/ Music is a common phenomenon that crosses all borders of nationality, race, and culture. A tool for arousing emotions and feelings, music is far more powerful than language. An increased interest in how the brain processes musical emotion can be attributed to the way in which it is described as a “language of emotion” across cultures. Be it within films, live orchestras, concerts or a simple home stereo, music can be so evocative and overwhelming that it can only be described as standing halfway between thought and phenomenon.
But why exactly does this experience of music distinctly transcend other sensory experiences? How is it able to evoke emotion in a way that is incomparable to any other sense? Music can be thought of as a type of perceptual illusion, much the same way in which a collage is perceived. The brain imposes structure and order on a sequence of sounds that, in effect, creates an entirely new system of meaning. The appreciation of music is tied to the ability to process its underlying structure — the ability to predict what will occur next in the song. But this structure has to involve some level of the unexpected, or it becomes emotionally devoid. Skilled composers manipulate the emotion within a song by knowing what their audience’s expectations are, and controlling when those expectations will (and will not) be met. This successful manipulation is what elicits the chills that are part of any moving song. Music, though it appears to be similar to features of language, is more rooted in the primitive brain structures that are involved in motivation, reward and emotion. Whether it is the first familiar notes of The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” or the beats preceding AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” the brain synchronizes neural oscillators with the pulse of the music (through cerebellum activation), and starts to predict when the next strong beat will occur. The response to ‘groove’ is mainly unconscious; it is processed first through the cerebellum and amygdala rather than the frontal lobes. Music involves subtle violations of timing and, because we know through experience that music is not threatening, these violations are ultimately identified by the frontal lobes as a source of pleasure. The expectation builds anticipation, which, when met, results in the reward reaction. More than any other stimulus, music has the ability to conjure up images and feelings that need not necessarily be directly reflected in memory. The overall phenomenon still retains a certain level of mystery; the reasons behind the ‘thrill’ of listening to music is strongly tied in with various theories based on synesthesia. When we are born, our brain has not yet differentiated itself into different components for different senses – this differentiation occurs much later in life. So as babies, it is theorized that we view the world as a large, pulsing combination of colors and sounds and feelings, all melded into one experience – ultimate synesthesia. As our brains develop, certain areas become specialized in vision, speech, hearing, and so forth. Professor Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and composer, unpacks the mystery of the emotion in music by explaining how the brain’s emotional, language and memory centers are connected during the processing of music – providing what is essentially a synesthetic experience. The extent of this connection is seemingly variable among individuals, which is how certain musicians have the ability to create pieces of music which are brimming with emotional quality, and others simply cannot. Be it classics from the Beatles and Stevie Wonder or fiery riffs from Metallica and Led Zeppelin, the preference for a certain type of music has an effect on its very experience. It could be this heightened level of experience in certain people and musicians that allows them to imagine and create music that others simply cannot, painting their very own sonic image. Read Article: http://psychcentral.com/lib/music-how-it-impacts-your-brain-emotions/ Some people have auditory daydreams, in other words, instead of primarily visualizing a scene or creation, they hear the "sounds of music." Both Mozart and Tchaikovsky wrote about how they would "hear" compositions as they took long walks or rides in the countryside.
