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Prepared Piano
A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Works for prepared piano by John Cage#Bacchanale, Bacchanale'' (c. 1938), created without room for a percussion orchestra. Cage has cited Henry Cowell as an inspiration for developing piano extended techniques, involving strings within a piano being manipulated instead of the keyboard. Typical of Cage's practice as summed up in the ''Sonatas and Interludes'' (1946–48) is that each key of the piano has its own characteristic timbre, and that the original pitch of the string will not necessarily be recognizable. Further variety is available with use of the una corda pedal. Ferrante & Teicher between 1950 and 1980 used partially prepared pianos for some of their tunes in their albums. Other musicians, such as Denman Maroney use prepared piano for perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tack Piano
A tack piano (also known as a harpsipiano, jangle piano, and junk piano) is an altered version of an ordinary piano, in which objects such as thumbtacks or nails are placed on the felt-padded hammers of the instrument at the point where the hammers hit the strings, giving the instrument a tinny, more percussive sound. It is used to evoke the feeling of a honky-tonk piano. Tack pianos are commonly associated with ragtime pieces, often appearing in Hollywood Western saloon scenes featuring old upright pianos. The instrument was originally used for classical music performances as a substitute for a harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism .... Honky-tonk piano A honky-tonk piano has a similar tone as a tack piano, however, the method of obtaining its sound is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syvilla Fort
Syvilla Fort (July 3, 1917 – November 8, 1975) was an American dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. Born in Seattle, she drew on her African-American heritage in her original dance works. American composer John Cage wrote his first piece for prepared piano, ''Bacchanale'' (1940), for a dance by Fort. She died from breast cancer at the age of 58. Biography Born in Seattle, Washington, Syvilla Fort began studying dance when she was three years old. After she was denied admission to several ballet schools because 'whites' practiced a system of color-based discrimination, Fort's early dance education took place in her home and in private lessons. By the time she was nine years old, Fort was teaching ballet, tap, and modern dance to small groups of neighborhood children who could not afford private lessons. Fort attended the Cornish School of Allied Arts in Seattle as their first black student after graduating from high school in 1932. After spending five years at the Cornish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin. An important distinction is to be drawn between the contexts of theatrical and participatory dance, although these two categories are not always completely separate; both may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, competitive, erotic, martial, or sacred/ liturgical. Other forms of human movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, cheerleading, figure skating, synchronized swimming, marching bands, and many other forms of athletics. There are many professional athletes like, professional football players and soccer players, who take dance classes to help with their skills. To be more specific professional ath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luthéal
The luthéal is a kind of hybrid piano which extended the "register" possibilities of a piano by producing cimbalom-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers making other objects, which were lowered just above the strings, resound. The instrument became obsolete partly because most of its mechanics were too sensitive, needing constant adjustment. The only pieces in the general repertoire to feature the luthéal are '' L'enfant et les sortilèges'' (1920–25) and ''Tzigane'' (1924), by Maurice Ravel. History The attachment was created by the Belgian organ builder Georges Cloetens, who first patented it on 28 January 1919 and named it the "Jeu de harpe tirée". Cotte, Roger J. V. 2001. "Luthéal iano-Luthéal. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers. Maurice Ravel used it in ''Tzigane'' for violin an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'enfant Et Les Sortilèges
''L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties'' (''The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts'') is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being '' L'heure espagnole''. Written from 1917 to 1925, ''L'enfant et les sortilèges'' was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 conducted by Victor de Sabata. After being offered the opportunity to write a musical work, Colette wrote the text in eight days. Several composers had proposed to Colette that she write to music, but she was only excited by the prospect of Ravel. Composition history During World War I, the Opéra de Paris director Jacques Rouché asked Colette to provide the text for a fairy ballet. Colette originally wrote the story under the title ''Divertissements pour ma fille''. After Colette chose Ravel to set the text to music, a copy was sent to him in 1916 while he was still serving in the war; however, the mailed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, ''Boléro'' (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. Renowned for his abilities in orchestration, Ravel made some orchestral arrangements of other compose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Stella Schic
