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Soundhole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board. Sound holes have different shapes: * round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins; * F-holes in instruments from the violin family, archtop mandolins and in archtop guitars; * C-holes in viola da gambas and occasionally double-basses and guitars * rosettes in lutes and sometimes harpsichords; * D-holes in bowed lyras. Some instruments come in more than one style (mandolins may have F-holes, round or oval holes). A round or oval hole or a rosette is usually a single one, under the strings. C-holes, D-holes and F-holes are usually made in pairs placed symmetrically on both sides of the strings. Most hollowbody and semi-hollow electric guitars also have F-holes. Though sound holes help acoustic instruments project sound more efficiently, sound does not emanate solely from the sound hole. Sound emanates from the surface area of the sounding boards, with sou ...
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Rosette (music)
A rosette (from French, meaning ''little rose''), rose, or knot, in the context of musical instruments, is a form of soundhole decoration. The name originated during the medieval period, as a comparison with church windows which were called rose windows. On the oud they are called by the Arabic language term shams, meaning ''sun''. History From the medieval to the baroque periods, it was common to have ornately carved soundhole designs, called roses. These were either carved directly into the wood of the soundboard or inserted from behind and made of carved wood or parchment. The designs used for lutes and other early instruments were often inspired by the geometric patterns in Islamic art, probably from those used on the oud. During the medieval period, most such designs were 4-sided, whereas during the renaissance and baroque periods, 6-sided designs were used. Image:Stradivarius Guitar - 1700, rosette 1, National Music Museum, Vermillion.jpg, Baroque guitar soundhole with ...
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Hollowbody Electric
A semi-acoustic guitar, hollow-body electric, or thinline is a type of electric guitar that was first created in the 1930s. It has a sound box and at least one electric pickup. The semi-acoustic guitar is different to an acoustic-electric guitar, which is an acoustic guitar with the addition of pickups or other means of amplification, added by either the manufacturer or the player. History In the 1930s, guitar manufacturers aimed at increasing the sound level produced by the instrument, to compete with louder instruments such as the drums.Ingram, Adrian, A Concise History of the Electric Guitar, Melbay, 2001. Companies such as Gibson, Rickenbacker and Gretsch focused on amplifying a guitar through a loudspeaker. In 1936, Gibson introduced their first manufactured semi-acoustic guitars, the ES-150s (Electric Spanish Series).Hunter, Dave, The Rough Guide to Guitar, Penguin Books, 2011. Gibson based them on a standard production archtop, with f holes on the face of the guitar's ...
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Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. There are of course different types of strings that can be used, metal strings are the main ones since they are the cheapest and easiest to make. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the ''Neapolitan'' or ''round-backed'' mandolin, the ''archtop'' mandolin and the ''flat-backed'' mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued toge ...
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Tacoma Guitars
Tacoma Guitars was an American manufacturing company of musical instruments. It was founded in 1991 as a division of South Korean company Young Chang. Instruments were manufactured in Tacoma, Washington. The company and brand name were later acquired by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. The Tacoma plant closed, and production ceased, in 2008. Tacoma manufactured mainly acoustic guitars, although its product range extended to basses and mandolins. History Tacoma Guitars began as a division of Young Chang America in Tacoma, Washington that, starting in 1991, processed Northwest hardwood for export for piano soundboards. Sawmill general manager J. C. Kim persuaded Young Chang to build a guitar manufacturing plant nearby. For the first few years, the plant produced about 100 guitars a month for another guitar brand. In 1997, the Papoose and Chief models debuted at the 1997 winter Convention of the National Association of Musical Manufacturers (NAMM). That year, mass produ ...
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Byzantine Lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails. The first known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket (900–1100 AD), preserved in the Bargello in Florence (''Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26''). Versions of the Byzantine lyra are still played throughout the former lands of the Byzantine Empire: Greece ( Politiki lyra, lit. "lyra of the City" i.e. Constantinople), Crete (Cretan lyra), Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia ( Dalmatian Lijerica), Italy ( Calabrian lira) and Armenia. History The most likely origin is the pear-shaped pandura, however with the introduction of a bow. The first recorded reference to the bowed lyra was in the 9th century by the Persian geograph ...
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Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, an ...
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Archtop Guitar
An archtop guitar is a hollow electric or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with jazz, blues, and rockabilly players. Typically, an archtop guitar has: * Six strings * An arched top and back, not a flat top and back * A hollow body * Moveable adjustable bridge * F-holes similar to members of the violin family * Rear mounted tailpiece, stoptail bridge, or Bigsby vibrato tailpiece * 14th-fret neck join History The archtop guitar is often credited to Orville Gibson, whose innovative designs led to the formation of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd in 1902. His 1898 patent for a mandolin, which was also applicable to guitars according to the specifications, was intended to enhance "power and quality of tone." Among the features of this instrument were a violin-style arched top and back, each carved from a single piece of wood, and thicker in the middle than at the sides; sides carved to shape from ...
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Guitars
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and ...
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Acoustic Guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. The original, general term for this stringed instrument is ''guitar'', and the retronym 'acoustic guitar' distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4. Guitar strings may be plucked individually with a pick (plectrum) or fingertip, or strummed to play chords. Plucking a string causes it to vibrate at a fundamental pitch determined by the string's length, mass, and tension. ( Overtones are also ...
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Ovation Guitar Company
The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars (both 6 and 12-string versions) and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, it became a subsidiary of Drum Workshop after being acquired from KMCMusicorp. The company's Ovation and Adamas guitars are known for their round backs, which gives them a recognizable shape. The latter are also well known for the use of carbon fiber tops (instead of the typically wood tops for acoustic guitars). Apart from guitars, the company currently produces acoustic basses, mandolins and ukuleles. History Founder Charles Kaman (1919–2011) developed the first prototypes of the Ovation guitar in 1965–1966. Press release Kaman, an amateur guitarist from an early age, worked on helicopter design as an aerodynamicist at United. Eventually, he founded a helicopter design company, Kaman Aircraft, in 1945. The Kaman Corp ...
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Viola Da Gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic ''rebab'' and the medieval European vielle,Otterstedt, Annette. ''The Viol: History of an Instrument. ''Kassel: Barenreiter;-Verlag Karl Votterle GmbH & Co; 2002. but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian ''viole'' and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish '' vihu ...
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Cello Study
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, scientific pitch notation, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages. Played by a ''List of cellists, cellist'' or ''violoncellist'', it enjoys a large solo repertoire Cello sonata, with and List of solo cello pieces, without accompaniment, as well as numerous cello concerto, concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bassline, bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figure ...
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