Even for those of us who are more visual in our imaginings, music remains one of the most powerful daydream launchers. In fact, it's so powerful, I sometimes avoid listening to it at certain times because I know it has the power to send my thoughts in a very particular direction. Think about it. When you hear a driving, rebellious, in-your-face rock song, don't you immediately vault to either a scene or an emotion that corresponds to the mood of the music? Perhaps the old classic "Born to Be Wild" comes on the radio and you're suddenly zooming down the highway on an escape-your-life road trip. Or you hear the opening chords of "Amazing Grace" and you're swept up in visions of loss and sorrow. I know a number of writers who listen to music while they write, but they're very particular about what they select. For example, one friend prefers classical; another, the familiar echoes of classic rock, the kind of music that's so ingrained in your psyche you just slip right into it. In both cases, the music helps them enter their creative worlds. Once they're completely in the flow of writing, the music is relegated to the background and they don't even notice it anymore. In that way, music functions as a gentle ramp that helps glide them into their zone. In other cases, music is more like a rocket launcher of creativity. Motivational speaker Melissa Borghorst was particularly struck by the suddenness and clarity of the insights she had while listening to Taylor Swift's song "White Horse" while on a long-distance drive. She had been struggling with a particular teen workshop, and then out of the blue, while listening to "White Horse," she realized that she needed to create a song for the event. "I don't know the first thing about writing songs," she said, "but suddenly song lyrics started popping in my head. It was like fireworks going off. . . . By the end of the drive, I had written two songs, started a children's book, and left about twenty messages for myself." Music not only affects your creative musings but also your energy levels. Think of music and exercise: lots of people, including my daughters, have to listen to upbeat, fast-paced music to keep them going in their workouts. This definitely works for me as well, but because I'm conscious of how music affects my imagination and not just my physical energy, I don't always like to use it when I workout because I prefer to use those times to let my daydreams go off in whatever direction they want to. If I was listening to a particular song, my daydreams would tend to follow in whatever direction the music sent me. In other words, if the music was melancholy, I might become morose. If it's rebellious rock, then I'm off on a rock-and-roll fantasy. That's all well and good when I'm just looking for diversion and entertainment, but when I'm brainstorming a project, I want my mind to brainstorm on that and not necessarily go to Asbury Park or wherever Bruce Springsteen's songs might take me at any given moment. But that's just me--someone else may get completely original visions listening to even well-worn songs. Many people tap into music both to inspire their imagination and boost their energy levels. In my book [amazon 1933102691], I talk about the case of a pro football player who listened to hard-driving rock before a game not just for the typical energy jolt it produced but because the music prompted him to fantasize about being a bad-ass rock star and that gave him the confidence, courage, and crazy arrogance required to stomp the opposition. Likewise, Lance Armstrong frequently tweets about the music he's listening to pre-race to help him get psyched up and after the race to help him calm down. Recently he posted the following: "Relaxing in the room, listening to the Stones. I love my life but wouldn't mind being Mick Jagger for a day. Know what I mean?" Sure--the power, the glory, the "world is my oyster," kind of life, which Lance probably already has, but which shows that even celebs daydream about the lives of other celebs and use music and music-plus-daydreams to alter energy levels. Take note of how music affects you:
Read Original Article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/200907/how-music-feeds-and-steers-your-imagination usic is pretty universally enjoyed ... when it comes to people. Animals, on the other hand, have diverse reactions to tunes. For every Ronan the head-bopping sea lion, there are plenty of creatures that can't keep the beat. Here are seven scientific discoveries about how some animals react to music, either created by humans or themselves.
1. DOGS IN KENNELS MIGHT BE LESS STRESSED WHILE LISTENING TO CLASSICAL MUSIC. In a 2012 study [PDF] published in The Journal of Veterinary Behavior, researchers from Colorado State University monitored the behavior of 117 kenneled dogs, including their activity levels, vocalization, and body shaking. The researchers played a few different types of music to the dogs, including classical, heavy metal, and an altered type of classical music. They also observed the dogs' behavior when no music was playing at all. They found that the dogs slept the most while listening to all kinds of classical music, indicating that it helped them relax. The dogs had the opposite reaction to the metal music, which provoked increased body shaking—a sign of nervousness. The researchers noted the similarities between dogs and people when it comes to classical music. “These results are consistent with human studies, which have suggested that music can reduce agitation, promote sleep, improve mood, and lower stress and anxiety,” they wrote. They also point out that heavy metal music has anxiety-inducing effects on some people as well. 2. CATS DON'T CARE ABOUT HUMAN MUSIC, BUT SCIENTISTS ARE ABLE TO CREATE MUSIC THAT THEY DO ENJOY. Cats either don't care for, or are pretty indifferent to, human music. Thankfully, Charles Snowdon, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, David Teie, a composer at the University of Maryland, and Megan Savage, formerly of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now a Ph.D. student at SUNY-Binghamton, have developed music that contains frequencies and tempos similar to the ones cats use to communicate. We tested some of the songs on one of our editor's cats earlier this year; you can listen to samples of the songshere. Snowdon and Savage went to 47 households with cats and played them music, including two classical songs and two songs developed for felines. When the researchers played the latter, the cat was more likely to move towards the speaker, or even rub up against it, according to their study, which was published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science earlier this year. Interestingly, young and old cats reacted to the cat songs the most positively. Middle-aged cats showed more indifference. 