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Acme Siren
The Acme siren is a musical instrument used in concert bands for comic effect. Often used in cartoons, it produces the stylized sound of a police siren. It is one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of an orchestra. The instrument is typically made of metal and is cylindrical. Inside the cylinder is a type of fan-blade which, when the performer blows through one end, spins and creates the sound. The faster the performer blows, the faster the fan-blade moves and the higher the pitch the instrument creates. Conversely, the slower the performer blows, the lower the pitch. Iannis Xenakis used it in the 1960s in his works ''Oresteia'', ''Terretektorh'', and '' Persephassa''. A siren was used in Bob Dylan's classic album, ''Highway 61 Revisited''. Acme is the trade name of J Hudson & Co of Birmingham, England, who developed and patented the Acme siren in 1895. It was sometimes known as "the cyclist's road clearer". See also * Acme Corporation The ACME Corporat ... [...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 be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning more than 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and " The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised mainly traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' the following year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex " A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Many of his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestral Percussion
Orchestral percussion refers to the various percussion instruments used in an orchestral setting. It may also refer to the act of playing such instruments in an orchestral style. Many music schools and conservatories offer training for musicians interested in developing their skills as an orchestral percussionist. Typically, an orchestral percussionist does not specialize in one particular instrument. Although there is no exhaustive list of all instruments that an orchestral percussionist must be able to play, there are particular instruments that are frequently used in orchestral repertoire. This includes timpani, snare drum, bass drum, xylophone, glockenspiel, triangle, and tambourine. Mallet instruments Mallet percussion (also known as keyboard or tuned percussion) is the general name given to the pitched percussion family. The name is a slight misnomer, in that almost every percussion instrument is played with some type of mallet or stick. With the exception of the marimba, al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blown Percussion Instruments
Blow commonly refers to: *Cocaine *Exhalation *Strike (attack) Blow, Blew, Blowing, or Blown may also refer to: People * Blew (surname) * Blow (surname) Arts and entertainment Music *The Blow, an American electro-pop band Albums * ''Blow'' (Foetus album), 2001 * ''Blow'' (Ghinzu album) or the title song, 2004 * ''Blow'' (Heather Nova album), 1993 * ''Blow'' (Messy Marv and Berner album), 2009 **'' Blow: Blocks and Boat Docks'' or the title song, by Messy Marv and Berner, 2010 * ''Blow'' (Red Lorry Yellow Lorry album) or the title song, 1989 * ''Blow'' (Straitjacket Fits album), 1993 Songs *"Blew", by Nirvana, 1989 * "Blow" (Beyoncé song), 2013 * "Blow" (Ed Sheeran, Chris Stapleton and Bruno Mars song), 2019 * "Blow" (Kesha song), 2011 * "Blow" (Martin Solveig song), 2014 *"B.L.O.W.", by Tory Lanez, 2015 *"Blow", by Ashnikko, 2018 *"Blow", by Atreyu from ''Lead Sails Paper Anchor'', 2007 *"Blow", by the Prom Kings from ''The Prom Kings'', 2005 *"Blow", by Rick Ross from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acme Corporation
The ACME Corporation is a name for the fictional corporation appearing in various Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, where it was used as a running gag due to their wide array of products that are dangerous, unreliable or preposterous. Origin The name Acme comes from the Greek (ἀκμή, English transliteration: ''akmē''), meaning summit, highest point, extremity or peak. It has been falsely claimed to be an acronym, either for "A Company Making Everything", "American Companies Make Everything", or "American Company that Manufactures Everything." During the 1920s, the word was commonly used in the names of businesses in order to be listed toward the beginning of alphabetized telephone directories like the Yellow Pages, and implied being the best. It is used in an ironic sense in cartoons, because the products are often failure-prone or explosive. The name Acme began being depicted in film starting in the silent era, such as the 1920 '' Neighbors'' with Buster Keaton and the 1922 ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West Midlands metropolitan county, and approximately 4.3 million in the wider metropolitan area. It is the largest UK metropolitan area outside of London. Birmingham is known as the second city of the United Kingdom. Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately west of the city centre. Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J Hudson & Co
J Hudson & Co was founded in the 1870s in Birmingham by Joseph Hudson (1848–1930) and his brother James Hudson (1850–1889). The company became a manufacturer of whistles and continues as Acme Whistles. Acme is the world's largest and most famous producer of whistles. They are headquartered in the Jewellery Quarter district of Birmingham, England. History The company was family-run for over 100 years and three generations; Joseph Hudson's son, James Clifford Hudson and his grandson, Leon Clifford Hudson ran the company after Joseph retired. As of 2014, Acme Whistles are now owned and managed by Simon Topman. 1883–1908 Joseph Hudson started working at the age of 12. He moved to Bent & Parker, a maker of army supplies and whistles in Birmingham. In 1870, aged 22, he started his own business with younger brother James. In 1883 Hudson began tinkering in his toolshed to make gadgets to sell, including whistles. After observing local police struggling to communicate wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highway 61 Revisited
''Highway 61 Revisited'' is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Having until then recorded mostly acoustic music, Dylan used rock musicians as his backing band on every track of the album, except for the closing track, the 11-minute ballad "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural chaos of contemporary America. Author Michael Gray has argued that, in an important sense, the 1960s "started" with this album. Leading with the hit song "Like a Rolling Stone", the album features songs that Dylan has continued to perform live over his long career, including "Ballad of a Thin Man" and the title track. He named the album after the major American highway which connected his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persephassa (Xenakis)
''Persephassa'' is a piece for six percussionists composed by Iannis Xenakis in 1969. The piece was commissioned jointly by the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF) and the Shiraz Arts Festival (presided by the queen consort of Persia, Farah Pahlavi), held at the historic site of Persepolis. The title is one of the variant names of the goddess Persephone / Proserpina, and also refers to the names "Perseus", "Perceval", and "Persepolis". It was performed in its premiere by Les Percussions de Strasbourg (France) for whom it was written. Composition ''Persephassa'' gains much of its effect from having the six percussionists distributed around the audience. The treatment of space as a musical parameter is one of the most important preoccupations of Xenakis' music, particularly in his works of the mid-to-late 1960s. (See, for example, ''Terretektorh'' (1966), which "distributes the eighty-eight musicians in quasi-stochastic fashion in a circular space around the cond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concert Band
A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion families of instruments, and occasionally including the harp, double bass, or bass guitar. On rare occasions, additional, non-traditional instruments may be added to such ensembles such as piano, synthesizer, or electric guitar. Concert band music generally includes original wind compositions, concert marches, transcriptions of orchestral arrangements, light music, and popular music. Though the concert band does have similar instrumentation to the marching band, a marching band's main purpose is to perform while marching. In contrast, a concert band strictly performs as a stationary ensemble. Origins The origins of concert band can be traced back to the French Revolution, in which large bands would often gather for patriotic festivals and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iannis Xenakis
Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and engineer. After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalised citizen of France eighteen years later. Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic and computer music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances. Among his most important works are '' Metastaseis'' (1953–54) for orchestra, which introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra; percussion works such as '' Psappha'' (197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitch (music)
Pitch is a perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale, or more commonly, pitch is the quality that makes it possible to judge sounds as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies. Pitch is a major auditory attribute of musical tones, along with duration, loudness, and timbre. Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound. Historically, the study of pitch and pitch perception has been a central problem in psychoacoustics, and has been instrumental in forming and testing theories of sound representation, processing, and perception in the auditory system. Perception Pitch and frequency Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on their perception of the frequency of vibration. Pitch is closely related to frequency, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
