January 24, 2022 | Instruments, Resources
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...
November 16, 2021 | Instruments, Resources
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...
December 10, 2019 | Blog, Music Composition
Firstly, the majority of popular music is diatonic. This means it was composed within a major or minor key signature and does not modulate. Furthermore, a key signature determines the set of pitches that “agree” with each other harmonically. There are usually 7...
October 10, 2019 | Blog, Music Composition
Hocketing Hocketing is a compositional technique used to develop one long musical idea into a more interesting sequence by dividing it into shorter phrases and distributing them among instruments with similar sounds. The technique has proved to be effective...
May 20, 2021 | Instruments, Resources
The Duduk, a woodwind instrument, originated about a thousand years ago in what we know now as Armenia. Performances often present it in pairs. While the first player performs the melody, the second player plays a constant drone tone called “dum,”. The...