3. IT'S ALSO POSSIBLE TO MAKE MONKEY MUSIC.Cats weren't the first animals Snowdon, Savage, and Teie made species-specific music for. In 2009, they developed songs that mirrored the pitch of monkey calls. For their study, which was published in the journal Biology Letters, the scientists played the music for tamarin monkeys. Songs that were inspired by the calming calls the animals make caused the monkeys to relax; they even ate more while listening to those songs. But when the researchers played music that contained sounds similar to ones the monkeys make when they’re expressing fear, the monkeys became agitated. (You can listen to the songs here.) The monkeys were mostly indifferent to human music—their behavior didn't noticeably change when they were listening to Nine Inch Nails, Tool, or Samuel Barber. But, interestingly, when they heard “Of Wolf and Man” by Metallica, they grew calmer. 4. COWS PRODUCE MORE MILK WHEN THEY'RE LISTENING TO RELAXING MUSIC. Birds are probably the most well-known singers of the animal kingdom. A few years ago, researchers at Emory University set out to learn whether birds are actually making music, like humans do. To find out, they examined the brains of both male and female white-tailed sparrows as they listened to the sounds of male birds. When humans listen to music, our amygdalae often light up in response. It turned out that female white-tailed sparrows had similar brain responses to the bird sounds. The part of their brain that’s similar to the amygdala lit up while listening to the male’s song. The male birds, on the other hand, had brain reactions similar to when humans listen to music they don’t like. Sarah Earp, the study's lead researcher, explained, “We found that the same neural reward system is activated in female birds in the breeding state that are listening to male birdsong, and in people listening to music that they like.” 7. FISH KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMPOSERS.In 2013, a study was published in the journal Behavioral Processes that revealed that goldfish could be trained to distinguish between composers. Researchers at Keio University used pieces of music by two composers in the study: Igor Stravinsky and Johann Sebastian Bach. The goal was to train the goldfish to gnaw on a ball filled with food when the correct composer’s music was playing. One group of fish got Stravinsky and a separate group got Bach. When the fish heard music, they went to gnaw on the ball and were rewarded with food. Once the fish were correlating a composer’s music with the reward, the researchers tried playing the other composer’s music. The goldfish didn’t gnaw on the ball at that point, indicating that they knew enough about the pitch and timbre of their composer to not associate the novel music with food. Read Article: http://mentalfloss.com/article/70539/7-scientific-studies-about-how-animals-react-music Jazz is a style of music that spread in popularity like wild fire in the 1920s and virtually redefined culture in that time frame. But is was the 1930s when we saw jazz begin to "grow up", diversify and become a mature art form that could adapt and spread into all other genres of music as well. Some have called jazz the premier unique musical art form of American culture. The jazz musical genre certainly deserves that title because it is a music that brings with it the history of not one people but many people and a music that creates culture wherever it goes. That is certainly a very American trait.
Jazz actually sprung from communites that thrived in the south and primarily in the African American community. New Orleans was a cultural hot bed where the earliest recognizable forms of jazz music took shape. It was here that Caribbean music blended with European composition and southern blues to produce this very unique musical form known as jazz. Because jazz rose up from "unacceptable" segments of society, it was considered dangerous and even subversive even into the 1920s when the popularity of jazz music literally exploded. The 1920s is when jazz migrated to the big cultural centers of the north such as New York and Chicago. And while jazz continued to be associated with wild and debauched lifestyles, there is no question that it defined the decade and changed everything about the culture of the time from music to art and fashion. Dixieland jazz grew as one of the most popular sub-genres of jazz as the depression era approached. The 1930s saw jazz begin to makes inroads into mainstream music. The music industry could no longer ignore the importance of jazz because it was so popular particularly with young people on the campuses of American colleges and high schools. Slowly but surely, the music industry introduced the seductive music of jazz to older generations and to the white population of the country as well. But the popularization of jazz also diluted the pure forms that made the musical genre so intoxicating in the first place. Dixieland jazz had a very unique style and structure that put a great deal of emphasis on the individual performers each of which was given their time to perform improvisational solos