African Musical Instruments
In traditional African culture, music has ritual, social, and ceremonial functions along with some solely recreational functions. Musical activities are highly ritualized and are considered to link the invisible world with the visible world. Melodies are generally organized within a scale of four, five, six, or seven tones. Musical instruments in Africa take on sculptural forms that are sacred, elaborate, simple, humorous, and serious, or a combination of all. Irrespective of whether these musical instruments are beaded, carved, painted, or decorated with skins, they send messages about the religious beliefs, artistic styles, and entertainment practices of the people who made them.
Percussion instruments are very popular musical instruments in Africa. Musical instruments of sub-Saharan Africa comprise of a wide variety of resonant solids such as stamping tubes, the mbira (thumb piano), and the xylophone. Mbira is one of the most popular melodic instruments in Africa. The mbira is used in different ways by different cultures and also exists in different forms in different cultures. Mbira may be used for entertainment purpose or for religious ceremonies. Friction sticks, bells, clappers, rattles, cymbals, and sansa are very popular percussion instruments. Read the rest of this entry »
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Musical Instrument Dealers
Musical instruments are of many kinds, the main categories being chordophones (strings), aerophones (woodwinds and brasses), idiophones (percussion), and membranophones (drums).
Chordophones are those that are played by plucking or strumming at the strings. The sound produced depends on the mass of the string, length of the vibrating portion of the string, and its tension as well as the kind of resonating cavity in the instrument.
Aerophones generate music when air enters and vibrates within the instrument. This is possible by blowing into the instrument. The kind of music produced depends on the length of the column of air, the shape of the instrument, the method of tone production and the construction of the instrument. Read the rest of this entry »
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Chinese Musical Instruments
Like every country has its own traditional music and musical instruments, China also has traditional musical instruments that have been developed over the centuries. Traditionally, Chinese musical instruments have been classified according to the materials they are made up of. These materials are namely, stone, silk, gourd, metal, bamboo, clay, skin, and wood. Among these, the stone and wood instruments have become outdated. Chinese musical instruments may also be classified into string, wind, or percussion instruments. String instruments may be classified into plucked string instruments and bowed string instruments. The older instruments consist of long zithers, panpipes, flutes, the sheng, or mouth organ, and percussion instruments, such as clappers, gongs, and drums. Various lutes and fiddles were introduced later to China from Central Asia.
Erhu is a type of bowed string instrument. It is a two-stringed fiddle and is one of the most popular Chinese instruments in the Hu-qin family. Gao-hu is another bowed string instrument. Gao-Hu is mostly used for high-pitched tunes that Erhu cannot play and frequently used for performing vivid and brisk rhythms. Gao-Hu has louder volume yet brighter tones, and thus it serves as both a solo and leading instrument in performing Cantonese operas and folk melodies. Read the rest of this entry »
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