Twelve-string Guitar ... The strings are generally arranged such that the first string of each pair to be struck on a downward strum is the higher octave string; however, this arrangement was reversed by Rickenbacker on their electric 360/12. The tension placed on the instrument by the strings is high, and because of this, 12 string guitars have a reputation for warping after a few years of use...
Guitar ... Acoustic guitars (and similar instruments) with hollow bodies have been in use for over a thousand years. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar...
Musical Instrument ... The date and origin of the first device considered to be a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 67,000 years...
Snare Drum ... It is the centre of the drum kit, the most prominent drum in most marching and stage bands, and the drum that students of both orchestral and kit drumming learn to play first. The snare drum is almost always double-headed, with rattles {called snares) of gut, metal wire or synthetics stretched across one or both heads...
Russian Guitar ... The invention of the Russian guitar is attributed to Andrei Sychra, who also wrote a method for the instrument, as well as over one thousand compositions, seventy-five of which were republished in the 1840s by Stellovsky, and then again in the 1880s by Gutheil. Some of these were published yet again in the Soviet Union in 1926...
Resonator Guitar ... Resonator guitars are of two styles: Square necked guitars designed to be played in steel guitar style. Round necked guitars, which may be played in either the conventional classical guitar style or in the lap steel guitar style...
Classical Guitar ... (The flamenco guitar is derived from the modern classical, but has differences in material, construction and sound) The name classical guitar does not mean that only classical repertoire is performed on it, although classical music is a part of the instrument's core repertoire (due to the guitar's long history); instead all kinds of music (folk, jazz, flamenco, etc.) are performed on it...
Wintuk ... Music The music of Wintuk was composed by Simon Carpentier, who also composed the music of Cirque du Soleil's 2003 production Zumanity...
Cirque Du Soleil ... Initially named Les Échassiers, they toured Quebec in 1980 as a performing troupe and encountered financial hardship that was relieved by a government grant in 1983 as part of the 450th anniversary celebrations of Jacques Cartier's discovery of Canada. Le Grand Tour du Cirque du Soleil was a success in 1984, and after securing a second year of funding, Laliberté hired Guy Caron from the National Circus School to re-create it as a "proper circus"...
Guitar Tunings ... In some regions of Europe, especially Germany, Serbia and Poland, and in Russia and Ukraine, where classical musicians use the German system, the B natural is indicated with the letter H: in music notation, H is B♮ (B natural) and B is B♭ (B flat)...
Quidam ... The entire show is imagined by a bored young girl named Zoé who is alienated and ignored by her parents. She dreams up the whimsical world of Quidam as a means of escaping the monotony of her life...
Archtop Guitar ... Typically, an archtop guitar has: 6 strings An arched top and back, not flat Moveable adjustable bridge F-holes similar to members of the violin family. Humbucker pickups...
Steel-string Acoustic Guitar ... The most common type can be called a flat-top guitar to distinguish it from the more specialized archtop guitar and other variations. The standard tuning for an acoustic guitar is E-A-D-G-B-E (low to high), although many players, particularly fingerpickers, use alternate tunings (scordatura), such as "open G" (D-G-D-G-B-D), "open D" (D-A-D-F♯-A-D), or "drop D" (D-A-D-G-B-E)...
Marching Band ... As musicians became less important in directing the movement of troops on the battlefield, the bands moved into increasingly ceremonial roles - an intermediate stage which provided some of the instrumentation and music for marching bands was the modern brass band, which also evolved out of the military tradition...
3rd Bridge ... Third bridge instruments can be custom-made by experimental luthiers (as with guitars designed and played by Hans Reichel); modified from a non-third bridge instrument (as with conventional guitars modified with a pencil or screwdriver under the strings); or may take advantage of design quirks of factory-built instruments (as with the Fender Jazzmaster, which has strings that continue from the "standard" bridge to the tremolo piece). Perhaps the best-known examples of this technique come from No Wave artists like Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth...
Flamenco Guitar ... In contrast to the classical guitar, the flamenco is often equipped with a tap plate (a golpeador), commonly made of plastic, similar to a pick guard, whose function is to protect the body of the guitar from the rhythmic finger taps, or golpes. Even so, a well used Flamenco guitar only survives so long before the constant "golpes" wear through the top...
Musical Ensemble ... Other common groupings in classical music are the woodwind quintet, usually consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn and the brass quintet, consisting of two trumpets, one french horn, a trombone and a tuba... A pops orchestra is an orchestra that mainly performs light classical music (often in abbreviated, simplified arrangements) and orchestral arrangements and medleys of popular jazz, music theater, or pop music songs...
Bass Drum ... The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum (in Italian: gran cassa, gran tamburo)...
Vibrato Systems For Guitar ... Since the regular appearance of mechanical vibrato systems in the 1950s, they have been used by many guitarists, ranging from the gentle inflections of Chet Atkins to the exaggerated twang effects of early rocker Duane Eddy to the buoyant effects of surf music aficionados like The Ventures, The Shadows and Dick Dale to art rock innovator Frank Zappa...