Wednesday, April 8, 2015

drums

5)The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone.[1] Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a drum stick, to produce sound. There is usually a resonance head on the underside of the drum, typically tuned to a slightly lower pitch than the top drumhead. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.[1]
Drums may be played individually, with the player using a single drum, and some drums such as the djembe are almost always played in this way. Others are normally played in a set of two or more, all played by the one player, such as bongo drums and timpani. A number of different drums together with cymbals form the basic modern drum kit.

bass guitar

4)The bass guitar[1] (also called electric bass,[2][3][4] or simply bass; /ˈbs/) is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, (rarely) strumming, tapping, thumping, orpicking with a plectrum, often known as a pick.
The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and four to six strings or courses. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is usually tuned the same as the double bass,[5] which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest pitched strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G).[6] The bass guitar is a transposing instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds (as is the double bass) to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the bass guitar is plugged into an amplifier and speaker for live performances.
Since the 1960s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section.[7] While types of bass lines vary widely from one style of music to another, the bassist usually fulfills a similar role: anchoring the harmonic framework and establishing the beat. Many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rockmetalpoppunk rockcountryreggaegospelblues, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusionLatinfunkprogressive rock and other rock and metal styles.
Electric bass training is available from various colleges including the Bass Institute of Technology, the Berklee College of Music, and Humber College, and some universities offer degrees in electric bass, such as theManhattan School of Music. Electric bassists can also take private lessons or learn by ear, by copying bass lines from records and CDs and playing in a number of bands.Stingray guitar.jpg




violin

3) The violin, also known as a fiddle, is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola, and the cello. The modern word is derived from the Italian word violino, literally 'small viola'.
Someone who plays the violin is called a violinist or a fiddler. The violinist produces sound by drawing a bow across one or more strings (which may be stopped by the fingers of the other hand to produce a full range of pitches), by plucking the strings (with either hand), or by a variety of other techniques. The violin is played by musicians in a wide variety of musical genres, including Baroque musicclassicaljazzcountry music,bluegrass musicfolk musicrock and roll, and soft rock. The violin has come to be played in many non-Western music cultures all over the world.The violin is sometimes informally called a fiddle, regardless of the type of music played on it.
The violin is first known in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. Violinists and collectors particularly prize the instruments made by the StradivariGuarneri and Amatifamilies from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, though this belief is disputed.[1][2] Great numbers of instruments have come from the hands of "lesser" makers, as well as still greater numbers of mass-produced commercial "trade violins" coming from cottage industries in places such asSaxonyBohemia, and Mirecourt. Many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers.
A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier. The parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood (although electric violins may not be made of wood at all, since their sound may not be dependent on specific acoustic characteristics of the instrument's construction), and it is usually strung with gutPerlon or other synthetic, or steel strings.

Violin VL100.png

guitar

1)The guitar is a popular musical instrument classified as a string instrument with anywhere from 4 to 18 strings, usually having 6. The sound is projected either acoustically or through electrical amplification (for an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, respectively). It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the right hand while fretting (or pressing against the fret) the strings with the left hand. The guitar is a type ofchordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. The modern guitar was preceded by thegittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.
There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerpicking technique. The term fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the US.
Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but a solid body was eventually found more suitable, as it was less prone to feedback. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture.
The guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as bluesbluegrasscountryflamencofolkjazzjotamariachimetalpunkreggaerocksoul, and many forms of pop.

piano

1) The piano (an abbreviation of pianoforte) is a musical instrument played using a keyboard.[1] It is widely employed in classical and jazz music for solo and ensemble performancesaccompaniment, and for composingand rehearsal. Although the piano is not portable and often expensive, its versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the world's most familiar musical instruments.
An acoustic piano usually has a protective wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings, and a row of 88 black and white keys (52 white, 36 black). The strings are sounded when the keys are pressed, and silenced when the keys are released. The note can be sustained, even when the keys are released, by the use of pedals.
Pressing a key on the piano's keyboard causes a padded (often with felt) hammer to strike strings. The hammer rebounds, and the strings continue to vibrate at their resonant frequency.[2] These vibrations are transmitted through a bridge to a soundboard that amplifies by more efficiently coupling the acoustic energy to the air. When the key is released, a damper stops the strings' vibration, ending the sound. Although an acoustic piano has strings, it is usually classified as a percussion instrument because the strings are struck rather than plucked (as with a harpsichord or spinet); in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones. With technological advances, electricelectronic, and digital pianos have also been developed.
The word piano is a shortened form of pianoforte, the Italian term for the instrument, which in turn derives from gravicembalo col piano e forte[3] and fortepiano. The Italian musical terms piano and forte indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively,[4] in this context referring to the variations in volume produced in response to a pianist's touch on the keys: the greater the velocity of a key press, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the strings, and the louder the sound of the note produced.