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Plucked and Hammered Stringed Instruments

Murray Campbell, Clive Greated, and Arnold Myers

in Musical Instruments: History, Technology, and Performance of Instruments of Western Music

This chapter discusses the acoustical principles underlying the behaviour of plucked and hammered stringed instruments, including the effects of the point of attack and the nature of the plectrum or ... More

This chapter discusses the acoustical principles underlying the behaviour of plucked and hammered stringed instruments, including the effects of the point of attack and the nature of the plectrum or hammer on the frequency spectrum and timbre of the sound. The significance of the feel of a string and the technique of pitch bending are explained. A survey of the historical development of plucked and hammered stringed instruments includes descriptions of lyre, psaltery, cittern, dulcimer, and cimbalom; and discussions of the evolution of harps, lute, and guitars. The construction and functioning of the modern lute and guitar are described, and current methods of performance on harp, lute, and classical guitar are outlined.Less

The Clef Club Concert

Maurice Peress

in Dvorák to Duke Ellington: A Conductor Rediscovers America's Music and Its African-American Roots

This chapter presents the detailed story of another historic recreation, this time on the stage of Carnegie Hall where in 1912 the Clef Club concert took place. New challenges were met: an unusual ... More

This chapter presents the detailed story of another historic recreation, this time on the stage of Carnegie Hall where in 1912 the Clef Club concert took place. New challenges were met: an unusual mix, the forming of a new Clef Club orchestra that included thirty strummers — ten each of mandolins, guitars and a rare harp guitar, and banjos — all of whom read complicated music very well; a boys' and men's choir; and a concert orchestra including eight pianists and various soloists. Will Marion Cook's dialect song, “Swing Along” for chorus and orchestra stopped the show as it did sixty seven years earlier.Less

SINGING FOR THE SOULS OF OUR BROTHERS: Musical Beginnings to the Middle of the Fifteenth Century

Jonathan E. Glixon

in Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260-1807

This chapter treats the beginnings of musical practice at the scuole grandi. It begins with a discussion of the use of chant, in particular a 1365 collection of mass propers and ordinaries for the ... More

This chapter treats the beginnings of musical practice at the scuole grandi. It begins with a discussion of the use of chant, in particular a 1365 collection of mass propers and ordinaries for the Scuola di Santa Maria della Carità. Also discussed are organs and organists, and the use of brothers of the confraternities to sing laude and at funerals. Finally, the evidence for occasional use of instruments, both winds and strings, in processions is examined.Less

SINGING PRAISES TO THE LORD: The Early Use of Professional Musicians, 1445–1500

Jonathan E. Glixon

in Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260-1807

This chapter examines the issue of paid singers of polyphony. First used in the middle of the 15th century, these men were also brothers of the scuole grandi for which they sang. They were paid ... More

This chapter examines the issue of paid singers of polyphony. First used in the middle of the 15th century, these men were also brothers of the scuole grandi for which they sang. They were paid relatively small fees for services at funerals and in processions, where laude were sung (these two tasks were sometimes assigned to different groups). These singers were not especially reliable, and discipline problems were common. In the 1490s, some scuole began to employ, on an occasional basis, professional singers from the chapel of San Marco. The question of repertory and the employment of wind and string instrument players and organists are also addressed.Less

THE BEST IN THE CITY: Salaried Musicians, 1500–1650

Jonathan E. Glixon

in Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260-1807

This chapter focuses on the salaried musicians of the six scuole grandi during their most active period, 1500-1650. The singers, usually four or five in each ensemble for processions, were ... More

This chapter focuses on the salaried musicians of the six scuole grandi during their most active period, 1500-1650. The singers, usually four or five in each ensemble for processions, were increasingly drawn from the ducal chapel and important monastic choirs, and were paid an annual salary. Financial considerations and government restrictions sometimes reduced the number and prestige of singers. The scuole also paid lower salaries to groups of lower status singers to sing at funerals. Some scuole briefly employed wind bands for processions, but much more common were ensembles of stringed instruments, at first a mixed ensemble of lute, harp, and lira, and then, from 1530, a homogeneous ensemble of bowed instruments, a violin band, with four to six members. Some of the scuole also built and maintained organs and hired organists, while several employed choirs of priests for liturgical functions.Less

Negation

Morton D. Paley

in Coleridge's Later Poetry

Samuel Taylor Coleridge always had a darker side to his vision of Being, although this was tempered by his vision of a harmoniously interrelated order of things, as expressed in the famous lines of ... More

