Reeds

Well because last time I talked a lot about different instruments and how they made the sounds we identify them by I thought I would tell everyone here the difference between the wind instruments. There are two main subcategories when looking at standard orchestral instruments that you blow air through to create sound and they are the Reed instruments (or woodwinds-though there are flutes which use mouth/blow holes instead) and the Brass instruments.

Today I will be talking about the Reed instruments and we will  be ignoring the flutes for the time being (they got a lot of attention last post). Now before I start I must divide the topic once more into two subcategories that we are going to classify as Single Reeds and Double Reeds (there are also Free Reeds but we are not going to explore those at the moment).

Single Reeds:

Examples of single reed instruments are clarinets and saxophones. These instruments use a flat, rectangular piece of wood (usually Cane but they can also be synthetic) in their mouthpiece. The mouthpiece is a conical type structure with one open side where the reed will be fastened by something called a ligature to cover the hole. The reed is actually only completely flat on the side that has to press up against the mouth piece. The other side of the reed starts thick and tapers off until it is very thin at the tip. When blowing into the instrument the player causes the reed to vibrate against the plastic (or wood) of the mouthpiece. This vibration is then carried through the horn and modified by the depressing of keys.

A single reed:

A ligature:

A reed fastened to a mouthpiece via ligature:


Double Reed:
A couple examples of common double reed instruments are the Bassoon and the Oboe. Double reeds do not use a mouth piece like the single reed instruments do. Instead of vibrating one reed off of the mouthpiece, instruments like the oboe and bassoon use two reeds that vibrate off of each other. Two reeds (usually made from Arundo donax cane) are fastened together at the bottom with an opening between the two reeds at the top to allow for air passage and vibration.

Frontal view of bassoon double reed:

Top view of an oboe double reed:

While either type of reed can be handmade most double reed players are much more strongly encouraged to carve their own reeds. The double reed instruments are also usually portrayed as much harder instruments to play.

Very Punny

"Carmen get it!" Bizet yelled as he pulled out his Chopin Liszt.

Crazy Instruments Installment 2

In one of my previous posts I mentioned an instrument by the name of the "Fiddle-dee-doo" and one of my friends asked if I was just making a point or if it was actually a real thing. Truth be told it is indeed a real instrument and will now be the topic of Crazy Instruments Installment 2.

The Fiddle-dee-doo is a "Globu-tubular horn with goatskin resonator". What? So first I will explain "Tubular" and "Globular"horns. The simpler to describe of the two is the tubular. A good example of a tubular instrument is the tubular flute, show here:

(Recorders also fit into the tubular flute category)
The flute is a long cylindrical tube through which air passes. The air is made into a column and modified by keys or holes in the flute that are depressed or covered by the player to change the length of the tube and create different pitches. The placement of the keys or holes are essential as the length of the air column will dictate the note being played.

Tubular horns include most brass instruments such as trumpet, trombone, french horns, and so on. The bodies of these instruments are still just tubes (though they are shaped and bent) like the flute but they are classified separately (as horns and not flutes) because instead of blowing air across the top and effecting a column of air through the apparatus that way, they use the vibration caused by the buzzing into the mouth piece to put the air in motion and create sound.

A Globular instrument works on a different principal. For example, a globular flute would be an instrument where air was blown into a spherical chamber with holes or keys positioned around the globe. The musician would open and close these holes to change the amount of air in the chamber to change the pitch. The actually positioning of the holes or keys makes very little difference, the SIZE of the holes, however, makes all the difference in the world. The more air is let out the more the note will change and vice versa.A good example of a globular flute is the Ocarina (and yes for you Nintendo fans, it's the same instrument), shown here:


Now globular horns are a bit harder. While they exist in the world they will not be found in your local orchestra and this is probably why:
Example
While interesting it really does not lend itself to most people's view of popular music. What is happening is that the horn is utilizing the globular chambers to resonate and the musician is buzzing his lips into the tube like he would into one of the other horns. Globular horns, while not very common here, are more popular in many African cultures.

