October 21st 2008
The American inventor Laurens Hammond invented the electric organ in the 1930s. The electric organ looks just like an ordinary pipe organ, but doesn’t work unless it’s switched on. When the keys are pressed, electric signals are made. The signals go to a pre-amplifier, where they are made stronger, then to an amplifier and then come out of the loudspeaker as musical notes. It sounds just like the real thing! Continue Reading »
October 1st 2008
The earliest woodwind instrument known to man dates back to the pipes of Pan. Pan was the god of the forest, flocks, and shepherds in Greek mythology. He is usually pictured as half man and half goat—head and torso of a man, legs and feet of a goat—and is shown playing a set of pipes.
Shepherds of that time no doubt played instruments like this to keep themselves company while watching over their flocks in the hills of ancient Greece. Continue Reading »
August 31st 2008
Repertoire
According to Berlioz the flute ‘is an instrument well-nigh devoid of expression, but which may be introduced anywhere and everywhere, on account of its facility in executing groups of rapid notes, and in sustaining high sounds useful in the orchestra for adding fullness to the upper harmonies.’ This is a fair description of the way the flute is generally written for in orchestral works, but there are many exceptions. The sounds of the middle and upper registers combine well with any ensemble and add lustre. The lower register lacks penetration but has a soft and seductive quality. ‘These low sounds‘, wrote Berlioz in his Treatise on Instrumentation, `are seldom, or else ill, employed by the majority of composers.’ All the great orchestrators have however always known how to write for the low register. Continue Reading »
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