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Conlon Nancarrow
Samuel Conlon Nancarrow (; October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was an American-Mexican composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. Nancarrow is best remembered for his ''Studies for Player Piano'', being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s. Biography Early years Nancarrow was born in Texarkana, Arkansas. He played trumpet in a jazz band in his youth before studying music first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later in Boston, Massachusetts, with Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Nicolas Slonimsky. He met Arnold Schoenberg during that composer's brief stay in Boston in 1933. In Boston, Nancarrow joined the Communist Party. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he traveled to Spain to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in fighting against Francisco Franco. He was in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Studies For Player Piano (Nancarrow)
The ''Studies for Player Piano'' is a series of 49 études for player piano by American composer Conlon Nancarrow. Often exploring complex rhythmic variations beyond the ability of a human pianist, these compositions are some of the best-known and celebrated compositions by Nancarrow, even though they are generally not considered a set of compositions, but rather individual compositions that were given the same title and status. The dates of composition are unknown, but approximate ranges have been given according to best evidence. Composition Nancarrow's ''Studies for Player Piano'' were started when Nancarrow himself was first experimenting with the possibilities of the player piano. Most of these studies were never given a formal premiere and, given that Nancarrow lived his life in relative isolation, his studies became better known after the 80s. Furthermore, most of his studies were arranged for many different ensembles and instruments, including two pianos, small orchestr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texarkana, Arkansas
Texarkana is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Miller County, on the southwest border of the state. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 29,387. It is the twin city of Texarkana, Texas, located just across the state line. The city was founded at a railroad intersection on December 8, 1873, and was incorporated in Arkansas on August 10, 1880. Texarkana and its Texas counterpart are the principal cities of the Texarkana metropolitan area, which in 2021 was ranked 289th in the United States with a population of 147,174, according to the United States Census Bureau. Within the Ark-La-Tex subregion of southwest Arkansas, Texarkana is located in the Piney Woods, an oak–hickory forest that dominates the flat Gulf Coastal Plain. Texarkana's economy is based on agriculture. The city has long been a trading center, first located at the intersection of major railroads serving Texas, Arkansas and north into Missouri. Since then three major Int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Lincoln Brigade
The XV International Brigade was one of the International Brigades formed to fight for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. History The XVth Brigade mustered at Albacete in January 1937. It consisted of English-speaking volunteers – arranged into four battalions: the mostly British Saklatvala Battalion, the mostly North American Lincoln Battalion, the Balkan Dimitrov Battalion and the Franco-Belgian Sixth February Battalion. The brigade fought at Jarama, Brunete, Boadilla, Belchite, Fuentes de Ebro, Teruel and the Ebro River. The brigade's first combat, at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937, resulted in heavy casualties. The British lost 225 men out of 600, the Lincolns 120 out of 500. After the battle, the brigade was seriously undermanned. At the end of March, a Spanish battalion, ''Voluntario 24'' (the 24th Volunteers), joined the brigade. Over the next few months, under the close supervision of Janos Galicz, the XVth was re-organized into tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamics (music)
In music, the dynamics of a piece are the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings require interpretation by the performer depending on the musical context: a specific marking may correspond to a different volume between pieces or even sections of one piece. The execution of dynamics also extends beyond loudness to include changes in timbre and sometimes tempo rubato. Purpose and interpretation Dynamics are one of the expressive elements of music. Used effectively, dynamics help musicians sustain variety and interest in a musical performance, and communicate a particular emotional state or feeling. Dynamic markings are always relative. (''piano'' - "soft") never indicates a precise level of loudness; it merely indicates that music in a passage so marked should be considerably quieter than (''forte'' - "loud"). There are many factors affecting the interpretati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano Roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. Piano rolls, like other music rolls, are continuous rolls of paper with holes punched into them. These perforations represent note control data. The roll moves over a reading system known as a tracker bar; the playing cycle for each musical note is triggered when a perforation crosses the bar. Piano rolls have been in continuous production since at least 1896, and are still being manufactured today; QRS Music offers 45,000 titles with "new titles being added on a regular basis", although they are no longer mass-produced. MIDI files have generally supplanted piano rolls in storing and playing back performance data, accomplishing digitally and electronically what piano rolls do mechanically. MIDI editing software often features the ability to represent the music graphically as a piano roll. The first paper rolls were used commercially by Welte & Sons in their orchestrions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Music
