Traditional Russian Folk Instruments There are many instruments found in the Russian culture that we as Americans know nothing about. I know that before I wrote this paper I didn't even know some of the names that I came across. There are many different groups of instruments, not just in Russian culture, but in all cultures. There are the woodwinds, the brass, the percussive instruments and the stringed instruments. We are going to focus on the last, the stringed instruments, more specifically, the balalaika. http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/home.htm The Balalaika, the most well known Russian stringed instrument has a triangular body, basically flat, with a small round sound hole near the narrow top of the belly; a long, narrow neck; and three gut or metal strings, normally plucked with the fingers (a leather plectrum is sometimes used with metal strings). A member of the guitar family, this instrument is sometimes called the "Russian lute". The balalaika is built in six different sizes, from the piccolo to the contrabass. When all the different sizes are used at the same time, a balalaika orchestra is formed. Typically, the balalaika is used to accompany song and dance. It was made popular in the 1800s in both city salons and in the countryside it developed in the 18th century from the similar domra or dombra of Central Asia and Siberia. The representative balalaika, the treble or prima, is usually tuned e1 (e1 = E above middle C). The range and versatility of the instrument are astounding in view of the fact that two strings are tuned alike in the prima, secunda, and alto instruments. The prima blalaika is tuned E, E, A; the secunda balalika is tuned a fifth below the prima (A, A, D); the alto an octave be... ... middle of paper ... ... are a set of wee boards on a string that get clapped together as a group. The more (and bigger) the boards, the louder the sound. Other percussion instruments I won't delve into further include the "rubel'" (a washboard-affair you scrape a spoon along), various tambourines and bones and drums, and the "circular treshchotka" (which you can probably hear in medieval European music). Bibliography: SOURCES http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/home.htm http://www.duke.edu/%7Eruslan/russwind.html http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/music.html http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/MHN/pages/blka_gnrl.html http://www.alpine.net/~chylin/sierra-balalaika/shows.html http://www.necco.net/category/arts_culture/music.htm http://www.mappamundi.com/myrtle.html http://www.grovereference.com/Libraries/
Percussion has evolved from a small category to a wide variety of simple and technical instruments. Percussion is a category of musical instruments that is played using the hands or with a handheld stick/beater. Percussion started thousands of years ago when people played rhythms on random objects to please their friends and scare their enemy’s. People over the years discovered different ways to hit the objects.
To this day, many of Stradivarius violins remain in the human world, but only one can resound with the beauty of Stradivari's soul; this one Hermes keeps for himself. But to honor Stradivari's life and to share his gift with the world, Hermes joins with Apollo every night and plays the symphonies of nature; these can be heard in the winds, in the oceans, indeed, in the fabric of everyday life.
Let us begin by taking a brief overview of the lute and it’s function. In the fifteenth century, there was an evolution in lute playing. It had been played in an ensemble setting with a plectrum, a tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. This technique limited the player to single line melodies. The technique evolved into strings being plucked with the player’s fingers, thus, making it possible for the lutenist to play intricate polyphony and turning the lute into a solo instrument playing two, three or even four lines of music at once. Out of this development the lute was transformed into a self-contain...
Antonio Stradivari, a man known by many as on of the greatest luthiers of all time. The question at hand is why? From as early as the early 1700’s Stradivari was well known in the music world and still is. His instruments are reproduced in order to fool consumers into buying an instrument that has the same design as a Strad. There are also luthiers that try to replicate Stradivari’s beautiful design for their own satisfaction. Antonio Stradivari’s instruments have become socially and technically popular over time due to his superior craftsmanship, and for others, its large price tag. Stradivari’s life, affecting how his instruments were made, changed the perception of his instruments technically and socially.
Since the first person heard the wind whistle through the trees or the sea in a seashell humans have been drawn to sound. Being the oppressive and ingenious species that we are we felt the need to capture these sounds and any others that we could to keep for our own. Eventually people like Pythagoras and gods such as Apollo found that by stretching materials and picking/plucking them that they would produce sounds and that the tighter you stretched these strings the higher the sound would go. These were the early beginnings of the pianoforte.
Schwartz, Boris. Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981. 2nd edition. Indiana University Press, 1983.
Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil—also referred to as his Vespers, is a collection of 15 works for solo alto, tenor, and choral that he composed in under two weeks. The ranges for the singers in this work as well as the intonation and breath control were thought to be absurd and profound. To find basses capable to sing it would be "as rare as asparagus at Christmas” as the conductor Nikolai Danilin put it. But Rachmaninoff claimed "I know the voices of my countrymen!” and he did indeed! The text for this work is taken directly from the Russian Orthodox All-Night vigil ceremony as well as various plainchant melodies. “The 15 movements of the Vespers together form the core of a well-known Russian Orthodox monastic service” (Rodman). The work premiered in 1915 during World War I “and Russians were hailing the Vespers as a masterpiece even before the performance began” (Rodman). His eight-voiced choral textures are part of the reason why this was such a popular work. In Rodman’s quick analysis of the Vespers he talks about how the chant-like homophony created a texture of “sobriety, and power…[and] his harmonic language is tonally grounded with frequent pedal points, but also rich modal and chromatic inflections. Antiphonal textures (Nos. 2, 8, 10) and liturgical refrains (Nos. 3, 9, 11, 12) evoke the incense-choked atmosperes of the church. At the same time, local text details can inspire him to exsquisite passages, such as the radiant harmonic shift before the first tenor solo (No. 4) and the clusters of angelic melismas at the climax of No. 7. ” The country was still recovering from the Russian Revolution in 1905 so this work was just what was needed at the time of political turmoil that Russia was in. It was “enthusiastically received by the audience and critics alike. Alexander Kastalsky thought the Vigil
"At that instant the lingering notes of a 'cello were wafted towards them from the house . . . and, like honey, the melody flowed through the air" (49). Like a true Nihilist, Bazarov immediately denounced the act of playing music as a purely romantic institution. "Good Lord!
It is believed that the Irish brought to the region the fiddle and the pipes. It is believed that the first stringed instrument, the dulcimer was brought by the Germans, Norwegians, Swedish and French. The dulcimer became known as the 1“Hog Fiddle” or “Music Box”.
Body percussion, spoons, washboard, harp. Harmonica, a jug. Bluegrass Music - What is bluegrass music? Direct descendant of the old-time string band tradition, which developed out of Southern mountain dance music & songs. Combines old-time string band music with gospel harmonies & blues rhythms.
There are more than fifty different types of percussion instruments, possibly starting with the antique cymbals and maybe ending with the xylophone. There are many different classes of percussion instruments. For example there is Latin percussion instruments, Classic percussion instruments, and Modern percussion instruments. Most percussion instruments are played by shaking, using hands or using a mallet or stick and have stretched membranes. Percussion instruments also have been used to emphasize rhythm and to heighten climaxes.(1) The drums are part of the percussion instruments and is one of the world’s oldest instruments. An instrument, that is the only orchestral drums of definite pitch, is the timpani, which is also called the kettledrums.(4)
Music has shaped the lives of people throughout history. Even in its earliest forms, music has included use of instruments. One of the oldest musical instruments known is a variation of the flute; the original flute is thought to date back nearly 67,000 years ago. Tonight we are going to move throughout the eras with a history of instrumental music. This concert will begin with the Renaissance Era and continue through time until we have reached modern instrumental music.
Before the pianoforte was brought into existence, the keyboard instrument of the orchestra was the harpsichord. The timbre of the harpsichord was much different than that of the pianoforte, this being primarily because of the harpsichord’s strings being plucked, whereas the piano’s strings
Mainly the West Africans used percussive instruments. These drums came in all sizes ranging from ten to twelve inches to ten to twelve feet. Their drums were made out of hollowed out logs and gourds with a tight skin over the hollow. They also used idiophones to make music. They used a variety of bells, castanets, gongs, and sometimes they made small xylophones or small pianos. Aerophones weren't as prevalent as the percussions or idiophones. Some explorers made small flutes, horns and trumpets from elephant tusks.
As a youth he reluctantly studied law, as much bore by it as Schumann had been, and even became a petty clerk in the Ministry of Justice. But in his early twenties he rebelled, and against his family's wishes had the courage to throw himself into the study of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was a ready improviser, playing well for dancing and had a naturally rich sense of harmony, but was so little schooled as to be astonished when a cousin told him it was possible to modulate form any key to another. He went frequently to the Italian operas which at that time almost monopolized the Russian stage, and laid t...