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 Among these, the stone and wood instruments have become outdated.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.
Pipa is a type of plucked string instrument and belongs to the Lute family. It is a four-stringed lute with 30 frets and pear-shaped body. The Pipa is to be held upright by the instrumentalist and played with five small plectra attached to each finger of the right hand. This musical instrument has a remarkable expressive power and an extremely dynamic range. Yueqin, a plucked string instrument, is a moon shaped lute with shorter neck and four strings. Gugin is another important plucked string instrument, which is like a seven-stringed zither.
Wind musical instruments are very popular in China. A Dizi, traditionally made of bamboo, is the simplest wind instrument. This instrument is especially popular, as it is a low cost instrument and is relatively easy to learn.
Zulu Musical Instruments, Essential To Develop Musical Traditions In Africa
African music is the music of Africans who live in a large region of 50 nations, each with a special culture, history and language, South of Sahara. Zulu musical instruments are part of this multilingual culture. African music has some distinct characteristics: the use of repetition is one of them. Another important characteristic is the polyphony; this is the combination of different musical parts played simultaneously.
The history is marked by the awesome military strategies of the Zulu King Shaka. The King’s and his warriors’ campaign of expansion is well known in world history. Zulu rich traditional culture includes songs, dances and colorful rituals, Zulu musical instruments are spectacular and original. A variety of Zulu musical instruments are well known, s well as the traditional Mine dance; Zulus have longtime used their music as a cry for freedom.
African music is really rich in modes of expression: drum ensembles are using Zulu musical instruments from the percussion family. Each drummer uses special methods to produce sounds to distinguish his drum from the others. Iron bells are very popular Zulu musical instruments; they are used to produce a repeated sound to help the drummers to play at the correct time.
Zulu musical instruments, rare and very special
The akadinda is a king of xylophone; two groups of African musicians are playing simultaneously. The first group is playing repeatedly the same pattern; the second group plays to fill in the missing sounds. Groups of Zulu musicians play also using flutes, trumpets or xylophones. Each player plays a single note in a strange rotation with the other players. The result is a polyphonic piece, characteristic to African music.
Musical practices of South African people were observed from many years; Zulu musical instruments are obsolete. Venda mbila is an old Zulu musical instrument; it is not used anymore. Reed flutes, contrary, are still very popular. The influence of foreign cultures and civilizations causes many of old Zulu musical instruments to become obsolete.
Musical instruments such as tsonga – a horn, ingungu – a friction drum, nkoka – a drum, pedi – a flute, venda – musical bow and stick, deze and demba – thumb piano and resonatos, umfece – ankle rattles are almost obsolete.
To preserve this awesome heritage of Zulu musical instruments, the necessary information was entered into a database; each Zulu musical instrument was digitally photographed to preserve all information about it.
The Major Categories of Musical Instruments
There are innumerable musical instruments that have evolved with time. In general, instruments are categorized according to their physical properties on how they are played, their functionality and the range of the instrument.
In ancient times it was much easier to categorize the instruments as their classification was based on instruments where the sound is produced, vibrating sound producing instruments and percussion instruments made from wood or metal and skinheads.
User Interfaces of Musical Instruments:
Construction of these musical instruments requires years of training and practice. Most of the musical instruments have key board and a user inter face. Most of the Keyboard instruments are placed with a musical keyboard and each key generates a different sound and some keys also have an extra means that helps them manipulate different sounds. These key produce sound made by wind and vibrating strings. While some instrument work without a keyboard but they still have the same physical arrangement of keys and produce sound waves likewise.
Wind Instruments
An instrument that has a resonator in which a column of air is set into vibration is called wind instruments and the musician has to blow into the mouthpiece which is set at the end of the resonator. And the length of the tube determines the pitch of the sound. You can even modify the sound produced manually. Plus the sound can be produced by blowing through a reed.
There are basically two types of Wind Instrument
• Brass Instruments
• Woodwind Instruments
The wooden instruments are made of wood and the brass musical instruments are made of brass and the best way to determine the quality of the material used is by examining how the musical instrument produces sound because in brass instruments the players lips start to vibrate while in the wooden musical instruments the reed vibrates or the player blows against the edge of an open hole.
For example the Saxophone is made of brass but it is categorized in the woodwind category because it vibrates the air in the column. While the wooden coronet is made of brass but it is categorized in the brass family because the lips of the player vibrates when he plays the instruments.
The Bell Is the Most Important Part of the Wind Instruments
The wind instruments have a bell shaped part which is round and flares open opposite the mouthpiece and they are usually found in trumpets and horns. In brass musical instruments the acoustical coupling from the inside and outside air occurs at the bell and the shape of the bell optimizes the sound.Plus in most wood wind instruments the musical notes vent are at the uppermost holes and the main function of the bell is to improve the consistency between the tone of the notes.
By changing the length of the vibrating air column and the effective length of the tube and opening or closing the side holes you can obtain different notes on these wood wind musical instruments.