that could go on for as long as the musician felt moved to keep playing. As jazz became more broadly accepted and more commercial as well, the unpredictable and "wild " nature of the music began to tame. The impact of the Great Depression on 1930s music meant that those jazz performers who could draw from a larger audience would be the ones to succeed or at least survive. The most commonly heard form of the genre was "sweet" jazz as opposed to the "hot" jazz of the 1920s. Sweet jazz was more disciplined and brought in other instruments like violins to make it easier for a broader audience to appreciate. While this made jazz a music that became popular for the entire population, it did not sit well with hot jazz devotees and their performers like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Jimmie Lunceford. The big band era which dominated the 1930s music scene incorporate jazz into a more palatable format but did so while integrating other forms popular music in their sets. Because big bands were able to offer the skills of dozens of jazz performers in one band, it was a great method for giving employment to struggling musicians while giving audiences an even greater exposure to a wide variety of talents and musical styles. We can think of 1930s as the decade that jazz became civilized, sophisticated and popular throughout the culture. The outcome was that jazz evolved and began to merge with many musical forms. That evolution continues to this day, which demonstrates the versatility of jazz music to adapt to culture and reflect the outlook of culture back on its listeners as well. Because 1930s jazz forced the format to "grow up", it also assured that jazz would continuously change and grow as the country grows. But also insured that jazz would be a musical style that would continue to be part of the American culture forever. Read Article: http://www.thefinertimes.com/The-1930s/jazz-music-in-the-1930s-goes-from-great-to-greater.html It is not common knowledge how old music - instrumental music - really is. What we learnt at school is probably outdated at best, but mostly really wrong. We use to think that instruments came up not long before Sumeria. But flutes from bones have already been well known and used in the Stone Age. The oldest flute that we have today is from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, and is approximately 35,000 years old. It was produced from a swan's bone, at a time when drills were completely unknown. It has a nearly perfect pentatonic scale (like chinese music today). This is probably no coincidence. Other very old instruments have the same scale which tells us that folks already had a clear sound system idea 35,000 years ago. But: You only need a correct scale system like this if musicians want to play together. Shepherds for example won't need this - playing solo - and therefore typical shepherd's instruments will have a completely different system (like Arabic scales) with which you can't play together - but then again, you will find those systems are well defined, too. This old artefact with the perfect scale is no proof yet but you better get used to the idea that musical instruments and woodwind ensembles played in the Stone Age already - making music in ensembles seems to be less a hobby of a few but a basic part of being human. As with the flute most instruments we know today are refinements of very old ancestors. We can see some of them on monuments and paintings that are hundreds - sometimes thousands - of years old. These pictures and sometimes broken artifacts tell us very little about the music that was made with them, just whether people have danced. But you find much more about it conserved in literature and even in legislature that gives us some idea how they were used and what effects they must have had (some Greek states have banned certain scales and types of playing because of the ecstasy it caused in the audience!). Today we assume that the ancestors of the modern woodwind instruments were developed in the middle east and have reached Europe via Turkey. Double reed instruments like the Aulos (a double oboe) in the Etruscan picture were already known in old Egypt and Greece.You see them on mural paintings in burial chambers and on wine jugs. These instruments developed gradually into todays modern instruments - the modern oboe and the bassoon as well as the instrument commonly used in Turkish popular dance music. A similar development can be shown for the flute, the trumpet, the trombone and all string instruments. The clarinet, however, is the exception which didn't result from a gradual development of an already existing instrument instrument. The clarinet was a revolutionary development at about 1700, built upon the chalumeau. Single reed: Zummarah, Arghul and ChalumeauInstruments with a single reed that were known as a shepherd instrument have existed for ages: The Zummarah and the Arghul. Such instruments were pipes, and the reed was cut out of the tube itself. We are talking about a rather simple instrument here. They are no candidates as direct ancestor of the clarinet. But there is one: The Chalumeau (spoken: Shaloomoh) was spread widely all over Europe. The name comes from Greek/Latin, where "Calumus" means pipe. The Chalumeau always was considered a shepherd's instrument, that had to be played solo. Unfortunately no Chalumeau has survived - one assumes that it must have looked much like a recorder and sounded like the lower octave of today's clarinet. It was not easy to play in tune. Therefore it was uninteresting for most composers and serious musicians, and was hardly ever used in compositions except for some shepherd scenes. Nevertheless today we have kind of a renaissance of the chalumeau, and some companies begin to re-build that instrument; both in a traditional and a modern form (see this Video at Youtube of a mordern form by Germany instrument maker Kunath). Why is the Clarinet more than an improved Chalumeau? The problem developing instruments