The slit drum must be one of the most ancient musical instruments of human invention. It is also known to have been used as a means of long-distance communication in the ancient cultures of Africa, Asia and the Americas. It has a number of different names, including the log drum, the slit gong and the wood block, but all of the terms refer to essentially the same instrument.
A slit drum is a hollow percussion instrument, usually of bamboo or wood, depending on the materials available. It has one or more slits cut into the surface, which increase the instrument’s resonance. Most slit drums have three slits that form an “H” shape. In most cases, the two U-shaped tongues created by the “H” are of different lengths or thicknesses. This means that they produce two different pitches when struck. The closed ends of the slit drum create a resonating chamber, which increases the instrument’s volume. A mallet is usually used to strike a slit drum.

Ancient Aztec culture used a type of slit drum called the “teponaztli.” It was made of a hardwood log, often one that had been fire-hardened, and it had the usual slits creating an H-shape. These instruments were […]

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The tenor drum is one of the many drums used by American marching bands. Although now most commonly found in parades and on football fields during halftime shows, this instrument has been used since the mid-19th century by a variety of composers. It is a lower-pitched variant of the snare drum, another marching band staple. On the field, the tenor drum is easily recognized, as it is carried in mounted sets of three to six drums. This setup allows the musician to pay multiple drums simultaneously, adding to the richness of the percussion.
Tenor drums are played with a wide variety of implements, all of them a form of mallet or drumstick. The heads of these beaters may be made of a variety of materials, including wood, plastic, nylon, felt, rubber or fleece. The drumheads of tenor drums are usually as taut as possible, creating a relatively high-pitched sound that is very effective in outdoor situations.
As mentioned, tenor drums are carried and played in sets. The name of a set usually refers to the number of drums it has; a “quad,” for example, is composed of four drums. Each drum in a set is of a different diameter and thus produces […]

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The modern life has become too fast and does not allow us to spare extra time required for the entertainment in the day-to-day activities. The various sources of the entertainment are outside the home and hence involve journeys to and fro, booking tickets in advance, adjustment of our schedule according to the timings etc. All this can be avoided if we can get the same entertainment at home with comforts and convenience.

This is possible now with the availability of all the means of entertainments, which can be installed at home. We know the many appliances through which we can have the entertainment like tele vision, music system, cd/dvd player etc. We generally have all these at home but these are not synchronized for the ultimate pleasure and satisfaction. Home theaters are the best way to get all the entertainment at home without all the hassles.
Let us see what is a home theater. Actually this means customizing your own equipment according to your needs and requisitions of entertainment. This involves a little planning and then executing this plan.
It is important to note this plan gives you complete freedom of selection of the equipment. Firstly you have to think what […]

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I was recently listening to the soundtrack to River Dance. I find that the lack of lyrics in the music makes it useful to listen to while writing. I’ve listened to the music dozens of times, yet for some reason, I was struck by something new this time: namely, the prevalence and importance of the drums in the music. Perhaps I never picked up on it before because the sound of all those clogs creates an overwhelming impression of percussion. Yet if it weren’t for the drums and their undeniable rhythm, none of those Irish dancers would be able to find the beat. So that made me wonder, exactly how much of a tradition do drums have in Ireland?
When it comes to Irish drums, the bodhran pretty much has a corner on the market. Interestingly, this instrument’s history is a relatively short one, at least as it compares to those of drums in some other areas of the world. The first definite record of the bodhran’s use was only about four hundred years ago, in 1603, when it was used by the Irish during their rebellion against the English. Like the taiko drums of Japan, the bodhran was used as […]

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Harp guitars are extremely interesting and odd-looking instruments. Quite frankly, if a guitar and a harp were to have a baby, it would look like this instrument: hence the name, I suppose. It is difficult to describe a harp guitar, far better that one should actually look the instrument up. However, in essence, a harp guitar looks like a guitar with an additional, elongated neck coming out of the top. The strings of this second neck mimic the strings of a harp. This description hardly does the instrument justice, but it gives a general impression. Suffice it to say, harp guitars are not something you see every day.
The history of the harp guitar is not as long as either of the two instruments it is named for, both of which are thought to have been around for thousands of years. The harp guitar, on the other hand, has only existed for a few centuries. Its history is a bit muddled, and instrument historians believe that over the course of time, several different and unrelated stringed instruments have claimed the appellation of “harp guitar.” However, the definition of today is something along the lines of “A guitar, in any of its […]

