Modern musical instruments: overview, description, history of creation

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The world of musical instruments is by no means limited to Casio synthesizers, violins and guitars. Throughout the vast history of music, people have tried to invent something new. Often they came up with really unique instruments.

Theremin

This musical instrument is most often heard in horror films. It was invented by Russian scientist Lev Theremin in 1928. Of course, it is difficult to call it a modern musical instrument, but it still attracts a lot of attention.

The theremin gained wide popularity due to its sound - creepy, slightly vibrating. It is quite often used in their work by underground musicians. The difficulty of playing the theremin lies not only in the work only with the hands, due to which the pitch changes, but also in the need for a perfect ear.

Banjolele

Ukulele and banjo are instruments with millions of fans, but their hybrid, banjolele, never gained popularity. This instrument is a small banjo with four, notfive, strings. It sounds very soft and soothing, but not everyone is comfortable playing it. Banjolele has remained a niche musical instrument - maybe because of the name, maybe because of the inconvenience of playing it.

Omnicord

Suzuki introduced the Omnicord electronic musical instrument in 1981. It starts to sound only after pressing the chord key and hitting the metal plate. The omnicord had every chance of becoming the most popular instrument, but it never became one. However, on this musical instrument, the British band Gorillaz played the famous melody from the song by Clint Eastwood.

Baritone guitar

Guitars are one of the most popular instruments in the world. However, an unenviable future awaited the hybrids of musical instruments: the combination of a regular and a bass guitar into a baritone guitar was a failed experiment. Due to its peculiar design, it sounds lower than usual, but today it is used extremely rarely and only in recording studios to give the guitar part a richer sound.

Glucophone

A musical instrument with an unusual name, but a very pleasant sound. Outwardly, it resembles a hand-held metal drum. It is represented by two bowls, on one of which there are "tongues", and on the other - a resonating hole. Each bowl requires fine tuning.

The history of the creation of a glucophone is rather banal: its author, Felle Vega, cut off from the gasballoon part and named it Tambiro. Over the years, a modified glucophone began to be made in many workshops, and it gained popularity among street musicians.

Keyboard

A classic synth housed in a plastic guitar body. Like all previous musical instrument hybrids, it is rarely used, but has the advantage of being compact.

Wind synthesizer "Evie"

One of the most popular synthesizers, which, however, is unknown to a large number of music fans. It combines a synthesizer and a saxophone. Playing it is practically no different from playing the saxophone. However, thanks to its synthesizer functions, it can be connected to a computer.

Electronium

One of the most mysterious, but by no means modern musical instruments, invented by the inventor Raymond Scott. Very little is known about the electronium, except that it is the prototype of the synthesizer. The only working copy belongs to the composer Mark Mothersbaugh, however it does not work.

Musical Saw

Unlike a regular saw, a musical saw bends much more. During the game, the musician rests one end of it on the thigh, and holds the other with his hand. A bow is used to produce sound. It sounds very unusual, and you can often hear it in the compositions of folk groups. However, the musical saw is an instrument of an ethnic music genre that has not received much distribution.

Martenot Waves

One of the unusualinstruments, the author of which was Maurice Martenot. It sounds like theremin and violin. The design of the French instrument is very complex: the musician needs to press the keys while playing and pull on a special ring. "Martenot Waves" was used in the recording of Radiohead songs, which gave them an unusual sound.

Harpeji

A string-type Harpeji musical instrument created in 2007 by Tim Mix. He became the bridge that brought together the sound and technique of playing piano and guitar. Simply put, a modern musical instrument is a hybrid of two instruments, similar to a large zither. To play it, you need to press the strings located on the panel. This way of sound production is called tamping.

Harpeggies are divided into two types depending on the number of octaves and strings.

Laser harp

A unique concept of a musical instrument, created in the 80s by Jean-Michel Jarre, who began to use it in performances. The idea is very simple: with the help of laser beams, an image of a stringed harp is formed, after which the movement of the musician's hands is monitored. When a musician crosses one of the beams while playing the laser harp, the photocell sends a signal to the controller, which generates signals of the appropriate frequency, duration and volume.

There are two types of laser harps: open and closed. The last type of laser harps is necessarily created on the basis of a complete frame, in the lower part of which are locatedemitters, and at the top - photodetectors.

The principle of playing on a closed laser harp is simple: when the photo sensors detect all the rays, the instrument is silent, when any of the rays disappears, the corresponding sound is emitted. An open harp is much more interesting in sounding and playing. It is, in fact, a powerful laser, the beam of which is directed into the mirror of a standard galvanometer, which unfolds it in the form of ordinary harp strings. The photosensor is located near the exit point of the beams and catches the light reflected from the musician's hand crossing the beams. The processing of such a signal is very complex, since it requires sound filtering from light, dust and rays reflected from the walls, which requires special equipment. Perhaps the laser harp is one of the most modern musical instruments.