Now, as you may have guessed, a globu-tubular horn combines the aspects of both of these types of instruments. This means that there is both a cylindrical shaft and a globular chamber where the air and sound will be resonating. The globular part actually will often significantly lower the pitch of the entire instrument depending on its placement.

The Fiddle-Dee-Doo is actually a fiddle-horn, renamed the Fiddle-dee-doo by Barry Hall:

The part classified as the 'tubular' part of the horn is the long cylindrical piece under the strings. This part also acts as the 'fingerboard' or what the musician will press the string against to determine the length and therefore the note. The globular part of the horn resides at the bottom and is made from goatskin (hence the 'goatskin resonator'). This part also acts as the 'soundboard' for the string part of the instrument (where the sound is produced). To play the instrument one buzzes (because it's a horn) into the open hole at the end of the tube and plays the string at the same time making for a very strange sound indeed.

Very Punny

When writing music for some instruments it is hard to piccolo note.

Owl City

In the last post I talked about amateur musical groups that get their work to the world via the internet. While I differentiated them by who had record labels there are also groups out there that are becoming well known without the record labels. These groups are making a bridge between that which I earlier described as amateur bands and professionals.

For example, bands like Owl City have become serious music producers that put out professional sounding soundtracks, offer band merchandise, and have their songs for sale on itunes. Here's the catch: Owl City is actually one guy by the name of Adam Young who writes all his own music and records it in his bedroom. His homepage is even on myspace. So where do we put this kind of music?

When asked Young says:
"I'm the farthest thing from a pro but I have fun and that's far more important to me. I just like making songs. Writing music is like tasting the sky. It keeps me dreaming in color."

That's all for today, I just had to acknowledge the middle ground between the two parties I talked about last time. To listen to Owl City check here:

Owl City

Very Punny
Sign on a music store window: 'Come in and pick out a drum -- then beat it!'

Boredom

Among the many musical access points around the internet are band sites. Pretty much any band name can be typed in to produce a homepage dedicate to the group and their music. There is, however, another form of groups out there that are just as abundant. Amateur groups have been able to record and upload music onto their own sites with the quality of the professionals with the equipment and programs available to the public today.

I say amateur only to differentiate them from those officially under a record label because while they might not be recognized by the music consumer industry many of them contain musicians graduated from high end music academies who's talent rivals and often surpasses those of popular culture bands. On the flip side of that coin however, there are those who, while they love music, would never get anything they ever played or wrote listened to at all without the free-ness provided by the internet. Of course there are all those who are in between the two extremes as well (let us never forget them for I fear it is what I have become).

Even leaving the actual musician's out of the picture, the sites themselves seem to have a much more free range of being. Many of the 'professional' band and group websites seem to follow a basic pattern: Home page with some sort of logo and usually a sample of their most recent song playing upon loading broken up into tabs that will let you buy things (souvenirs or music etc.), listen to things, track their next performance, or comment. The 'amateur' sites, however, become more creative and personal. For example they can be anywhere from extremely serious (people actually looking for someone to discover them) to pure fun where the people involved just post what they love in an attempt to share their passion.

The example that I will give you is a site from the latter of those two example categories and is actually one that I have had some small interaction with. The site is called www.TrumpetBoredom.com and is run by my friend Matt with the amazing talents of both him and my other friends Collin and Joe and their buddy Byron. The four of them (all trumpet players except for Collin on Bari-sax most of the time) play popular songs which Joe arranges by ear and all of them record in one of their homes.

This particular site doesn't have anything to sell but offers all their recordings free for the listening and downloading. The site is for your enjoyment and theirs and while occasionally cracked notes and strange screeches sneak their way into a recording you can really hear their true talent and their love for what their doing show through. (Hey some of the pieces posted were recorded with one mic hanging somewhere in their near vicinity-I'm amazed at the sound quality they got). No digital enhancing-it's just them.