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At first glance, a tenor guitar does not appear to differ greatly from a standard classical acoustic or electric guitar. The tenor’s shape is (usually) similar to the more standard models, and so is its size. Upon closer inspection, however, a careful observer will note that this instrument has only four strings, as opposed to the six usually sported by guitars. Such an observer will also notice that the tenor guitar is slightly smaller than its relatives. However, it is usually the musical genre that makes a tenor guitar easy to identify. These instruments are most commonly used as rhythm instruments in jazz and blues music
Although it is now quite hard to pinpoint when the very first tenor guitar was built, they appear to have been used by musicians for at least 100 years. Certainly tenor guitars have been around since first decade of the twentieth century, because published and dated instructional books for the tenor guitar from that era that still exist today. The roots of the tenor guitar may be traced to the tenor banjo, an instrument popular in the early 20th century for its suitability to the new style of music we now know as jazz. Accordingly, […]

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If you find out someone is a guitarist and you ask them what kind of guitar they play, chances are that the answer will not be “the acoustic bass.” In the world of guitars, this instrument does not have an overly large following. It lacks the historical tradition of the classical acoustic guitar and the sexiness of the electric bass. However, the acoustic bass should not be discounted, as it does hold a certain place in the world of music. Although rarely utilized in its early years, it gained a foothold during the late 1980s when it was used during MTV Unplugged programs.
Acoustic bass guitars are an extremely recent advent as compared with most other versions of the instrument. The first acoustic basses on record are those made during the 1950s, and the first modern such instrument was developed in the early 1960s. The modern acoustic bass is accredited to Ernie Ball of California, who was supposedly felt that since electric guitars had bass instruments, acoustic guitars should too. Regardless of his motivation, Ball went on to collaborate with a man named George Fullerton and together, the two of them developed the first commercially produced acoustic bass, the Earthwood. This […]

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The most common number of strings on a guitar is six. This number is simply the result of the natural evolution in the instrument, which has undergone an unknowable number of transformations over the past 5000 years or so. Of course, while six may be the most common number of strings on the modern guitar, it is hardly the only number. Guitars of the 21st century are available in an almost inexhaustible supply of variations, including eight-string, ten-string, twelve-string and, as will be discussed herein, seven-string instruments.
The seven-string guitar has been used for at least 150 years in various cultures, such as Russian (more on this later). This history is evinced by the dated surviving works written for the instrument, such as those by Napoleon Coste, a French guitarist of the 19th century. The extra string of this instrument (or strings, depending on what number you start from) is intended to extend the bass range. On the modern six-string guitar, the seventh is usually added in one of two ways. The first and most common method is to increase the width of the fingerboard so that the additional string may be stopped by the left hand. The second method is […]

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The battente guitar is also known as the chitarre battente, which in Italian, translates literally as “beating guitar.” (One can only assume that the verb in this translation refer to the action used to play the guitar rather than the instrument’s use as a club.) At first glance, the battente guitar is very similar to the common classical guitar. However, a careful observer will note that this instrument is smaller than its classical counterpart and that it (probably) only has four strings, which are steel as opposed to nylon. The battente guitar is most commonly used in the folk music of Calabria, Puglia and Basilicata, all of which are regions in southern Italy. This geographical distribution is believed to be a holdover from previous times, during which the battente guitar is believed to have been widely used throughout southern and central Italy. Historical examples of the instrument still exist from as far back as the 17th century, and such instruments are believed to have been ancestors of the modern classical guitar
There is quite a bit of variety to be found in modern battente guitars. They come in three excepted standard sizes, these being small, medium and large. The last two […]

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The guitar has a seemingly endless number of incarnations, no doubt due to the instruments lengthy history and wide geographical use. One such incarnation is the Portuguese guitar, a plucked instrument with twelve strings strung in six courses of two strings each. The instrument is noticeably smaller than a standard classical guitar, has a distinctive tuning mechanism (more on this later) and its body is more rounded, or “pear-shaped.” These characteristics have to do with the fact that Portuguese guitar is actually a cittern, a close cousin of the guitar. The cittern was a very popular instrument in Europe during the Renaissance Period, valued for its relatively inexpensive price and easy of play. A specific cittern, the English “guitar,” is thought to be the direct ancestor of the modern Portuguese guitar.
The Portuguese guitar as such can be traced back to the early 19th century. During that century, the instrument was produced in a variety of shapes and sizes in accordance with regional aesthetic preferences. It was not until the first half of the 20th century that Portuguese guitars were standardized. At that time, the instrument was refined into two distinct models: the Lisboa guitar and the Coimbra guitar. These two […]

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