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Piganino
The Piganino is a conjectural musical instrument using a keyboard as to produce sound from pigs by poking them. Satirical use includes further terms as in german: Schweineorgel (pig organ), french: l’orgue à cochons, and "Hog Harmonium", (a play on "Steinway") "Swineway", or (a play on "pianoforte") "Porko Forte" in English. Background Louis XI of France was said to have challenged Abbé de Baigne to develop such an instrument, believing that it was impossible to do so. Jean Bouchet: ''Les annales d’Aquitaine.'' Enguilbert de Marnef, Poitiers 1557, Blatt 164(Scan) Cited in Nathaniel Wanley and also in Pierre Bayle: '' Dictionnaire historique et critique''(Scan)/ref> The Abbé, a well known constructor, anecdotally accepted the order against payment. The instrument was a variant of an organ using a keyboard to pick the pigs, which were sorted sizewise. This may be compared to the "domestication" of sound in sampling, sequencing, and synthesis. Striped pigs in the US ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cat Organ
A cat organ or cat piano (german: Katzenorgel or ''Katzenklavier'', french: orgue à chats or ''piano à chats/piano chats'') is a hypothetical musical instrument which consists of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard so that they cry out when a key is pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices. Origins There is no official record of a cat organ actually being built; rather it is described in literature as a bizarre concept. "The details of the cat organ present it clearly as an instrument cat lovers might wish was a fictional horror."Betancourt, Michael (2011). The instrument is used in stories which criticize the cruelty of royalty while the piganino, a similar instrument using pigs, has been used to criticize the poor. This instrument was described by the French writer Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin in his book ''Musiciana, extraits d'ouvrages rares ou bizarres'' (Musiciana, descriptions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin
Théodore Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin or Wekerlin (9 November 1821 – 20 May 1910) was a French composer and music publisher from Alsace. Biography Weckerlin was born at Guebwiller. In 1844, he began studying singing with Antoine Ponchard and composition with Fromental Halévy at the Paris Conservatory. In 1847, he published his heroic symphony ''Roland''. In 1853, Weckerlin produced a one-act comic opera, ''L'Organiste dans l'embarras''. In 1869, he was appointed assistant librarian to the Conservatory. In 1863, he produced his comic opera ''Die dreifach Hochzeit im Bäsethal'', and in 1879 ''Der verhäxt Herbst''. These were both in Alsatian dialect. In 1877, he brought out the one-act opera ''Après Fontenoy''. In 1876, he became Félicien David's successor as librarian at the Conservatory and published in 1885 a biographical catalogue. Later he became librarian of the Société des Compositeurs. He gained great renown as a composer of choral works. He married Marie Damoreau, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Libertine (2000 Film)
''Le Libertin'' (The Libertine) is a French comedy film directed by Gabriel Aghion and released in 2000. It is an adaptation of a 1997 play by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Synopsis The philosopher Denis Diderot, one of the modernists of the French 18th-century Age of Enlightenment movement, is a guest at the château of the Baron d'Holbach. The film depicts the Baron (in reality a major sponsor of Diderot) as a benign host and inventor of amusing machines, including a piganino. Diderot's banned ''Encyclopédie'' is being secretly set up, printed and bound in a crypt beneath the chapel, where the noise of the presses is masked by the playing of an organ. Madame Therbouche, a purported portrait painter and intrigante, arrives from Berlin. She has made a painting of Diderot's idol, Voltaire, and convinces him to be more daring and to pose for her in the nude, leading to an animated row with his wife Antoinette. This unsavoury event is witnessed by a feared visitor, Baron d'Holbach's ... [...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] |
Commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism. Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates. Definition and modern use The Digital Library of the Commons defines "commons" as "a general term for shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest". The term "commons" derives from the traditional English legal term for common land, which are also known as "commons", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keyboard Instruments
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 piano c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictional Musical Instruments
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to literature, written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short story, short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any Media (communication), medium, including not just writings but also drama, live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or character (arts), characters who ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pascal Quignard
Pascal Quignard (; born 23 April 1948) is a French writer born in Verneuil-sur-Avre, Eure. In 2002 his novel ''Les Ombres errantes'' won the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary prize. ''Terrasse à Rome'' (Terrasse in Rome), received the French Academy prize in 2000. In 1980 ''Carus'' had been awarded the "Prix des Critiques". Among Quignard's most commented-upon works are his eighty-four "Little Treatises", first published in 1991 by Maeght. But his most popular book is probably '' Tous les matins du monde'' (''All the Mornings in the World''), about 17th-century viola de gamba player Marin Marais and his teacher, Sainte-Colombe, which was adapted for the screen in 1991, by director Alain Corneau. Quignard wrote the screenplay of the film, in collaboration with Corneau. '' Tous les matins du monde'', starring Jean-Pierre Marielle, Gérard Depardieu and son Guillaume Depardieu, was a tremendous success in France and sold 2 million tickets in the first year. It was subsequent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monty Python
Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and influence, including touring stage shows, films, albums, books and musicals. The Pythons' influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Regarded as an enduring icon of 1970s pop culture, their sketch show has been referred to as being "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy". Broadcast by the BBC between 1969 and 1974, ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' was conceived, written and performed by its members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach aided by Gil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ... who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".Woods, p. 108. He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language, but most of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonium
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] |
Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of musical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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