Here is an example of some of their music:

http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20Gummi%20Bears.mp3

http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20The%20Office.mp3

http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20The%20Circle%20of%20Life.mp3

http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20Come%20On,%20Eileen.mp3

http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20Now%20I%27m%20a%20Believer%20Demo%20Final.mp3

And if you're up for it here's their theme song sung by Matt and Collin (and one of my personal favorites):
http://www.trumpetboredom.com/sounds/Trumpet%20Boredom%20-%20Rubber%20Duckie%20(lyrics).mp3

Very Punny
I bought a metronome for 20 bucks. You can't beat that price.

Knee Slappers

I was going to describe an intricate musical term to you today  but about halfway through I gave myself a headache with all my backtracking and defining. So! I am going to rewrite it better for you at a later date, promise ;) For now I would like to share with you something that musician's everywhere are familiar with.

No matter where you go there is a certain rivalry between instruments. Rivalry is kind of strong but it is the closest I can come to describing it. For example there are the basics: Winds vs. Strings (though this often goes unnoticed because outside of the professional world they rarely have to deal with each other), Woodwinds vs. Brass, and High end vs. Low end. Within each section there is always the one instrument type that gets picked on-the nerd of the bunch if you will. For strings it seems to be Viola and for winds it seems to be either of the double reeds (bassoon mostly and sometimes oboe).

As much as these divisions are part of the musician's world so are the music jokes. There are standard ones that can be used again and again with different instruments each time such as:

What's the difference between a (insert instrument here: most commonly Bassoon or Viola) and a trampoline? You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline.

But there are also ones that are specific to their instruments such as:

How do you get two piccolos to play in tune? Shoot one. (hahaha-ug).

Certain instruments get joked about for different things. Flutes and piccolos: out of tune or divas, Trumpets: huge egos, Trombones: loud and unemployable, Drummers: Unable to keep time, Saxophones: horrible sound....and the list goes on.

But whatever the joke and whatever the instrument the punch lines are worn out, well know, and a part of the music world. So I present some of the classics to you tonight, enjoy (and keep in mind I have nothing against any of these instruments and that often the instruments in these jokes can be switched out for others):

Why is a bassoon better than an oboe?
The bassoon burns longer.

What's the difference between a saxophone and a lawn mower?
Lawn mowers sound better in small ensemles.
The neighbors are upset if you borrow a lawnmower and don't return it.
The grip.

What's the difference between a Trumpet player and the rear end of a horse?
I don't know either.

What's the difference between trumpet players and government bonds?
Government bonds eventually mature and earn money.

How can you tell which kid on a playground is the child of a trombonist?
He doesn't know how to use the slide, and he can't swing.

What is a gentleman?
Somebody who knows how to play the trombone, but doesn't.

What's the range of a tuba?
Twenty yards if you've got a good arm!

Why are orchestra intermissions limited to 20 minutes?
So you don't have to retrain the drummers.

Very Punny

He tried to play the shoehorn but got only footnotes.

Crazy Instruments Installment 1

So I have seen my share of crazy looking instruments from a Fiddle-dee-doo to a Gravikord, but today I'm going to tell you about something that most people wouldn't think of as an instrument at all. The Tesla Coil.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what a tesla coil is, it is basically a transformer. In the simplest terms it takes electrical energy and transmits it from one coil to another resulting in a changing current which in this case creates really high voltage, low current, and high frequency electricity. The deal with Tesla coils is although they are sometimes used as igniters after modification they are basically used for entertainment. What's entertaining? How about the massive amount of electric discharge that results in lightning-like streaks from the coil's top? Frequencies given off by these coils have also been harnessed to create music of a sort and thus these crazy coils have jumped the gap into the instrument realm.

