Good melodies are the building blocks of great-sounding music that sticks in people’s heads. You don’t hum the groove, you hum the melody. We will show you a few quick tips for crafting better melodies in the following tutorial. As usual, we prepared a...
The steelpan, a fairly newly developed instrument sticks out for its simplicity. This instrument, produced entirely of industrial refuse, has become a cultural symbol in Trinidad and Tobago. It consists of a gleaming metal surface with a hammered pattern of dents...
The melodica, like the pump organ and harmonica, is a free-reed instrument. Performers blow air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole on the side of the instrument. A musical keyboard lies on top. Pressing a key opens a hole, and enables air to flow through the...
A set of chimes is a pitched percussion idiophone instrument consisting of 22 or fewer cast bronze bells, similar to a carillon (from medieval Latin Cymbala, meaning “bells”). They range from two to twenty bells. Although the Voorslag (automatic clock...
The oud is a fretless stringed instrument with a short neck and pear form. Generally, it has 11 strings arranged in 6 courses. But some variants have 5 or 7 courses, with 10 or 13 strings, respectively. Unlike the lute, the oud does not have frets and has a thinner...