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means (electroacoustic music). Pure electronic instruments depend entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer: no acoustic waves need to be previously generated by mechanical means and then converted into electrical signals. On the other hand, electromechanical instruments have mechanical parts such as strings or hammers that generate the sound waves, together with electric elements including pickup (music technology), magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers that convert the acoustic waves into electrical signals, process them and convert them back into sound waves. Such electromechanical devices in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Duckworth (composer)
William Duckworth (January 13, 1943 – September 13, 2012) was an American composer, author, educator, and Internet pioneer. He wrote more than 200 pieces of music and is credited with the composition of the first postminimal piece of music, '' The Time Curve Preludes'' (1977–78), for piano. Duckworth was a Professor of Music at Bucknell University. Together with Nora Farrell, his wife, he ran Monroe Street Music, the publisher of many Duckworth's pieces. Biography Duckworth was born in North Carolina in 1943. He obtained a bachelor's degree in music from East Carolina University, then master's and doctorates in music education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Kozinn, Allan. "William Duckworth, internet composer, dies at 69." New York Times 22 Sept. 2012: B8(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. He studied composition under composer Ben Johnston and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the notation of composer John Cage. Duckworth received a 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds (as with the riff in a rock music song); to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years. The Oxford English Dictionary defines rhythm as ''"The measured flow of words or phrases in verse, forming various patterns of sound as determined by the relation of long and short or stressed and unstressed syllables in a metrical foot or line; an instance of this"''. Rhythm is related to and distinguished from pulse, meter, and beats: In the performance arts, rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences that occur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Player Piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home pianos increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sales peaked in 1924 and subsequently declined with improvements in electrical phonograph recordings in the mid-1920s. The advent of electrical amplification in home music reproduction, brought by radios, contributed to a decline in popularity, and the stock market crash of 1929 virtually wiped out production. History The first practical pneumatic piano player, manufactured by the Aeolian Company and called the "Pianola", was invented in 1896 by Edwin S. Votey, and came into widespread use in the 20th century. The name "pianola", sometimes used as a generic name for any player piano, came from this invention. The mechanism of this player piano was all-pneumatic: foot-operated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher, teacher Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 2022.Campbell, Brett (2014)"Liberating Henry Cowell's Music at San Quentin" ''San Francisco Classical Voice''. Retrieved 19 June 2022. and the husband of Sidney Robertson Cowell. Earning a reputation as an extremely controversial performer and eccentric composer, Cowell became a leading figure of American avant-garde music for the first half of the 20th century — his writings and music serving as a great influence to similar artists at the time, including Lou Harrison, George Antheil, and John Cage, among others.Swed, Mark (2010)"Critic's notebook: Revelatory Henry Cowell revival at Lincoln Center" ''The Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 19 June 2022. He is considered one of America's most important and influential composers. Cowell was mostly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juan O'Gorman
Juan O'Gorman (6 July 1905 – 17 January 1982) was a Mexican painter and architect. Early life and family Juan O'Gorman was born on 6 July 1905 in Coyoacán, then a village to the south of Mexico City and now a borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ... of the city, to an Irish immigrant father, Cecil Crawford O'Gorman and Encarnación O'Gorman Moreno. His parents were distant cousins. He had three younger siblings, Edmundo, Margarita and Tomás. Despite his father's influence, O'Gorman chose to focus on architecture early in his career. In 1927, he graduated from Academy of San Carlos, the Art and Architecture school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His first marriage was to Nina Wright, Russian-American architect. He later married Helen Fow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Music America
New Music America was a nomadic American festival (held in Montreal during its last year) showcasing at its origins New York City's Downtown Music, but growing into one of the largest new music festivals ever held in North America, all in an attempt to try to bring out of the popular shadows the breadth and history of 20th Century composition and creation, as well as current trends. From 1979 to 1990, each New Music America (officially bilingualized into Montréal Musiques Actuelles in 1990) had a wealth of local, regional, national and world premieres, adding to its scope some music from around the world by the time of the Miami festival. History The original conference, named New Music New York, with concordant (and demonstrative) concerts was held at The Kitchen in New York City in 1979. One of the themes there was to break down barriers created by the segregation of genres, and breaking music journalist/critic-driven pigeonholing. The 12 years of the festival's existence w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