similar to clarinets (like the Chalumeau) becomes clear when you think about what happens if you play an upward scale on an instrument like the recorder: There are seven or eight tone holes for the lower octave (as you have got 10 fingers) and there is an octave hole. "Overblowing" or opening an octave hole makes woodwind instruments sound exactly one octave higher than the note would sound without overblowing (except for the clarinet, as I will show below). Using the same fingering one time with and one without an overblowing hole makes the instrument sound in different hights; in this contents you speak of lower and upper register. So you basically need seven tone holes and an overblowing hole. Learning how to play higher registers on woodwinds like a recorder is therefore rather simple, and it makes things easy for the instrument maker: The tone holes and their distances for the upper octave are precisely the same as for the lower octave. Now overblowing works on clarinets, too, but the effect is different: The clarinet overblows not to the eighth tone on the scale (an octave - which is exactly double the frequency) but to the twelfth tone. The Italian word for this is duodecime, and so we call the overblowing key the duodecime-key. A beginner must learn this and get used to it. Furthermore this has implications on the construction of the instrument: First it needs more tone holes than octavating instruments, because if you want to play scales up, note 9, 10 and 11 need their own tone hole. This means there have to be more tone holes than we have fingers. Then the tone hole positions for the lower scale should be different from that of the upper scale, especially their diameter. Since this is practically not possible, the instrument maker must find a compromise. The instrument makers before 1700 have not mastered this because they didn't have the theoretical and practical background. And therefore the Chalumeau hasn't got an upper register. We still call the lower register of the clarinet the chalumeau register and the upper (actually the middle register) is called the "clarinet" register. The "invention" of the clarinet After having experimented with chalumeaus for a long time, the instrument maker C. H. Denner of Nuremberg, Germany, finally managed to build an instrument, that would not only play the lower register but also the upper one, without sacrificing to much of intonation (that is correctnes of the tone frequency). In order to do this he added two additional holes close to the duodecime key. The remaining problems with intonation the player had to correct with his embouchure. The first clarinets were still very simple and looked much like a larger recorder. They had two keys, later three (our description depicted here shows two: left thumb and left forefinger). The new instrument already had a wider tonal range than oboes or trumpets of that time. And one could play it relatively loud and execute technically difficult runs and jumps besides, which would be impossible on a trumpet. Therefore one at first replaced the high trumpets, the so-called "clarini", with the new instrument. The name "clarinet" might have come from that. So the clarinet was not just an improved Chalumeau, those two keys made it a completely different instrument. The result was sensational: It was heard in orchestras very soon. Vivaldi wrote or re-wrote three concerty grossi in 1740 already, and Händel composed an Ouverture in 1748, where he demanded clarinets in d. It is widely accepted that it was C.H. Denner, who invented the instrument, and it is only he who is mentioned in a note published shortly afterwards (the Article above only writes about a "Nuremberger"). Lately it is being discussed whether there might have been others, but there is no proof for that. In 1760 the famous (and at this time leading edge) Mannheim Orchestra already had a budget for two clarinet players, both musicians were at the same time oboe players, too. From 1778 on they were clarinet players only. Not long after that Mozart wrote his famous works for clarinet - including the concerto for basset clarinet in A (often called concerto for clarinet in A) - that are technically extremely demanding. Even with today's instruments they are a challenge for professional musisicians. At that time clarinets had five technically questionable keys. It is hard to imagine that you could play that music with those instruments at all, but it must have been possible, as the critics were excited (and you must not think that they did not know what quality in instrument making and playing was - it was the time when string instruments like Stradivari violins were built...) Further development after Denner until today: An EvloutionWith every new musical and technical challenge craftsmen and players strived to improved the new and by far not perfect instrument. This development is similar to biological evolution of living species. Usually it was in small steps, shows forking, interdependencies of workshops and sometimes dead ends. Today several systems survived, on the one hand the German System (a step-by-step improvement of Denner's System), that is played mainly in Germany and Austria. Then there are forks that technically and from the looks remain German-style: the Albert System or simple system that is used in Jazz and the oriental clarinet, both are similar to a German clarinet of around 1870. The rest of the world use the Boehm System which introduced radical changes. "Rest of the world" means approximately 80% of all the world's classical players - and in many countries like France, UK and USA it is nearly 100% of the classical population. The quickly growing number of classical musicians in nations like China and India use the Boehm system, too, nearly 100%. Iwan Müllers KeysIwan Müller was a clarinet player and instrument maker who revolutionised not only the key mechanics. He lived both in Germany and in Russia. While old keys had a simple pivot-mechanic and felt pads, and