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Rhythmicon
The Rhythmicon—also known as the Polyrhythmophone—was an electro-mechanical musical instrument designed and built by Leon Theremin for composer Henry Cowell, intended to reveal connections between rhythms, pitches and the harmonic series. It used a series of perforated spinning disks, similar to a Nipkow disk, to interrupt the flow of light between bulbs and phototoreceptors aligned with the disk perforations. The interrupted signals created oscillations which were perceived as rhythms or tones depending on the speed of the disks. Although it generated both pitches and rhythms, it has often been described as the world's first drum machine. Development In 1930, the avant-garde American composer and musical theorist Henry Cowell collaborated with Russian inventor Léon Theremin in designing and building the remarkably innovative Rhythmicon. Cowell wanted an instrument with which to play compositions involving multiple rhythmic patterns impossible for one person to perform simu ...
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Otto Miessner
William Otto Miessner (May 26, 1880 - May 27, 1967) was an American composer and music educator. Most of his life was spent in the midwest, particularly Indiana and Wisconsin. Life and career Born in Huntingburg, Indiana, Miessner was the son of Charles Miessner and Mary Miessner (née Reutepohler) and the older brother of Benjamin Franklin Miessner. He graduated from Huntingburg High School in 1898. He earned a diploma from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he studied music theory with A. J. Gantvoort, piano with Frederick Hoffman, and singing with Adolph Devin-Duvivier. He later pursued further studies in New York with Frederick Bristol (singing), A. J. Goodrich (harmony and counterpoint), and Edgar Stillman Kelley (composition). He also studied voice in Berlin, taking lessons in 1910 with Alexander Heinemann. He then taught music from 1900 until 1904 at a school in Boonville, Indiana, before going to Connersville to teach elementary and high school music; he staye ...
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Léon Theremin
Leon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen rus, Лев Сергеевич Термéн, p=ˈlʲef sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tɨrˈmʲen; – 3 November 1993) was a Russian and Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass-produced. He also worked on early television research. His listening device, " The Thing", hung for seven years in plain view in the United States Ambassador's Moscow office and enabled Soviet agents to eavesdrop on secret conversations. Early life Leon Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1896. His father was Sergei Emilievich Theremin of French Huguenot descent. His mother was Yevgenia Antonova Orzhinskaya and of German ancestry. He had a sister named Helena. In the seventh class of his high school before an audience of students and parents he demonstrated various optical effects using electricity. By the age of 17, when he was in his last year of ...
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Benjamin Miessner
Benjamin Franklin Miessner (July 27, 1890 – March 25, 1976) was an American radio engineer and inventor. He is most known for his electronic organ, electronic piano, and other musical instruments. He was the inventor of the Cat's whisker detector. Early life and career Miessner was born in Huntingburg, Indiana to Charles and Mary (Reutopohler) Miessner and was the brother of Otto Miessner. He attended school in Huntingburg and graduated from high school in 1908. He then enlisted in the U. S. Navy, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Electrical School in Brooklyn, NY in 1909. He was assigned to a naval radio station in Washington, D.C. to be a radio operator. It was while he was in Washington that he invented the "cat whisker" detector which allowed for receiving radio waves by crystal sets. He was also promoted to Chief Operator. He left the Navy to work with John Hays Hammond Jr. and Frtiz Lowenstein in 1911. The group worked on a wireless control system for torpedoes. Whi ...
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Leon Theremin
Leon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen rus, Лев Сергеевич Термéн, p=ˈlʲef sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tɨrˈmʲen; – 3 November 1993) was a Russian and USSR, Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments and the first to be mass-produced. He also worked on early television research. His listening device, "The Thing (listening device), The Thing", hung for seven years in plain view in the List of ambassadors of the United States to Russia, United States Ambassador's Embassy of the United States, Moscow, Moscow office and enabled Soviet agents to eavesdrop on secret conversations. Early life Leon Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1896. His father was Sergei Emilievich Theremin of French Huguenot descent. His mother was Yevgenia Antonova Orzhinskaya and of German ancestry. He had a sister named Helena. In the seventh class of his high school before an audience of studen ...
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Rhythmic Unit
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds (as with the riff in a rock music song); to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years. Rhythm is related to and distinguished from pulse, meter, and beats: In the performance arts, rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences that occur over time, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. In some performing arts, such as hip hop music, the rhythmic delivery of the lyrics is one of the most important elements of the style. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed mov ...
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Rhythm And Meter
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds (as with the riff in a rock music song); to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years. Rhythm is related to and distinguished from pulse, meter, and beats: In the performance arts, rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences that occur over time, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. In some performing arts, such as hip hop music, the rhythmic delivery of the lyrics is one of the most important elements of the style. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed move ...
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Nipkow Disk
A Nipkow disk (sometimes Anglicized as Nipkov disk; patented in 1884), also known as scanning disk, is a mechanical, rotating, geometrically operating image scanning device, patented in 1885 by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow. This scanning disk was a fundamental component in mechanical television, and thus the first televisions, through the 1920s and 1930s. Operation The device is a mechanically spinning disk of any suitable material (metal, plastic, cardboard, etc.), with a series of equally-distanced circular holes of equal diameter drilled in it. The holes may also be square for greater precision. These holes are positioned to form a single-turn spiral starting from an external radial point of the disk and proceeding to the center of the disk. When the disk rotates, the holes trace circular ring patterns, with inner and outer diameter depending on each hole's position on the disk and thickness equal to each hole's diameter. The patterns may or may not partially overlap, depending on t ...
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The New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. Since then, the school has grown to house five divisions within the university. These include the Parsons School of Design, the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the College of Performing Arts (which itself consists of the Mannes School of Music, the School of Drama, and the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music), The New School for Social Research, and the Schools of Public Engagement. In addition, the university maintains the Parsons Paris campus and has also launched or housed a range of institutions, such as the international research institute World Policy Institute, the Philip Glass Institute, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the India China Institute, the Observatory on Latin America, and the Center for New York Cit ...
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Inventions By Léon Theremin
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain. An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word ''inventor'' comes from the Latin verb ''invenire'', ''invent-'', to find. Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, the term "inventor" no longer exclusively applies to an occupation (see human computers). Some inventions can be patented. The system of patents was established t ...
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Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhythm), or a momentary section. Polyrhythms can be distinguished from irrational rhythms, which can occur within the context of a single part; polyrhythms require at least two rhythms to be played concurrently, one of which is typically an irrational rhythm. Concurrently in this context means within the same rhythmic cycle. The underlying pulse, whether explicit or implicit can be considered one of the concurrent rhythms. For example, the son clave is poly-rhythmic because its 3 section suggests a different meter from the pulse of the entire pattern. In western art music In some European art music, polyrhythm periodically contradicts the prevailing meter. For example, in Mozart's opera ''Don Giovanni'', two orchestras are heard playing toget ...
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Wally De Backer
Wouter André "Wally" De Backer (born 21 May 1980), better known by his stage name Gotye ( ), is a Belgian-Australian multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. The name "Gotye" is a pronunciation respelling of "Gauthier", the French cognate of his Dutch given name "Wouter". Gotye has released three studio albums independently and one album featuring remixes of tracks from his first two albums. He is a founding member of the Melbourne indie-pop trio The Basics, who have independently released four studio albums and numerous other titles since 2002. His voice has been compared to those of Peter Gabriel and Sting. Gotye achieved breakout success with his 2011 single "Somebody That I Used to Know", reaching number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and becoming the best-selling song of 2012. This made him the fifth Australian-based artist to top the chart and the second born in Belgium (after The Singing Nun in 1963). He has won five ARIA Awards and received a nomination fo ...
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