|
Almost Never (album)
''Almost Never'' is the tenth studio album by experimental music ensemble Biota, released in 1992 by ReR Megacorp. The album focuses compositionally upon three electroacoustic suites for winds, strings, and processed acoustic/ethnic/antique instrumentation ("Burn Daylight" – "Circling These" – "Old Reason Road"). Track listing Personnel Adapted from the ''Almost Never'' liner notes. ;Biota * James Gardner – Rhodes piano, tape, flugelhorn * Tom Katsimpalis – guitar, bass guitar, banjo, ukulele, harmonica, Rhodes piano, pump organ, percussion, cover art, design * Steve Scholbe – bass clarinet, alto saxophone, guitar, banjo, ukulele, zither, recorder, harmonica, percussion * William Sharp – hurdy-gurdy, tape, engineering * Gordon H. Whitlow – harp, Rhodes piano, Estepump organ concert (low) whistle * Larry Wilson – drums ;Additional musicians * Randy Yeates – mbira and steel drums (13) ;Production and additional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biota (band)
Biota is an American experimental electronic music ensemble. Musical career Amid a fertile creative environment in Fort Collins, Colorado, in the late 1970s, Biota's first recording projects were produced under the name Mnemonist Orchestra (shortened soon after to Mnemonists). Founded by fellow scientists and community radio engineers Mark Derbyshire and William Sharp, the Mnemonists ensemble of artists, musicians, and college-town bohemians released five self-styled albums between 1980 and 1984 on the group's Dys label. '' Horde'' (1981, Dys), a seminal album of electronically processed music, garnered critical attention — including from the Recommended Records/RēR label, who rereleased the LP in 1984 — for its groundbreaking use of unconventional sound manipulation and musique concrète techniques. After the release of '' Gyromancy'' in 1984, the group split into two collaborative factions: a visual-arts collective, which retained the name Mnemonists, and the musical grou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experimental Music
Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, institutionalized compositional, performing, and aesthetic conventions in music. Elements of experimental music include Indeterminacy in music, indeterminate music, in which the composer introduces the elements of chance or unpredictability with regard to either the composition or its performance. Artists may also approach a hybrid of disparate styles or incorporate unorthodox and unique elements. The practice became prominent in the mid-20th century, particularly in Europe and North America. John Cage was one of the earliest composers to use the term and one of experimental music's primary innovators, utilizing Indeterminacy (music), indeterminacy techniques and seeking unknown outcomes. In France, as early as 1953, Pierre Schaeffer had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet. Bass clarinets in other keys, notably C and A, also exist, but are very rare (in contrast to the regular A clarinet, which is quite common in classical music). Bass clarinets regularly perform in orchestras, wind ensembles and concert bands, and occasionally in marching bands, and play an occasional solo role in contemporary music and jazz in particular. Someone who plays a bass clarinet is called a bass clarinettist or a bass clarinetist. Description Most modern bass clarinets are straight-bodied, with a small upturned silver-colored metal bell and curved metal neck. Early examples varied in shape, some having a doubled body making them look similar to bassoons. The bass clarinet is fairly heavy and is suppor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan (such as in craftwork, some engineering, coding, and graphic design) may also be considered to be a design activity. The design usually has to satisfy certain goals and constraints; may take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, or socio-political considerations; and is expected to interact with a certain Environment (systems), environment. Typical examples of designs include architectural drawing, architectural and engineering drawing, engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, Pattern (sewing), sewing patterns and less tangible artefacts such as business process models. Designing People who produce designs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cover Art
Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game (box art), music album (album art), CD, videotape, DVD, or podcast. The art has a primarily commercial function, for instance to promote the product it is displayed on, but can also have an aesthetic function, and may be artistically connected to the product, such as with art by the creator of the product. Album cover art Album cover art is artwork created for a music album. Notable album cover art includes Pink Floyd's ''The Dark Side of the Moon, King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King,'' the Beatles' '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'', ''Abbey Road'' and their self-titled "White Album" among others. Albums can have cover art created by the musician, as with Joni Mitchell's ''Clouds'', or by an associated musician, such as Bob Dylan's artwork for the cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.''The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, and cy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pump Organ
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. The idea for the free reed was imported from China through Russia after 1750, and the first Western free-reed instrument was made in 1780 in Denmark. More portable than pipe organs, free-reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range were limited. They generally had one or sometimes two manuals, with pedal-boards being rare. The finer pump organs had a wider range of tones, and the cabinets of those intended for churches and affluent homes were often excellent pieces of furniture. Several million free-reed organs and melodeons were made in the US and Canada between the 1850s and the 1920s, some of which were exported. The Cable Company, Estey Organ, and Mason & ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound. Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed’s length ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. History Developed in the 1880s, the ukulele is based on several small, guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin, the ''machete'', '' cavaquinho'', ''timple'', and ''rajão'', introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias, are generally credited as the first ukulele makers. Two weeks after they disembarked from the SS ''Ravenscrag'' in late August 1879, the ''Hawaiian Gazette'' reported that "Madeira Islanders recently arrived here, have been delighting the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans in the United States. The banjo is frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, and has also been used in some rock, pop and hip-hop. Several rock bands, such as the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and the folk culture of rural whites before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like biguine, calypso and mento. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
