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Amplified Cactus
An amplified cactus is a cactus plant (preferably a '' Denmoza'' or '' Geohintonia'') used as a musical instrument. It harnesses the acoustic properties of a cactus by applying contact microphones and amplifying their projection and tone. Vivien Schweitzer of ''The New York Times'' reports " Jason Treuting played an amplified cactus, running his hand over the plant's unfriendly spikes to produce an alluring sound like a babbling brook." The amplified cactus is a medium rarely written for, even in the contemporary music genre. John Cage composed ''Child of Tree'' (1975) and ''Branches'' (1976) for what he described as "amplified plant materials". Cage was a large proponent of chance music and felt that the organic nature of music without man-made instruments was very strong and influential. Another of the most famous pieces for amplified cactus is ''Degrees of Separation'' "Grandchild of Tree" by Paul Rudy which received mention at the Bourges International Competition for Electr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jason Treuting
Sō Percussion is an American percussion quartet formed in 1999 and based in New York City. Composed of Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Eric Cha-Beach, the group is well known for recording and touring internationally and for their work with composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, Caroline Shaw, Bryce Dessner, Julia Wolfe, Vijay Iyer, Fred Frith, Angélica Negrón, Nathalie Joachim, Dan Trueman, Tristan Perich, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Shara Nova, Martin Bresnick, Oscar Bettison, Evan Ziporyn, and Arvo Pärt. Originally formed when the members were students of Robert van Sice at the Yale School of Music, the group also continues to play works from the standard repertoire of percussion ensemble music—including works by composers such as John Cage, Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, George Crumb, and Iannis Xenakis. In addition to their work with composers, the members of Sō Percussion produce original music, including large scale evening-length ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cactus
A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek word (''káktos''), a name originally used by Theophrastus for a spiny plant whose identity is now not certain. Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Although some species live in quite humid environments, most cacti live in habitats subject to at least some drought. Many live in extremely dry environments, even being found in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Because of this, cacti show many adaptations to conserve water. For example, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the only part of most cacti where this vital process takes place. Most species of cacti have lost true leaves, retaining only spine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denmoza
''Denmoza'' is a genus of cactus found in Argentina, comprising only 2 species. The name of the genus is an anagram of the western province of Mendoza. These species grow slowly and stay globulous during a long period before becoming shortly column-shaped, 0.5 to 1.5 m high. The plant's diameter varies from 15 to 30 cm. Trunk color varies from pale green to dark green, dotted with 15 to 30 ribs. Flowers are zygomorphic, of a maximum length of 7.5 cm, reddish in color and have white hair on the tube. The flower open sufficiently widely so that the stigma and stamen are visible from outside. The fruit is spherical, of about 2.5 cm in diameter, and pale green. They are sometimes also reddish and split at maturity. Due to the Denmoza's long spines and column shape, it is a good candidate to create an amplified cactus An amplified cactus is a cactus plant (preferably a '' Denmoza'' or '' Geohintonia'') used as a musical instrument. It harnesses the acoustic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geohintonia
''Geohintonia mexicana'' (discovered in 1992) is a species of cacti, the only species in the genus ''Geohintonia''. This genus is named after its discoverer George S. Hinton. As its specific epithet suggests, the plant is found in Mexico ( Nuevo León), where it grows on gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywal ... hills near Galeana., p. 342 Description It is a solitary, globose plant, slowly becoming columnar, up to 10 cm tall and 10 cm in diameter. grayish bluish green. It has between 18 to 20 very prominent ribs, with 3 curved spines about 3 to 12 mm long on each areola. The hot pink, funnel-shaped flowers emerge at the apex and open after dark. The species has one form: ''Geohintonia mexicana'' f. ''cristata''. File:Geohintonia mexicana 02.jpg, Flower File:Geoh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies. The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 50,000 - 60,000 years. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 40,000 years ago. However, most historians ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contact Microphone
