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Ostrich Guitar
The ostrich guitar or ostrich tuning is a type of trivial tuning. It assigns one note to all strings, e.g. E-E-e-e-e'-e' or D-D-D-D-d'-d'. The term "ostrich guitar" was coined by the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed after the pre-Velvet Underground song "The Ostrich" by Lou Reed and the Primitives, on which he first recorded using this tuning, the first known commercial composition to make use of a trivial guitar tuning. Musical theory The trivial tuning is a regular tuning based on the unison musical interval, which has zero semitones. It assigns exactly one pitch class (for example D, A, F or B) to all guitar-strings, tuned to the same note over two or three octaves. This creates an intense, chorused drone music, and interesting fingering potential. Among alternative tunings for the guitar, the trivial tuning is a regular and repetitive tuning. It is its own left-handed tuning.: Example To create a trivial D tuning from a standard guitar tuning: 1d ----- * downtuned t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unison
In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or perfect unison (also called a prime, or perfect prime)Benward & Saker (2003), p. 53. may refer to the (pseudo-) interval formed by a tone and its duplication (in German, ''Unisono'', ''Einklang'', or ''Prime''), for example C–C, as differentiated from the second, C–D, etc. In the unison the two pitches have the ratio of 1:1 or 0 half steps and zero cents. Although two tones in unison are considered to be the same pitch, they are still perceivable as coming from separate sources, whether played on instruments of a different type: ; or of the same type: . This is because a pair of tones in unison come from different locations or can have different "colors" (timbres), i.e. come from different musical instruments or human voices. Voices wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regular Tuning
Among alternative guitar-tunings, regular tunings have equal musical intervals between the paired notes of their successive open strings. ''Guitar tunings'' assign pitches to the open strings of guitars. Tunings can be described by the particular pitches that are denoted by notes in Western music. By convention, the notes are ordered from lowest to highest. The ''standard tuning'' defines the string pitches as E, A, D, G, B, and E. Between the open-strings of the standard tuning are three perfect-fourths (E–A, A–D, D–G), then the major third G–B, and the fourth perfect-fourth B–E. In contrast, regular tunings have constant intervals between their successive open-strings: * 3 semitones (minor third): Minor-thirds, or ''Diminished'' tuning * 4 semitones (major third): Major-thirds or ''Augmented'' tuning, * 5 semitones (perfect fourth): All-fourths tuning, * 6 semitones ( augmented fourth, tritone, or diminished fifth): Augmented-fourths tuni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fret
A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework. On instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. ''Fret'' is often used as a verb, meaning simply "to press down the string behind a fret". ''Fretting'' often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Explanation Pressing the string against the fret reduces the vibrating length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the soft fingertip on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moe Tucker
Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944) is an American musician and singer-songwriter who was the drummer for the New York City-based rock band the Velvet Underground. After they disbanded in the early 1970s, she left the music industry for a while, though her music career restarted in the 1980s, and continued into the 1990s. She has released four solo albums, where she played most of the instruments herself (though with frequent guest appearances by her former Velvet Underground bandmates and others), and has periodically toured. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of the Velvet Underground. Early life Maureen Tucker was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, and grew up in Levittown, New York in a middle-class Catholic family. Her father, James, was a housepainter and her mother, Margaret, was a clerical worker. She had an older brother, Jim, who was friends with Sterling Morrison, and a sister, Margo. As a teenager Tuc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus In Furs (song)
"Venus in Furs" is a song by the Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and originally released on the 1967 album ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''. Inspired by the book of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the song includes sexual themes of sadomasochism, bondage and submission. "Venus in Furs" was also released as a single on several occasions; in 1988 in the UK and as a live single in France and the UK, in 1993 and 1994 respectively. This live version appears on the 1993 live album ''Live MCMXCIII''. Recording "Venus in Furs" was one of three songs to be re-recorded, in May 1966 at TTG Studios in Hollywood, before appearing on the final mix of ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' (the other two being "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting for the Man"). The arrangement features John Cale's cacophonous electric viola as well as Lou Reed's guitar tuned to D G C F A C. Guitarist Sterling Morrison played bass on the song, but according to Cale, who was the band's usual bassist, Mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Velvet Underground & Nico
''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' is the debut album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. The album features Experimental music, experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and sexual deviancy. ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' initially sold poorly, but later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in Rock music, rock and pop music. Described as "the original art rock, art-rock record", it was a major influence on many subgenres of rock music and Alternative rock, alternative music, including Punk rock, punk, garage rock, garage, krautrock, post-punk, shoegaze, Goth rock, goth, and Indie rock, indie. In 1982, the English musician Brian Eno said that while the album only sold approximately 30,000 copies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angus MacLise
Angus William MacLise (March 14, 1938 – June 21, 1979) was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher, known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground who abruptly quit due to disagreements with the band playing their first paid show. Biography Early years Angus William MacLise was born on March 14, 1938 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of a book dealer. Despite some formal training as a percussionist, his playing style became so idiosyncratic that many assumed he was self-taught. The Velvet Underground MacLise was a member of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, with John Cale, Tony Conrad, Marian Zazeela and sometimes Terry Riley. He contributed to the early Fluxus newspaper VTre, edited by George Brecht, and was also an early member of the Velvet Underground, having been brought into the group by flatmate John Cale when they were living at 56 Ludlow Street in Manhattan. Lou Reed recruited his friend Sterling Morrison, whom he k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sterling Morrison
Holmes Sterling Morrison Jr. (August 29, 1942 – August 30, 1995) was an American guitarist, best known as one of the founding members of the rock group the Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and singing backing vocals. Unlike bandmates Lou Reed, John Cale, Maureen Tucker and Nico, Morrison never released a solo album or made recordings under his own name. He was nevertheless an essential element of the group's sound as a guitarist whose percussive and syncopated rhythm playing and melodic lead parts provided the foil for Lou Reed's improvisational rhythm and lead guitar riffs. Biography Early years Morrison was born on August 29, 1942, in the Long Island town of East Meadow, New York. He had two brothers and two sisters. His parents divorced when he was young and his mother remarried. He first met future Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker during childhood, through her brother Jim, who attended Division Avenue High School i ... [...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] |
Keyboard Instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings. Today, the term ''keyboard'' often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers. Under the fingers of a sensitive performer, the keyboard may also be used to control dynamics, phrasing, shading, articulation, and other elements of expression—depending on the design and inherent capabilities of the instrument. Another important use of the word ''keyboard'' is in historical musicology, where it means an instrument whose identity cannot be firmly established. Particularly in the 18th century, the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to scientific pitch notation, C3, G3, D4, and A4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style, as did its names. The word viola originates from the Italian language. The Italians often used the term viola da braccio meaning literally: 'of the arm'. "Brazzo" was another Italian word for the viola, which the Germans adopted as ''Bratsche''. The French had their own names: ''cinquiesme'' was a small viola, ''haute contre'' was a large viola, and ''taile'' was a tenor. Today, the French use the term ''alto'', a reference to its range. The viola was popular in the heyd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best known for his exploration of sustained tones, beginning with his 1958 composition '' Trio for Strings.'' His compositions have called into question the nature and definition of music, most prominently in the text scores of his ''Compositions 1960''. While few of his recordings remain in print, his work has inspired prominent musicians across various genres, including avant-garde, rock, and ambient music. Young played jazz saxophone and studied composition in California during the 1950s, and subsequently moved to New York in 1960, where he was a central figure in the downtown music and Fluxus art scenes.Jeremy Grimshaw, ''Draw a Straight Line and Follow It: The Music and Mysticism of La Monte Young''. Oxford University Press, 2012 He then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