Samuel Taylor Coleridge always had a darker side to his vision of Being, although this was tempered by his vision of a harmoniously interrelated order of things, as expressed in the famous lines of ‘The Eolian Harp’. The comparison of ‘Coeli Enarrant’ with the Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas/Joshua Sylvester Divine Weeks shows the latter to be less of a source than a counter-text presenting generally accepted Renaissance ideas about the universe that are explicitly rejected in Coleridge's poem. Imagery of night and darkness appear in both texts, but once more to opposite ends. In presenting nature as an unreadable text, Coleridge is surely conscious of nullifying the possibility of literary symbolism and with it the notion of the poet as interpreter of the universe. This is also the world that Coleridge would create in a powerful work of 1811, in the form of editorially arranged fragments: ‘Limbo’ and ‘Ne Plus Ultra’.Less

The Irish Coinage, 1534–1691

Michael Dolley

in A New History of Ireland: Early Modern Ireland 1534-1691

This chapter describes the history and origins of the Irish coinage from 1534 to 1691. The decision was taken to break with tradition and to strike in London a separate and distinct coinage for ... More

This chapter describes the history and origins of the Irish coinage from 1534 to 1691. The decision was taken to break with tradition and to strike in London a separate and distinct coinage for Ireland. The new coins, first struck in 1534, had as their obverse type a crowned shield with the arms of England and France, and for reverse the badge of a crowned harp, the novel Irish armorial recently assumed by Henry VIII. ‘Coin of the harp’ was the official name, soon shortened to ‘harp’, of the larger denomination. The ‘Hibernias’ coins from their reverse type, were dated 1691, and brought to a close a phase of Anglo-Irish monetary history of unparalleled interest for the economist.Less

Conclusion

in I Belong to This Band, Hallelujah!: Community, Spirituality, and Tradition among Sacred Harp Singers

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study about Sacred Harp communities in the United States. The analysis indicates that most singers participate in Sacred Harp groups because of the music ... More

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study about Sacred Harp communities in the United States. The analysis indicates that most singers participate in Sacred Harp groups because of the music and the fellowship, and that many singers, especially new ones, clearly seek a sense of authenticity and connection to history from Sacred Harp. The chapter also argues that the ethic of silence that prevails at singings provides space for singers to be fully and deeply engaged with the music and the community before they confront possible controversy.Less

Living Theatres

Peter Otto

in Multiplying Worlds: Romanticism, Modernity, and the Emergence of Virtual Reality

Although Wordsworth is the most influential poet of the Romantic era, his role in the development of modern concepts of virtuality has yet to be explored. Where Blake hopes to transform the actual by ... More

Although Wordsworth is the most influential poet of the Romantic era, his role in the development of modern concepts of virtuality has yet to be explored. Where Blake hopes to transform the actual by drawing on a virtuality (an open-ended, unstructured potential) that lies beyond it, Wordsworth discovers an analogous potential within the actual itself. This powerful revisioning of the actual is the topic of this chapter, which discusses Wordsworth's ‘Composed on Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’ and the ‘Cave of Yordas’ episode in Book VIII of The Prelude. It concludes by turning to romantic accounts of the Brocken Spectre and Aeolian Harp, which it argues are attempts to compose a ‘living theatre’ that, in contrast to popular entertainments such as the phantasmagoria, draws attention to the audience's active role in fabricating the illusions that appear before their eyes.Less

“Twang the lyre and rattle the lexicon”: Harps and Lyres in Modernist Poetry

Jennifer Kilgore-Caradec

in Modernist Objects: Literature, Art, Culture

This chapter offers a general survey of how harps and lyres were used as poetic instruments as well as how they were referenced in modernist poetry. Harps and lyres were foundational to poetic ... More

This chapter offers a general survey of how harps and lyres were used as poetic instruments as well as how they were referenced in modernist poetry. Harps and lyres were foundational to poetic composition in the laments and praise songs King David played with a harp resembling a begena, just as poets of the Ur dynasty had done before him. The oral tradition of accompanying poems with music from a harp or lyre ranged widely geographically from the China of Confucius to the skolias or banquet songs of ancient Greece. Harps and lyres continued to be in common use by Europe’s medieval troubadours. The very objects, harps and lyres have come to signify poetic tradition itself. As such, both words have been significantly used in the long tradition of English language poetry, and they have also been involved in war and war poetry. This chapter provides poetic examples showing the presence of harps and lyres in modernist poems, including the masculine and feminine modernisms of Britain and the United States (Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Sitwell, H.D., Moore, Millay, Auden and MacNeice) as well as African American modernisms.Less

