Posts Tagged ‘instruments’ :

Evoking the Past by Hearing Its Sounds

FOR Jordi Savall — early-music pioneer and master of the viola da gamba — music is always more than fleeting sounds. It enfolds histories. It reflects worlds. To draw a distinction between musicology and the sheer joy of performance is next to impossible.

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Date: July 16th, 2010
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A New World Of Music Where Anything Is Possible

Forget Old Europe. Contemporary classical music takes its cues from around the globe. When it comes to classical music, for most people Europe is the epicentre of the tradition. If asked to imagine the sound world of a Russian piece for, say, violin and piano, it would not be a stretch to think of beautiful sweeping melodies accompanied by lush harmonies on the piano, a la Tchaikovsky.

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Date: July 5th, 2010
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Justin Sandercoe’s YouTube guitar lessons rack up 60 million hits

AN Australian musician has become possibly the world’s greatest guitar teacher after placing his lessons on YouTube. Justin Sandercoe’s free online tutorials for beginner guitar players have been viewed more than 60 million times in the past four years.

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Date: June 23rd, 2010
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Software Helps Novices Pick Up Instruments

It fuses intricate classical music compositions and the simplistic iconography of a PlayStation. It allows the most unmusical people to play Beethoven in minutes. It has caused a revolution in how music is taught across Europe. And now it is making waves in Scottish schools.

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Date: April 12th, 2010
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18th-Century Cello Music – Curves and Waves

In 1890 a 13-year-old Spanish musical prodigy, Pablo Casals, was rummaging through a second-hand sheet-music store in Barcelona. He stumbled across a tattered copy of six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. These pieces, written in the 1720s, had long been obscure. But for the young Pablo, their melodic beauty was audible.

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Date: March 10th, 2010
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In Praise of Infidelity

beethoven_bIn an interview last April, before his performance of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at London’s Covent Garden, the noted opera and orchestral conductor Semyon Bychkov stated: “You start trying to be faithful to a composer’s score but great masterpieces give you enormous possibilities for interpretation. You can serve the music without being subservient.” The statement of St. Augustine could apply: “Love God and do what you will.”

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Date: March 5th, 2010
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Young Pianist Thrust Into Elite Group

kirill_gersteinOdd, the pianist Kirill Gerstein thought. A music critic from Houston was coming to interview him in Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Gerstein’s manager had arranged the meeting, at the Omni Hotel’s J bar, to coincide with a run of concerts last November. Might as well meet the writer, the pianist thought.

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Date: March 3rd, 2010
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The Sweet Sound of Nightingales

violinshapeFlorian Leonhard, a London violin dealer, keeps a large fossilised ammonite in his showroom. It echoes the scroll on a fiddle’s neck, but it also has symbolic significance: violin-making, he says, is a “fossil profession”. He has a point.

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Date: February 17th, 2010
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Notes From Leonardo’s Musical Dreams

leonardoviolaThe problem with playing string quartets is you need four string players in a room. Leonardo da Vinci figured out a solution: a hybrid of a keyboard and bowed string instrument, a mythical beast like the griffin, part eagle and part lion.

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Date: February 8th, 2010
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Secret of Stradivarius Violin Varnish Picked Apart

np39It may be the wood, the glue or the shape — but experts have long suspected that the real secret of the cherished Stradivarius violin’s special sound lay in its gleaming varnish.
 
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Date: December 5th, 2009
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