Dating back to the slave trade the drum has been used all over the world as a means of communication and self expression. Its broad variety of users includes the early African tribes and the Native Alaskan tribes, both using them for ceremonial purposes. The Africans brought drums with them to the Americas and helped to develop their popularity among American musicians. In the mid 1900’s drum sets were brought about. These revolutionary collaborations of percussive pieces started off with a pair of hi-hats, a bass and snare drum, and a couple of tom toms. Later as the music progressed, so did the drum kits, completely eliminating the need for an entire drum section. With the coming of the rock and roll movement the drum kits were changing, they needed to accommodate the new music styles. They became sonically diverse and even electronic drums were brought about; making them infinitely adjustable both ergonomically and musically. With every major drum manufacturer competing to have the best product on the market drums will always be evolving and the ” limit for drum set creation will simply be the imagination of the musicians.” (http://www.josaka.com/Features/2005/History-of-Drums.htm)
The sound waves for open ended and string instruments is fairly straight forward. However, for a closed end instrument, such as a drum, the sound waves are different. A lot of the energy is dissipated through the shell of the drum, which is the reason for the variance in drum construction these days. Many different kinds of wood are used to generate different sounds, or a different amount of energy absorption. For a warmer, deeper sound maple construction is used while birch is used to get a high, resonant tone full of vibration. The heaviest wood that dissipates the most amount of energy is oak, creating a lower, flat sound.
When the wooden shell construction isn’t enough for drummers to achieve the right amount of sound wave dampening, different drum heads are used.
The book America’s Musical Landscape starts by looking back to early North American Music from the American Indians, to the religious and non religious music of the European and African settlers. According to the book “Native American music was and is song, sometimes supported by instruments.”1 The Native American used different types of instruments to accompany their songs or chants such as the drums, flute and rattles. Like music for us today the Native Americans used music in all different aspects of their lives. The early European settlers br...
Percussion instruments are by far the most dominant of the four major instrument families. There are many different types of cymbals and drums, which are ...
The way drum corps members perform is deeper on a cognitive level in the brain. The performer has the music in their head while marching and this requires two different parts of the brain. A way to help with the intensity of cognitive power used is through relaxation training or “insight therapy”. In one study, “both the cognitively based treatment program and the behavior-rehearsal program proved effective in reducing musical-performance anxiety”(Kendrick, Craig Lawson, & Davidson, 1982) . These methods reduced performers’ negative self talk. This gives the members a smoother
Beck, John. Encyclopedia of Percussion. 2nd ed. New York: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2007. Accessed May 15, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=8U83AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
The drums symbolized Joby’s fear of the war. Throughout the story he was saying how he was afraid to fight and the war because all he had was a drum. The general suggests that Joby beats his drums instead of fighting in the war. Joby takes on that offer, even though he is scared, he does it. The general called Joby the heart of the
Briefly stated, the outer ear (or pinna) 'catches' and amplifies sound by funneling it into the ear canal. Interestingly, the outer ear serves only to boost high frequency sound components (1). The resonance provided by the outer ear also serves in amplifying a higher range of frequencies corresponding to the top octave of the piano key board. The air pressure wave travels through the ear canal to ultimately reach and vibrate the timpanic membrane (i.e.-- the eardrum). At this particular juncture, the pressure wave energy of sound is translated into mechanical energy via the middle ear.
For example, music is becoming more widely available to the general public with the introduction of mp3 players and the growth of the online music industry. The essay is concluded with my personal feelings towards the use of electronic technology within the live music industry, as well as the recording studio environment. This conclusion reveals that while the use of electronic technology has become crucial in the modern music market, it should not detract from the quality of live music produced. In this way, I feel that the use of electronic technology – namely drum machines and computerised backing tracks – have had a negative effect on the live music industry, because the majority of artists within the ‘pop’ genre now use computer-generated backing for live performances.
Percussion has evolved from a small category to a wide variety of simple and technical instruments. Percussion is a category of musical instruments that is played using the hands or with a handheld stick/beater. Percussion started thousands of years ago when people played rhythms on random objects to please their friends and scare their enemy’s. People over the years discovered different ways to hit the objects.
A jazz article by Raul Fernandez talks about Latin jazz and says “Latin jazz, also called Afro-Cuban jazz, a style of music that blends rhythms and percussion instruments of Cuba and the Spanish Caribbean with jazz and its fusion of European and African musical elements”(Fernandez). The quote explains that rhythm combined with influences from all around the world prove once again that music is the language spoken by all and when it comes together it makes one amazing sound. One of the big factors that brought Latin jazz to be such a great and amazing music was the percussionist or to be more specific, the drummers. “Afro-Cuban drummers played a fundamental role in the development of Latin jazz from the late 1940s through the 1960s, giving the genre its seemingly inexhaustible stream of rhythmic patterns, phrasing, and styles”(Fernandez). Latin jazz continued to gain popularity as big bands started to break apart and get smaller. And play lighter music and different kind of style that had never been heard of
Music is a form of communication, letting others knows what is going on in the country, political, social or economic and any other problems the people of the Caribbean faced. With so many different ethnic backgrounds in the Caribbean, they are people with Asians, Indians, and Africans descents. This created a language and culture barrier but each ethnic background shared a common link music. Music bridged the gap between the different ethnicities Music is part of everyone’s culture especially here in the Caribbean. Our culture is recognized worldwide for its music. The Caribbean has different genres of music such as calypso, reggae, dance hall, zouk and many others. Our music has roots in both African and European cultures. The drum rhythm comes from the African in...
There are several types of instruments that allow you to have a variety of sounds. There is also a wide variety of bass guitars, but the difference between bass guitars and other instruments is that no matter what type of bass you get, there sound really is not going to vary to much. The bass guitar unique sound is what gives a song structure.
The piano replaced these instruments because it offered options previously not available with the other instruments. In the early 1700s, Gottfried Silbermann invented the precursor for the damper pedal, which
Marching bands became extensively throughout the nineteenth century due to the surplus drums and brass instruments formerly used by the military after the civil war, especially amongst black and Creole musicians. Thus, the syncopated polyrhythm of African music was mixed with traditional marching music and other popular musical styles, and became...
Mainly the West Africans used percussive instruments. These drums came in all sizes ranging from ten to twelve inches to ten to twelve feet. Their drums were made out of hollowed out logs and gourds with a tight skin over the hollow. They also used idiophones to make music. They used a variety of bells, castanets, gongs, and sometimes they made small xylophones or small pianos. Aerophones weren't as prevalent as the percussions or idiophones. Some explorers made small flutes, horns and trumpets from elephant tusks.
Produced sound from speakers has become so common and integrated in our daily lives it is often taken for granted. Living with inventions such as televisions, phones and radios, chances are you rarely ever have days with nothing but natural sounds. Yet, few people know the physics involved in the technology that allows us to listen to music in our living room although the band is miles away. This article will investigate and explain the physics and mechanism behind loudspeakers – both electromagnetic and electrostatic.