Belief into Organization

in I Belong to This Band, Hallelujah!: Community, Spirituality, and Tradition among Sacred Harp Singers

This chapter, which examines how the beliefs and ideals of the individual members influenced the behaviors and organizational forms of Sacred Harp communities in the United States, identifies the key ... More

This chapter, which examines how the beliefs and ideals of the individual members influenced the behaviors and organizational forms of Sacred Harp communities in the United States, identifies the key themes relevant to the practices of Sacred Harp communities. These include religion, musical genre, authenticity and tradition, authority, and history. The chapter analyzes how the preconceptions of singers were reshaped through their engagement with Sacred Harp practices and communities.Less

Going Hollywood

in I Belong to This Band, Hallelujah!: Community, Spirituality, and Tradition among Sacred Harp Singers

This chapter examines the effects of the inclusion of two Sacred Harp songs in the film Cold Mountain, an event which it suggests never changed the fundamental practices of Sacred Harp singing more ... More

This chapter examines the effects of the inclusion of two Sacred Harp songs in the film Cold Mountain, an event which it suggests never changed the fundamental practices of Sacred Harp singing more than momentarily. Though some were raised to brief prominence by the media, they still emphasized the participatory, inclusive nature of Sacred Harp. The chapter contends that singers were able to extract lasting strength for Sacred Harp by pushing for publicity and creating opportunities for expansion, but otherwise emerged unscathed.Less

‘Another like me’: The Literary Partnership of Walter Besant and James Rice

Richard Storer

in Walter Besant: The Business of Literature and the Pleasures of Reform

During the first ten years of his career as a novelist Walter Besant wrote fiction collaboratively with James Rice, in an unusual partnership that only ended with Rice’s death in 1882. This essay ... More

During the first ten years of his career as a novelist Walter Besant wrote fiction collaboratively with James Rice, in an unusual partnership that only ended with Rice’s death in 1882. This essay examines the nine Besant and Rice novels and what is known about the partnership that produced them, including what is suggested by the intriguing portrait of the two authors painted around the time of Rice’s death. The Besant and Rice novels are often regarded as insignificant compared to Besant’s later solo work, but this essay argues that they should be considered as integral to Besant’s oeuvre and as essential for understanding of the key themes of his later work, such as social reform and authorship.Less

A Little Close Harmony: A Medley of Nineteenth-Century Harmony

Gage Averill

in Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony

Vocal harmonies dominated most of America during the early nineteenth century as homespun harmonies of singing schools coexisted with the schooled harmonies of the Handel Society and Boston's Haydn. ... More

Vocal harmonies dominated most of America during the early nineteenth century as homespun harmonies of singing schools coexisted with the schooled harmonies of the Handel Society and Boston's Haydn. As hymns were typically arranged with two to four voices, African Americans integrated various African techniques to create music with polyphonic attributes. The emergence of harmonies that possessed a variety of features heightened America's passion for multipart vernacular harmonies. Although Sacred Harp differed much from traditional close harmonies, this served as one of the most recognized legacy elements in analyzing the history of the singing school approach as it was still considered a vernacular harmony. Germans and Austrians also played a major role in the development of part-singing in America. This chapter focuses on how close harmonies originated and how American music matured during the period.Less

JOHN BECKWITH (b. 1927)Five Lyrics of the T’ang Dynasty (1947): Texts by Li Po, Wang-Wei, and Li Shang-Yin (translated by Witter Bynner)

Jane Manning

in Vocal Repertoire for the Twenty-First Century, Volume 1: Works Written Before 2000

This chapter discusses a brief early cycle by a distinguished senior Canadian composer, John Beckwith. The texts of its five parts are written by three different authors: Li Po, Wang-Wei, and Li ... More