The coils, while already giving off sound, have been found to work better for the musical pursuit if the coils are vacuum-tube tesla coils, also referred to as SSTC or Solid State Tesla Coils. The reason for this is because the tesla coil's output is much more controllable with these kinds of coils. Even crazier is the modification that they do on the SSTCs themselves.

For example, one can change the Amplitude Modulation (referred to as AM). If one changes the amplitude so that there is a constant output of the plasma flame (the lightning-type discharge mentioned earlier) then the volume of the sound produced by the tesla coils become much more controllable.

The other main modification has to do with the pulse repitition frequency. Simply put: a tesla coil will have a set amount of times that is produces sparks (again the lightning discharge) per second. By changing the frequency at which this happens they can alter the frequency to match that of a musical note that they want played. Thus they have notes and volume! Crazy!

As an example, please enjoy the coils in action:

These specific coils, built by Steve Ward and Jeff Larson, are 7 feet tall, 18 feet apart, and controlled by a laptop which has assigned each coil one midi channel.

Very Punny

What do you mean you can't tuna fish? Just adjust its scales.

Out of the Blue

Last time I gave you a very basic introduction to some of the most fundamental musical terms and notations. This time I am going to be showing you something from the opposite end of the spectrum.

Just like in most creative disciplines (art, dance, theatre) people tend to question what music is. Very often you hear people who are opposed to Rap music claim that it's not music-just a bunch of words and noise. Sometimes you will also hear people bag on pop music that is circulated in the teen-girl section of society saying that it's too corny, too cookie cutter, and just plain horrible.

Personally, my iPod full of polar opposite music is reserved for my ears alone and other people can feel however they want about whatever styles of music they like. However, in the interest of challenging your idea of what music might be I am inviting you to listen to a musical group called F'loom.

This group was introduced to me about three or four years ago by a fellow band member who burned me a random mix of their songs from his collection. The group is an A Capella 'singing' trio that does something that they call "language music".

The first piece I ever listened to was this one entitled: Ghi Terakita

This one is more standardly musical that some of the other ones because of a pretty steady meter (or rhythm) that is maintained throughout the song. There are even pitch changes that suggest a song-like quality. The odd thing about this one is that the vocals are used in a purely instrumental function without any semblance of coherent words. This is something they have come to call "polyrhythmic mouth-percussion".

The second piece I heard of theirs, and one of their most popular is called: 10 Possible Outcomes of Gnegg's Paradox

This one is more language based than note or rhythm based-it even follows a constant story line (though many songs do this so that is not really a cause to call it unmusical). The vocals here are used both as lyrical and non-lyrical devices as the song contains words and odd background noises.

Lastly is this kind of piece: Just for a Few Minutes

This one contains almost nothing but words. The fact that it is close to pure nonsense (they do have other ones where it is simply words being strung together without sentences to portray a feeling such as hot or cold) held together only by the word 'JUST' being repeated in each scenario almost makes the sounds of the words into a song in itself.

They teach Master Classes at Manchester College and have appeared with many famous artists.
So what do you think? Music?

(click on any of the song titles to hear a small segment of the song-more can be found at their website)

Very Punny

If you can't find anyone to sing with you have to duet yourself.

Welcome

Something that has always been important to me is music, whether playing it or listening to it it's something that is part of my life every day. So in an effort to expand the knowledge I already have and in a hope to bring a little bit more information to the random reader I have created Chopin Liszt, a Shopping List of music tid bits ranging from odd instruments to simple definitions. Have a question about something musical? Let me know and I'll try my best to get the answer for you!

Back to the Basics

So I started out with something interesting. A cool musical ornamentation(almost a decoration to a series of notes if you will) that isn't well known but has a cool little sound. While it is an interesting piece of knowledge I found myself having to backtrack and define term after term just to make it understandable to people who don't have to deal with these things on a normal basis. Thus I have come back to the beginning and decided instead to do something very basic this time in hopes that it will help me bring you even more interesting things next time and in more times to come!

