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Orpharion
The orpharion ( or ) or opherion is a plucked stringed instrument from the Renaissance, a member of the cittern family. Its construction is similar to the larger bandora and an ancestor of the guitar. The metal strings are tuned like a lute and are plucked with the fingers. The nut and bridge of an orpharion are typically sloped, so that the string length increases from treble to bass. Due to the extremely low-tension metal strings, which would easily distort the notes when pushed down, the frets were almost flush with the fingerboard, which was gently scalloped."Orpheoreon" in ''Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1946). As with all metal-strung instruments of the era, a very light touch with the plucking hand was required, quite different from the sharper attack used on the lute. The orpharion was invented in England in the second half of the 16th century; in sources of English music it is often mentioned as an alternative to the lute. According to Stow's "Annals" (16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fret
A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework. On instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. ''Fret'' is often used as a verb, meaning simply "to press down the string behind a fret". ''Fretting'' often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Explanation Pressing the string against the fret reduces the vibrating length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the soft fingertip o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helmingham Hall
Helmingham Hall is a moated manor house in Helmingham, Suffolk, England. It was begun by John Tollemache in 1480 and has been owned by the Tollemache family ever since. The house is built around a courtyard in typical late medieval/Tudor style. The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and its park and formal gardens are also Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. History The present Helmingham Hall may have been initially constructed in 1510 on the site of an earlier house called Creke Hall. The exterior was altered between 1745 and 1760, again in 1800 by John Nash, and in 1840. The original half-timbered walls have been concealed by brick and tiles. The house is surrounded by a moat 60 feet wide, over which it is reached only by two working drawbridges, which have been pulled up every night since 1510. These were originally operated with a windlass but in recent years this has been replaced by an electric motor. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fingerboard
The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called '' stopping'' the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique. The word "fingerboard" in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions. In particular, the direction ''sul tasto'' (Ital., also ''sulla tastiera'', Fr. ''sur la touche'', G. ''am Griffbrett'') for bowed string instruments to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Johnson (composer)
Edward Johnson (fl. 1572–1601) was an English composer. Johnson's compositions were highly regarded in his time, but few of them survive. Life Johnson was born about 1549.According to a 1601 deposition in which he gave his age as about fifty-two. See Ian Harwood, ‘Johnson, Edward (b. c.1549, d. in or after 1602)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200accessed 2 July 2014(subscription required) He composed pieces for members of the Elizabethan aristocracy, and had a long association with the Kitson family, who had houses in London and Hengrave, Suffolk. Sir Thomas Kitson (1540-1603) and his wife Elizabeth Kitson also employed the composer John Wilbye from the 1590s. Johnson obtained a Mus. Bac. degree in 1594 from Caius College, Cambridge. He appears in documentary records relating to the beginning of the seventeenth century. With John Wilbye he corrected the proofs of Dowland´s ''Second Book of Songs'', which was published in London in 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Holborne
Anthony ''AntonyHolborne ''Holburne(c. 1545 – 29 November 1602) was a composer of music for lute, cittern, and instrumental consort during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Life An "Anthony Holburne" entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1562, and it is possible that this person is the same as the composer. A Londoner of the same name was admitted to the Inner Temple Court in 1565, and again this may have been the same person. It is certain, however, that the composer was the brother of William Holborne, and that he married Elisabeth Marten on 14 June 1584. On the title page of both his books he claims to be in the service of Queen Elizabeth. He died of a "cold" in November 1602. He was held in the highest regard as a composer by contemporaries. John Dowland dedicated the first song '' I saw my lady weepe'' in his ''Second Booke'' to Holborne. His patron was the Countess of Pembroke, Mary Sidney. In the 1590s he entered the service of Sir Robert Cecil, the 1st Earl of Salisbu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Philips
Peter Philips (also ''Phillipps'', ''Phillips'', ''Pierre Philippe'', ''Pietro Philippi'', ''Petrus Philippus''; ''c.''1560–1628) was an eminent English composer, organist, and Catholic priest exiled to Flanders. He was one of the greatest keyboard virtuosos of his time, and transcribed or arranged several Italian motets and madrigals by such composers as Lassus, Palestrina, and Giulio Caccini for his instruments. Some of his keyboard works are found in the '' Fitzwilliam Virginal Book''. Philips also wrote many sacred choral works. Life Philips was born in 1560 or 1561, possibly in Devonshire or London. From 1572 to 1578 he began his career as a boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral in London, under the aegis of the Catholic master of choristers, Sebastian Westcott (died 1582), who had also trained the young William Byrd some twenty years earlier. Philips must have had a close relationship with his master, as he lodged in his house up to the time of Westcote's death, and wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter (1568 – 5 May 1623) was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. His family seems to have been from Somerset or Lincolnshire, he may have been employed with the Countess of Sussex by 1596, and he was living in London by 1598. In 1604 Rosseter was appointed a court lutenist for James I of England, a position he held until his death in 1623. Rosseter is best known for ''A Book of Ayres'' which was written with Thomas Campion and published in 1601. Some literary critics have held that Campion wrote the poems for Rosseter's songs; however, this seems not to be the case. It is likely that Campion was the author of the book's preface, which criticizes complex counterpoint and "intricate" harmonies that leave the words inaudible. The two men had a close professional and personal relationship; when Campion died in 1620, he had named Rosseter his sole heir. Rosseter's lute songs are generally short, homophonic, with minimal repetition or word p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dowland
John Dowland (c. 1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", " Come again", " Flow my tears", " I saw my Lady weepe", "Now o now I needs must part" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists. Career and compositions Very little is known of John Dowland's early life, but it is generally thought he was born in London; some sources even put his birth year as 1563. Irish historian W. H. Grattan Flood claimed that he was born in Dalkey, near Dublin, but no corroborating evidence has ever been found either for that or for Thomas Fuller's claim that he was born in Westminster. There is, however, one very clear piece of evidence pointing to Dublin as his place of origin: he ded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Cutting
Francis Cutting (c.1550–1595/6) was an English lutenist and composer of the Renaissance period. He is best known for "Packington's Pound" and a variation of "Greensleeves" called "Divisions on Greensleeves", both pieces originally intended for the lute. Cutting was employed as a musician for the Howard family, which included Philip Howard, earl of Arundel. Little is known of the composer's early life, but he had ten children with his wife, Elizabeth, eight of whom appear in the parish registers of St. Clement Danes, Westminster, the parish in which Arundel House, the London residence of the Howards, was located.Mateer, "Cutting, Francis." Cutting is among the earliest English lute composers whose names are known. Several of his forty surviving works appear in William Barley's ''A New Booke of Tabliture'' (1596); his compositions include "Sir Walter Raleigh's Galliard," "Sir Fulke Greville's Pavan," and "Mrs Anne Markham's Pavan and Galliard." "His surviving music is of high qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tablature
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica. Tablature was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and is commonly used today in notating many forms of music. Three types of organ tablature were used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian. To distinguish standard musical notation from tablature, the former is usually called "staff notation" or just "notation". Etymology The word ''tablature'' originates from the Latin word ''tabulatura''. ''Tabula'' is a table or slate, in Latin. To tabulate something means to put it into a table or chart. Origin The first known occurrence in Europe is around 1300, and was first used for notating music for the organ. Concepts While standard notation represents the rhythm and duration of eac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Barley
William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life. Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars.Miller and Smith The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticised the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. Barley became the assignment (law), assignee of Thomas Morley, who as well as being a composer held a printing patent (a monopoly of music publishing). He published A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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