A contact microphone, also known as a piezo microphone, is a form of microphone that senses audio vibrations through contact with solid objects. Unlike normal air microphones, contact microphones are almost completely insensitive to air vibrations but transduce only structure-borne sound. Often used as acoustic leakage probes, they also enjoy wide usage by noise music artists experimenting with sound. Contact microphones can be used to amplify sound from acoustic musical instruments, to sense drum hits, for triggering electronic samples, and to record sound in challenging environments, such as underwater under high pressure. Contact microphones based on piezo materials are passive and high-impedance, and they sound tinny without a matching preamp. The most commonly available contact microphone element is made of a thin piezoelectric ceramic round glued to a thin brass or alloy metal disc. This center disc is positively charged while the brass disc is negatively charged. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amplifier
An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost the voltage or current ( power, voltage or current amplifier). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power supply to increase the amplitude of a signal applied to its input terminals, producing a greater amplitude signal at its output. The ratio of output to input voltage, current, or power is termed gain (voltage, current, or power gain). An amplifier, by definition has gain greater than unity (if the gain is less than unity, the device is an attenuator). An amplifier can either be a separate piece of equipment or an electrical circuit contained within another device. Amplification is fundamental to modern electronics, and amplifiers are widely used in almost all electronic equipment. Amplifiers can be ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
So Percussion
Sō Percussion is an American percussion quartet formed in 1999 and based in New York City. Composed of Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting, and Eric Cha-Beach, the group is well known for recording and touring internationally and for their work with composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, Caroline Shaw, Bryce Dessner, Julia Wolfe, Vijay Iyer, Fred Frith, Angélica Negrón, Nathalie Joachim, Dan Trueman, Tristan Perich, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Shara Nova, Martin Bresnick, Oscar Bettison, Evan Ziporyn, and Arvo Pärt. Originally formed when the members were students of Robert van Sice at the Yale School of Music, the group also continues to play works from the standard repertoire of percussion ensemble music—including works by composers such as John Cage, Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, George Crumb, and Iannis Xenakis. In addition to their work with composers, the members of Sō Percussion produce original music, including large scale evening-length works. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition '' 4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chance Music
Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning " dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term is most often associated with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities. The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music in the beginning of the 1950s. According to his definition, "a process is said to be aleatoric ... if its course is determined in general but depends on chance in detail". Through a confusion of Meyer-Eppler's German terms ''Aleatorik'' (noun) and ''aleatorisch'' (adjective), his translator created a new English word, "aleatoric" (rather than using the existing English adjective "aleatory"), which quickly became fashio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Andre
Mark Andre (born 10 May 1964) is a French composer living in Germany. He was known as "Marc André," his birth name, until 2007, when he formally revised the spelling. He lives in Berlin. Andre's compositions ''durch'' (2006), ''...auf... III'' (2007), and ''Wunderzaichen'' (2014) received multiple votes in a 2017 ''Classic Voice'' poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000. Biography Andre was born in Paris. He studied composition from 1987 to 1993 with Claude Ballif and Gérard Grisey at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. In Paris, he also graduated from the École Normale Supérieure about the music of Ars subtilior (Le compossible musical de l'Ars subtilior). In 1995 he received a scholarship from the French Foreign Ministry, which enabled him to continue his studies of composition at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart with Helmut Lachenmann (Graduation: "Großes Kompositionsexamen", 1996). In the Experimental Studio for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daxophone
The daxophone, invented by Hans Reichel, is an electric wooden experimental musical instrument of the friction idiophones category. Etymology The ''dax'' in ''daxophone'' is derived from the German word ''Dachs'', meaning "badger" and referencing the many animal sounds that the daxophone is capable of generating, changed to ''dax'' so that the instrument name echoes Adolphe Sax's saxophone. History The first usage of the daxophone in a musical work was the release of Hans Reichel's album ''The Dawn of Dachsman'' in 1987. Even with Hans Reichel's second album featuring the daxophone, ''Shanghaied on Tor Road: The World's 1st Operetta Performed on Nothing but the Daxophone'', the instrument had remained very obscure. It was not until after his release of ''Yuxo: A New Daxophone Operetta'' that the daxophone began to gain notability through the internet, spawning YouTube videos and inspiring other artists such as Michael Hearst to create their own albums featuring the daxop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
