Just like the mouth organ, a squeeze box makes music using free reeds. The largest squeeze boxes are the accordion and the melodeon. Musicians usually carry these instruments on a strap around their shoulder to support the weight. Squeeze boxes have three important parts. They are the reeds, the keys or buttons and the bellows. (More…)
dodo
24 Oct, 2008
Oct
24
This picture shows a beautiful example of one of the largest of all wind instruments. It is an organ. Just imagine how much air is needed to make all these organ pipes sound!
Of course, people don’t blow into organ pipes. Mechanical gadgets such as bellows and electric motors are used. In the very first organs, made in Ancient Greece and Rome over 2,000 years ago, water was used to force air through the pipes. The first organ was called a hydraulic, from the Greek words for `water’ and ‘pipe’. According to writers of the time, the sound was so powerful it could be heard many miles away and the players had to plug their ears! (More…)
Oct
24
