Category Archives: Instruments

by | January 2, 2011 · 7:57 am

PianoForum

The 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth in 2010 inspired the launch of a new Russian-language quaterly dedicated to piano, PianоФорум (PianoForum). Published by Международная Муызкально-Техническая Компания (International Music-Technical Company) and edited by the musicologist, pianist, and pedagogue Vsevolod Zaderackij, the journal covers diverse aspects of contemporary pianism, including instrument building, piano repertoire and interpretation, piano competitions and festivals, and piano pedagogy from the beginning level to professional training. A description of the contents of issue no. 3 (2010) in Russian is here.

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by | December 18, 2010 · 7:09 am

Ken Butler’s anxious objects

 

With his background as a professional jazz guitarist and his MFA in painting, Ken Butler had a long-standing interest in combining his two passions, but he couldn’t find the right connection. Then one night an axe in his basement caught his eye.

In about an hour and a half he had added a bridge, strings, and a contact microphone to the axe. As he describes it, “Suddenly the world opened up to me in terms of “That’s a cello. That’s a violin.’”

Since that night Butler has built hundreds of hybrid instruments, which he describes as “anxious objects”. While all of them can be played, he considers most of them to be primarily collage sculptures; but some of them sound good enough that he considers them real instruments, and performs on them. His raw materials have included a toy Uzi, a motorcycle manifold, and parts of discarded mannequins (inset).

This according to “Ken Butler & the anxious objects: Turning unmusical things into instruments” by W. Kim Heron (Metro Times, 28 January 2004).  Below, Butler demonstrates several of his creations.

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by | November 23, 2010 · 6:28 am

Na Píobairí Uilleann: Source

On 17 November 2010 Na Píobairí Uilleann launched Na Píobairí Uilleann: Source, an Internet resource that includes Irish music web tutors, Irish music collections dating back to 1724, reed-making and pipe-making videos, recitals, and historical data on iconic musicians.

While the site is specifically intended to support students of uilleann piping, pipe-making, and maintenance, it includes material of interest to players of other traditional instruments, traditional singers, and all lovers of Irish traditional music.

Source is a free collection; membership in Na Píobairí Uilleann enables use of organizational tools to create personal bookmarks and galleries. Content will be added regularly, and the site’s design provides for possible future enhancements such as the ability for members to upload and share their own content.

Many thanks to Patrick Hutchinson for bringing this to our attention! Below, Séamus Ennis plays Pat Ward’s jig on the uilleann pipes.

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by | November 17, 2010 · 6:48 am

OHS monographs in American organ history

In 2010 the Organ Historical Society Press launched its series OHS monographs in American organ history with Organbuilding along the Erie and Chenango Canals by Stephen L. Pinel. The book chronicles the careers of the organ builders Alvinza and George N. Andrews of Utica, New York, and their innovative use of the canals to undercut their Boston and New York competition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Sponsored by the Organ Historical Society, the Press also publishes a quarterly journal, an annual study of organs by locale, and CDs featuring historic American instruments.

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by | November 6, 2010 · 6:43 am

Organ: Žurnal ob organnoj kul´ture

The Russian-speaking organ community has a new platform for professional information and dialogue on organ culture in Russia and abroad: the quarterly periodical Орган: Журнал об органной культуре (Organ: Journal of organ culture). Launched in 2009 by the Московское Музыкальное Общество (Moscow Musical Society) , the Гocударственный Центральный Музей Музыкальной Культуры им. М.И. Глинки (Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture), and Союз Московских Композиторов (Moscow Composers’ Union), the journal is published by Стейдж-Мастер/Stage Master with assistance from Le chant du monde.

Organ is published in Russian with a collective summary in English; it is edited by the musicologist, organist, and pedagogue Evgeniâ Krivickaâ. Introducing instruments from around the world with specifications and photographs, and providing interviews and reports on organ events, the journal addresses a wide range of readers, from organists and organ builders to students and teachers, and everyone interested in organ music.

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by | November 3, 2010 · 6:55 am

Waiting for qi

Houqi (waiting for qi) was a technique employed by Chinese authorities in the fourteenth century to determine the onset of spring by measuring the emanations of qi, the active principal of life. A set of standard pitchpipes, each corresponding to a specific calendar period, was filled with ashes and buried in a sealed chamber; when the sun entered the second two-week period of a given month the seminal force of qi was supposed to rise and expel the ashes from the pipe that matched the calendar period.