Anna Stella Schic (30 June 1922 in Campinas – 1 February 2009 in Nice''Morre na França a pianista brasileira Anna Stella Schic''.AFP 1 February 2009. Accessed 11 January 2012.) was a Brazilian pianist and author of a biography of composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Life Schic gave her first piano recital at the age of six. She was taught by José Kliass, a former student of Martin Krause, who was in turn trained by Franz Liszt. Later on, she studied with Marguerite Long in Paris. Schic was married to French composer Michel Philippot, and according to her daughter Sandra Lechartre, she lived in France from 1971 on. In addition to her career as pianist, she taught at the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Legacy In 1976, Schic released her recorded cycle of the complete solo piano music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, the first such cycle to be completed. In addition, she was among the first to promote the music o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known South American composer of all time. A prolific composer, he wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works, totaling over 2000 works by his death in 1959. His music was influenced by both Brazilian folk music and stylistic elements from the European classical tradition, as exemplified by his '' Bachianas Brasileiras'' (Brazilian Bachian-pieces) and his Chôros. His Etudes for classical guitar (1929) were dedicated to Andrés Segovia, while his ''5 Preludes'' (1940) were dedicated to his spouse Arminda Neves d'Almeida, a.k.a. "Mindinha". Both are important works in the classical guitar repertory. Biography Youth and exploration Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro. His father, Raúl, was a civil servant, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chôros No
''Chôros'' is the title of a series of compositions by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, composed between 1920 and 1929. Origin and conception The word ''chôro'' (; nowadays spelled simply ''choro'') is Portuguese for "weeping", "cry", and came to be the name used for music played by an ensemble of Brazilian street musicians (called ''chorões'') using both African and European instruments, who improvise in a free and often dissonant kind of counterpoint called ''contracanto''. In this context, the term does not refer to any definite form of composition, but rather includes a variety of Brazilian types. Villa-Lobos described the basic concept of his ''Chôros'' as a "brasilofonia"—an extension of the popular street-musicians' chôro to a pan-Brazilian synthesis of native folklore, both Indian and popular. The tenth work in the series is for mixed choir and large orchestra, and quotes at length from a popular song, originally composed as an instrumental schottische, '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgina Born
Georgina Emma Mary Born, is a British academic, anthropologist, musicologist and musician. As a musician she is known as Georgie Born and for her work in Henry Cow and with Lindsay Cooper. Background Born was born in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, the granddaughter of the physicist and Nobel laureate Max Born, daughter of the pharmacologist Gustav Born and Ann Plowden-Wardlaw, stepdaughter of American theatre director and writer George Mully, and cousin of the pop singer Olivia Newton-John. She is the partner of social theorist and political geographer Andrew Barry. Music Born studied the cello and piano at the Royal College of Music in London, and performed classical and modern music including stints with the Michael Nyman Band, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and the Flying Lizards. She also studied for a year at the Chelsea School of Art. In June 1976, she joined the English avant-rock group Henry Cow as bass guitarist and cellist, following the departure of John Greaves. Henry C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Delage
Maurice Charles Delage (13 November 1879 – 19 or 21 September 1961) was a French composer and pianist. Biography Delage was born and died in Paris. He first worked as a clerk for a maritime agency in Paris, and later as a fishmonger in Boulogne. He also served for a time in the French army, before embarking on a music career in his twenties. A student of Ravel, who proclaimed him one of the supreme French composers of his day, and member of Les Apaches, he was influenced by travels to India and Japan in 1912, when he accompanied his father on a business trip. Ravel's "La vallée des cloches" from ''Miroirs'' was dedicated to Delage. Delage's best known piece is '' Quatre poèmes hindous'' (1912–1913).Georges Jean-Aubry (1917''An Introduction to French Music'' p.67, Cecil Palmer & Hayward, London His ''Ragamalika'' (1912–1922), based on the classical music of India, is significant in that it calls for prepared piano; the score specifies that a piece of cardboard be place ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