This chapter discusses a brief early cycle by a distinguished senior Canadian composer, John Beckwith. The texts of its five parts are written by three different authors: Li Po, Wang-Wei, and Li Shang-Yin. The chapter considers this piece to be especially suitable for young singers, as it can give them every chance to shine. In addition, the poems’ delicate economy is mirrored in music which is direct in appeal, becoming fresh and natural. A subtly ‘oriental’ flavour is evoked by means of simple modality in the musical themes. The chapter describes how this piece can almost sing itself, since voice and piano writing is entirely idiomatic, and the modest proportions and range are not at all taxing.Less

Hearing the Field

Peter Pesic

in Music and the Making of Modern Science

The entwined stories of Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday interwove sound and electromagnetism, as had Hans Christian Ørsted’s original discoveries in that field. Though Faraday lacked ... More

The entwined stories of Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday interwove sound and electromagnetism, as had Hans Christian Ørsted’s original discoveries in that field. Though Faraday lacked mathematical education, his feeling for music complemented his visual and experimental turn of mind. Wheatstone also lacked scientific education but came from a family of instrument builders and invented a number of musical devices, including the concertina. Wheatstone extended Ernst Chladni’s work to investigate dynamic, transient vibrations of bodies, especially the transmission of sound along rods. In his lectures at the Royal Institution, Faraday demonstrated Wheatstone’s ongoing work, including some experiments involving Javanese instruments and guimbardes (“Jew’s harp”). This chapter discusses how their unusual collaboration led Wheatstone to discover telegraphy and Faraday to the intensive investigations of sound immediately preceding and preparing his discovery of electromagnetic induction, as indicated by his notebooks and letters. Throughout the book where various sound examples are referenced, please see http://mitpress.mit.edu/musicandmodernscience (please note that the sound examples should be viewed in Chrome or Safari Web browsers).Less

Marine mammal divers

Robert Elsner

in Diving Seals and Meditating Yogis: Strategic Metabolic Retreats

This chapter discusses the diving capacities of marine mammals, focusing on certain species of seal: ringed seals, harbor seals, harp seals, gray seals, hooded seals, Antarctic Weddell seals, and ... More

This chapter discusses the diving capacities of marine mammals, focusing on certain species of seal: ringed seals, harbor seals, harp seals, gray seals, hooded seals, Antarctic Weddell seals, and elephant seals. Maximum diving times of seals have been recorded in ranges from about fifteen minutes (ringed seals) to more than two hours (northern elephant seals); depths range from seventy (ringed seals) to a thousand meters (hooded seals and elephant seals). The seal must depend upon its steadily declining respiratory resources throughout the dive. Cessation of breathing sets the course toward progressive asphyxia, advancing inexorably unless reversed by timely respiratory exchange. The overall effect limits the range, duration, and depth of underwater excursions, depending on the animal's breath-holding endurance.Less

Sovereignties, Poetic and Otherwise

Jaime Rodríguez Matos

in Writing of the Formless: Jose Lezama Lima and the End of Time

Chapter two traces the link between the Guerrilla or Foco in the early stages of the Cuban Revolution and the role of the dictation of the Muses in Romantic poetry. The chapter shows to what extent ... More

Chapter two traces the link between the Guerrilla or Foco in the early stages of the Cuban Revolution and the role of the dictation of the Muses in Romantic poetry. The chapter shows to what extent what is at issue is not simply a literary or aesthetic question, but the difficulty of confronting the void at the center of any politics. This void is not something that is offered as a motif by the arts, but the central evidence made available by the political upheavals in the Age of Revolution. Nevertheless, much of the intellectual, political, and artistic work that confronts that foundational abyss has no other aim than to cover it up. Thus, the central aim of the chapter is to bring into sharper focus the implications of a thought that is central to the history of modern aesthetics and politics, but which remains fundamentally occluded by that same archive.Less

Third Case: Commercial Sealing

Andrew Linzey

in Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics

Killing seals is a huge international business. The Canadian seal hunt is the largest in the world taking more than 330,000 seals annually (at least until the latest European ban). The publicly ... More

Killing seals is a huge international business. The Canadian seal hunt is the largest in the world taking more than 330,000 seals annually (at least until the latest European ban). The publicly stated case for sealing by the Canadian government fails on all fronts: (i) The hunt is demonstrably not “humane”, (ii) young seals are still hunted after about 12 days, (iii) the hunt is not “closely monitored” nor can it be, as a pro-sealing report has shown, and (iv) coastal communities do not rely on the hunt “for their survival”. The Canadian government is unreasonably partisan and should legislate against sealing. Failing that, other countries should legislate against the import of Canadian seal products.Less