Here are some basic things that are helpful to know (and you can impress your non-music friends with when you see them on things)

Basics:

The STAVE or the STAFF

Mostly referred to as the staff it is composed of five lines and four spaces that each represent a different note, or pitch, that must be played. As I am not teaching you to read music at this time but instead am just trying to familiarize you with the terminology I will leave the lines unnamed, but feel free to look into it more if you would like. 

Bar Lines and Measures

The staff is then split up into separate sections with bar lines (vertical lines that cross all the horizontal staff lines at a right angle). These sections are called measures and their importance comes into play with the next term.

Time Signatures

One of the other basic building blocks of a piece os music before the notes are added is called the time signature. Time signatures are shown by one number on top of another at the beginning of a piece of music and right after the clef (which is explained next). They look something like this:

These numbers tell the musician how many beats(kind of like one tick on a metronome or clock) are in a measure so that they can keep the correct tempo and rhythm of a piece. 

The top note will tell the reader how many beats are in each measure (defined above) and the bottom note will tell the reader which type of note (given as a fraction of the whole note) counts as one full beat

HUH? 

For example, in 4/4 time (also called Common Time and notated with a C-just to confused you) we know by looking at the bottom number 4 that the quarter note counts as one full beat because it is 1/4 (note the 4) of a whole note. Then when we look at the top we know that four beats must happen in the measure before it is over.

Clefs

There are more than just these two but the main clefs that you will come in contact with (unless you play Viola) are the Bass Clef and the Treble Clef.

The first one show here is the Bass Clef (also referred to as the F-clef) and in general is used for lower instruments as well as the bottom half of the piano.

The second one shown is much more commonly seen around the non-music scene as a way to denote musicality in general. Often you will hear people refer to it as a note. It is not. This is the Treble Clef (or G-clef) and is generally used to higher instruments as well as the upper half of the piano.

Clefs are used to tell the musician the pitch of the notes written on the staff or stave. For example. The Bass Clef is also called the F-clef because the two little dots are on either side of the line that represents the note F. When an actual note is placed on that line the musician will play an F. From that starting point it is then possible to figure out what all the other notes are, but again I am not teaching you that right now.

Notes and Rests

Lastly are the notes and rests. A piece of music is made up completely of sound and silence and each are equally important. A note is used to tell the musician which pitch to play and how long to play it. Which pitch depends entirely where the note is place on the staff that we saw earlier (along with some other fun little things like accidentals and key signatures which I will go into later). The length, however, is shown by the note (or rest) itself.

This is a whole note. This long note will always be hollow and never have a stem. It counts for four beats in Common Time (4/4 time).
This is the whole rest-the counterpart to the whole note. It counts for four beats of silence in Common Time.
This is a half note. This note will also always be hollow but unlike the whole note it has a stem. It counts for two beats in Common Time. It will always be half the length of the whole note.
This is the half rest-the counterpart to the half note. It counts for two beats of silence in Common Time, or half the length of the whole rest.
This is the quarter note. This note has a stem like the half note but will always be filled in. It counts for one beat in Common Time. It will always be one quarter the length of the whole note.
This is a quarter rest-the counterpart to the quarter note. It counts for one beat of silence in Common Time, of one quarter length of the whole rest.
This is an eighth note. It counts of one half of a beat in Common Time. It is filled in and has a stem like the quarter note but it also has what is called a flag at the end of the stem. It will always be one eighth the length of the whole note.
This is an eighth rest-the counterpart to the eighth note. It counts for one half of a beat of silence in Common Time, or one eighth the length on the whole rest.

Key Signatures

Hahahaha-sorry. I'm not going to try and explain those right now but just know they are very important! In order to explain them to you I would need a whole other post-which I may indeed do sometime but for now I will leave them alone.

And that is all for now. I don't intend for this blog to be a learn-to-read-music site but I thought it would be nice to get a very basic how-to post out there for inquiring minds. Hope you enjoyed!

Very Punny

He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.