Jazz is a mixture of many different kinds of music. Although jazz is now played nearly all over the world, its true ‘home’ is the United States of America. This is where jazz began almost 100 years ago. Early jazz was created by black-American people, the descendants of slaves who were brought from Africa. Their jazz was a combination of a kind of sad folk music called blues, mixed with melodies and rhythms from African music, church music, brass band music and from popular dances. (More…)
dodo
1 Nov, 2008
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Look at this painting of people noisily enjoying themselves. It was painted 400 years ago by a Flemish artist named Pieter Breughel. A man and woman are running to join in the dancing at a village festival. Around a table sit three men arguing. Children play. And what is the instrument that is playing music to accompany the lively dancing? It’s an instrument called the bagpipes. (More…)
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Take a close look at the instrument in the picture above. It is called a mouth organ, or harmonica. This kind of instrument was invented in Europe about 150 years ago. Can you think how the mouth organ makes a musical sound? Each tiny hole has two metal reeds next to it, one short and one longer. When you blow into the holes, the reeds vibrate. Short reeds make high notes, longer ones make lower notes. These are called ‘free reeds‘ because they are free to vibrate up and down. (More…)
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