Keyboard Instruments
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Keyboard Instruments
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers that are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings. Today, the term ''keyboard'' often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers and arrangers as well as work-stations. These keyboards typically work by translating the physical act of pressing keys into electrical signals that produce sound. Under the fingers of a sensitive performer, the keyboard may also be used to control dynamics, phrasing, shading, articulation, and other elements of expression—depending on the design and inherent capabilities of the instrument. Modern keyboards, especially digital ones, can simulate a wide range of sou ...
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D274
D-274 (or D) is the model name of a concert piano#Grand, grand piano, the Core product, flagship of the Steinway & Sons piano company,Fine, Larry, ''The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano'', Third Edition, Boston: Brookside Press 1994 first built in 1884. It is generally described as the first choice of most concert pianists. As of 2017 a D-274 finished in Polished Ebony has a MSRP of US$175,700. At long, wide and ,"Specifications and Features – Model D"
, ''Steinway & Sons Official Website'', Accessed March 12, 2010.
the D-274 is too large for most homes. In concert hall settings, on the other hand, the D-274 is a major presence. An example would be the famous Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which offers contestants a choice of two D-2 ...
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Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one or more strings. The strings are under tension on a Sound board (music), soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard Manual (music), manual and even a #Pedal harpsichord, pedal board. Harpsichords may also have Organ stop, stop levers which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute. The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, virginals#Muselars, m ...
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Bowed Clavier
The bowed clavier (', ' or ' in German) is a keyboard instrument strung with gut strings, the tone of which is produced by a steadily revolving, well rosined cylinder powered by a foot pedal, a mechanism similar to that found in the hurdy-gurdy. The ' was illustrated and described by Michael Praetorius in his treatise on musical instruments '' Syntagma Musicum'' II, in the section ''De Organograhia'', published 1614–20 in Germany. It was re-invented by Joh. Hohlfeld of Berlin in 1751. This instrument and another one of his inventions, a device that recorded keyboard improvisations in real time, were mentioned in the " Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments" by C. P. E. Bach. Another version was the klawiolin, designed by the Polish musician and painter Jan Jarmusiewicz (1781–1844). It was a hump-backed piano with gut strings and a mechanism controlling small bows which could imitate a string quartet. See also * Viola organista The viola organista is a m ...
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Hurdy-gurdy
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-turned crank, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a musical keyboard, keyboard that presses ''tangents''—small wedges, typically made of wood or metal—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board (music), sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible. Most hurdy-gurdies have multiple drone (music), drone strings, which give a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy-gurdy is often used interchangeably or along with bagpipes. It is mostly used in Occitan folk music, Occitan, Music of Aragon, Aragonese, Cajun music, Cajun French, Music of Galicia, Cantabri ...
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Bowed String Instrument
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow (music), bow rubbing the string (music), strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to the origin of bowing, the Bow (music)#Origin, origin of bowing remains unknown.Friedrich Behn, Musikleben im Altertum und frühen page 159 List of bowed string instruments Violin family * Cello (violoncello) * Pochette (musical instrument), Pochette * Viola (altviol, bratsche) * Violin (violino) * Double bass (contrabasso) ;Variants on the standard members of the violin family include: * Baroque violin * Cello da spalla * Five string violin * Hardanger fiddle * Kit violin * Kontra * Låtfiol * Lira da braccio * Octobass * Sardino * Stroh violin * Tenor violin Viol family (Viola da Gamba family) * Viol, Alto viol * Viol, Bass viol * Viol, Tenor viol * Viol, Treble viol ;Variants on the standard ...
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Lautenwerck
The lautenwerck (also spelled lautenwerk), alternatively called lute-harpsichord (lute-clavier) or keyboard lute, is a European keyboard instrument of the Baroque music, Baroque period. It is similar to a harpsichord, but with Catgut, gut (sometimes nylon) rather than metal strings (except for the 4-foot register on some instruments), producing a mellow tone. The instrument was favored by J. S. Bach, who owned two of the instruments at the time of his death, but no specimens from the eighteenth century have survived to the present day. It has been revived since the twentieth century by harpsichord makers Willard Martin, Keith Hill, and Steven Sorli. Three of its most prominent performers are the early music specialists Gergely Sárközy, Wolfgang Rübsam, and Robert Hill (musician), Robert Hill. Media Performances by Gergely Sárközy also are freely available.IncludinBWV 996 - Prelude-PrestoanBWV 996 - Bourree both via Archive.org Notes References * External links
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Tangent Piano
The tangent piano is a very rare keyboard instrument that resembles a harpsichord and early pianos in design. It normally features five octaves of keys and the strings are acted upon by narrow wooden or metal slips when the keys are depressed. History In 1440, Arnault de Zwolle described what is believed to be the first keyboard instrument which used a tangent action. The earliest surviving instrument with a tangent action is a spinet built by Francesco Bonafinis with its jacks replaced with wooden tangents before 1700. Jean Marius proposed a design for a hammered instrument similar to a tangent piano in 1716, though it was only published after his death in 1735. Christoph Gottlieb Schröter claimed that he had invented the tangent piano in 1717. Franz Jakob Späth presented a tangent piano to the elector of Bonn in 1751. In 1777, Mozart referred to the tangent piano as the "Spättisches Klavier," after the maker of tangent pianos, Spath. Other names included the Italian ' ...
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Plucked String Instrument
Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the string (music), strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the lute family (such as guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, balalaika, sitar, pipa, etc.), which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck (music), neck; the strings run along the neck and can be stopped at different pitches. The zither family (including the Kanun (instrument), Qanún/kanun, autoharp, kantele, gusli, kannel (instrument), kannel, kankles, kokles, koto (musical instrument), koto, guqin, gu zheng and many others) does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard. In the harp family (including the lyre), the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The har ...
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String Instrument
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like Guitar, guitars, by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum, plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow, like Violin, violins. In some keyboard (music), keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classic ...
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Glasschord
The glasschord ( French: fortepiano à cordes de verre) is a struck crystallophone resembling the celesta. History The glasschord was invented circa 1785 by physicist M. Beyer of Paris. It creates sound by using cloth covered wooden hammers to strike glass tubes laid on a cloth strip, with no dampeners. The instrument has a range of three octaves, in various models from c' to c'', f' to f'', and g' to g''. The instrument was largely inspired by the glass harmonica created by Benjamin Franklin, and was given the name ''glasschord'' by him. On 6 July 1785, Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ... that Franklin carried a version of the instrument with him, describing it as a wikt:sticcado, sticcado. Beyer originally presented the instrument on 19 January ...
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Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mouthpiece), reed in a frame). The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the descant, diskant, usually on the right-hand keyboard, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side (referred to as the Musical keyboard, keyboard or sometimes the manual (music), ''manual''), and the accompaniment on Bass (sound), bass or pre-set Chord (music), chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The accordion belongs to the free-reed aerophone family. Other instruments in this family include the concertina, harmonica, and bandoneon. Th ...
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Pump Organ
The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reed aerophone, free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a vacuum system), and the Indian harmonium. Historical examples include the ''Kunstharmonium'' and the American reed organ, while earlier forms include the physharmonica and the Seraphine (instrument), seraphine. More portable than pipe organs, free-reed organs became widespread in smaller churches and private homes during the 19th century, although their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally featured one, or occasionally two, Manual (music), manuals, while pedal keyboard, pedal-boards were rare. Higher-end pump organs offered a broader range of tones, and models intended for churches or affluent households were often housed in finely crafted Cabinet (furniture), cabinets. Between the 1850s and the 1920s, se ...
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