hardly ever were reliable, he developed the spoon-key with leather pad and sunk-in holes with a conical ring, as you find them on instruments today: Altogether Müller's clarinet had 12 keys. It was not so far away any more from what Germans play today. Next to this Müller changed the reed roughly into the form we use today, and developed the ligature. Unfortunately the Paris Conservatorium did not accept his developments in 1812, because the French firmly believed (some still do today) in the specific charakter of scales. This would be destroyed by a clarinet that could easily play chromatically (that is: in all scales). Until then clarinets could only play one scale. Klosés instrument (the Boehm system) gains acceptance in France and in the rest of the WorldShortly after this the German flute maker Theobald Boehm brought about two improvements to the instrument making world: On the one hand, he created a mathematical basis for the perfect calculation of the position of tone holes and on the other hand, he invented the ring key. The ring key makes it possible to cover a hole larger than the finger that lies on the ring key. On this basis the Frenchman Hyacinthe Klosé developed the "Boehm" clarinet model, his instrument maker Buffet started building it in 1839. Being French himself, he was better prepared to deal with the gatekeepers of the Parisian Music Academy than Ivan Müller, his instrument was accepted and is played in the whole world today. The Germans stay on their own wayIn the German speaking countries the Boehm system did not become standard, here instrument makers improved the Müller System. The actual German system is called "Oehler" and is technically as good as the current Boehm System (German System fans would tell you that its sound is by far superior, but that is a question of taste). I give you a short overview over the development, the systems and their differences here. Actually it seems you find more differences in the heads of the players, of how the instrument should be played and how they should sound, than you find technical differences between the instruments. Other systems - look like Germans, but sound very differentYou see a dixieland band and the old clarinettist plays on something, that is definitely not Boehm - it has got the the wooden sliding rolls of the German systems, but looks much simpler... Then this probably is an "Albert" clarinet, an old descendant from the Müller system, that has survived in Jazz and in Oriental Music (Turkish, Klezmer). It is still being built today for this purpose. Oriental clarinet players often play on a descendant of the German clarinet that is often tuned to G, having a wide mouthpiece and soft reeds, bending notes and playing glissando. The same instruments are often used by Klezmorim, that are Jiddish players and Gipsy style players. Read Article: http://www.the-clarinets.net/english/clarinet-history.html For centuries, scientists believed that light, like all waves, couldn't be focused down smaller than its wavelength, just under a millionth of a meter. Now, researchers have created the world's smallest magnifying glass, which focuses light a billion times more tightly, down to the scale of single atoms.
Read Entire Article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161110151314.htm The Oboe is a double-reed wind instrument with a wooden body and narrow conical bore.
In French the oboe is called hautbois which means 'high, or loud, wood'. The oboe has a body in three sections. It has a tiny double reed, through which the musician must force air at a very high pressure. It is traditionally made from Blackwood, also called grenadille. The instrument has up to 23 holes. The double reed is fashioned from cane which is usually dried and aged for several years. The oboe encompasses two octaves. The oboe was invented in the 17th century by the French musicians Jean Hotteterre and Michel Danican Philidor, who modified the louder shawm (the prevailing double-reed instrument). The instrument's scuccess was established at the court of Louis XIV and spread rapidly all over Europe. By 1700 most orchestras included oboes. In 1700 the French instrumentalist Jean-Pierre Freillon published the first method for the instrument: 'Véritable manière d'apprendre à jouer du hautbois'. The next important development came in the 1800's and was the use of key mechanisms. There was no single outline for the key sytems. Generally, the Germans created simpler systems, and the French more complicated ones. Still today, the key systems do vary from oboes of one manufacturer to another. Early oboes had seven finger-holes and two keys; by the 1700s four-keyed models were also in use. In the 1800s additional keys were added, reaching 15 or more, and the bore and sound holes were redesigned. Oboes of the French school (played in most countries today) have a very narrow bore and a penetrating, focused sound. Those of the German school have a wider bore and a more easily blending sound. After Theobald Boehm invented his key mechanism for the flute, it was French builders who applied the system to the oboe. The oboe is the smallest orchestral double-reed instrument and very important in the orchestra. Because the oboe's pitch varies little with temperature, the oboe will play the A-note to which all othe instruments in the orchestra will tune to. The oboe also is an important soloist. THE ENGLISH HORN The English horn uses the same keywork as the oboe but it plays at a lower pitch. This wooden instrument is incorrectly named because it is neither English, nor a horn! It is taller than the oboe. It is considered to be the alto auf the oboe family. THE OBOE D'AMORE The oboe d'amore was at the first time used around 1720. Bach was among the first composers to make use of this instrument which is the mezzosoprano member of the oboe family. It sounds also smoother than the oboe. Read Article: http://www.dupin-oboe.com/oboe-story.php |
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