Unfortunately, the method failed to produce the desired results, and a great deal of discussion over the millennia as to what kind of soil to use, where to place the pitchpipes, and so on, failed to improve it. Ultimately the great music theorist Zhu Zaiyu (朱載堉, 1536–1611) criticized houqi as a poor example of scientific method.

This according to “Origins of the controversy over the houqi method (候气法疑案之发端)” by Tang Jikai (唐继凯) in Jiaoxiang: Journal of Xi’an Conservatory of Music (交响：西安音乐学院学报), vol. 22, no. 3:101 (fall 2003), pp. 27–31. Above, a calligrapher’s rendition of the Chinese character for qi.

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by | September 1, 2010 · 8:12 am

A museology manifesto

While he is well known among organologists and ethnomusicologists for the universal instrument classification system that he established with Erich von Hornbostel in 1914, Curt Sachs (1881–1959) was also a pioneer in music museology. When the Nazi regime dismissed him from his positions in Berlin in 1933 he was invited to collaborate with André Schaeffner at the Musée d’Ethnographie in Paris (now the Musée de l’Homme) on classifying their instrument collection; he worked there until he left for New York in 1937.

During his tenure at the museum Sachs wrote and published “La signification, la tache et la technique museographique des collections d’instruments de musique” (Mouseion xxvii–xxviii [1934], 153–84), a manifesto for instrument museums and restoration deontology that established basic music museological principles. He argued for the primacy of the exhibition over the collection, and built a theory of the musical object that has never required updating. Many of Sachs’s propositions far exceeded the aesthetic concepts of Western music, reflecting the concerns of a universalist musicologist well before the codification of ethnomusicology.

This according to “Curt Sachs as a theorist for music museology” by Florence Gétreau, an essay included in our recently published Music’s intellectual history.

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by | August 18, 2010 · 11:47 am

Not a universal language

The first meeting and interchange between Māori and Europeans was a musical one. As the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and his party sailed toward the coast of Aotearoa (now New Zealand) on a December evening in 1642, they saw canoes approaching them and heard the men in the prows singing and blowing on a trumpet-like instrument. Two of the Dutch sailors were ordered to play welcoming tunes on their own trumpets; the exchange continued until darkness fell and the Māori paddled away.

A few days later the Dutch launched a small rowboat holding seven unarmed sailors. The Māori immediately sent canoes to attack it, and killed four of the sailors; the others swam to safety, and the canoes were driven away by Dutch gunfire.

This tragic turn of events was eventually explained: The first Māori party intended to challenge the strangers and invite them to fight. They had probably been performing a haka—a ritual war chant—and their horn was likely a pūtātara (above), a signaling device that may be used for hostile confrontations. The groups’ misinterpretations of each other’s music making led to a fatal misunderstanding.

This according to “Music historiography in New Zealand” by Martin Lodge, an essay included in our recently published Music’s intellectual history. Below, a performance by a haka team.

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by | August 12, 2010 · 3:56 pm

Wine for the organist

The organ built by Gebrüder Oberlinger Orgelbau in 1997 for St. Martin in Cochem includes an innovative stop called Riesling 2fach. Pulling the stop opens a small cabinet holding two bottles of Riesling wine.

This according to “Neue Orgel in der Pfarrkirche ‘St. Martin’ zu Cochem/Mosel” by Wilhelm Basten (Die Auslese 42/2 [1999], pp. 22–23).

(Thanks to Tina Frühauf!)

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by | June 21, 2010 · 4:45 pm

Harry Partch’s instruments

Sponsored by American Public Media and The Harry Partch Foundation, the free Internet resource Harry Partch’s instruments includes interviews with Partch, a complete recorded performance of his The bewitched, links to essays by and about Partch, and—perhaps most engagingly—a virtual instrumentarium that allows visitors to “play” each of the 27 instruments that he designed and built via their computer’s mouse or keyboard.

The website was produced as part of the American Mavericks radio and Internet series, which features  the music and stories of visionary American composers. The series is produced in association with the San Francisco Symphony and its Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas.

Below, Partch demonstrates his instruments, ca. 1958 (in two parts).

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