Whistles are very old instruments. People have found some whistles that were made in the Iron Age. A recorder is a type of whistle. It has holes for seven fingers and one thumb. It also has one end bigger than the other. The first recorders were made in the 1500s. Some remains of these have been found in Germany, the Netherlands and Greece.
Many people played the recorder in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s. King Henry VIII of England had 76 recorders. William Shakespeare talks about recorders in his play "Hamlet" and John Milton talks about them in his poem "Paradise Lost". Recorders from that time are now called Renaissance recorders.
In the 1600s, the people who made recorders tried new ways to make them sound better. They also wanted them to play more difficult music. Recorders from this time are called Baroque recorders. They were thinner than Renaissance recorders. They were also made in several parts that fitted together. In the picture at the top of the page, one of the recorders is in three parts.
From the second half of the 1700s, people preferred to play the flute and clarinet instead of the recorder. Flutes are good for playing music which has a large range of notes. Flutes are also better for playing music which needs many chromatic notes.
In the 1900s people wanted to play old music with old kinds of instrument. In England, Arnold Dolmetsch was one of the people who was famous for this. Other musicians also began to play the recorder at serious music concerts. Some of these people were Frans Brüggen, Hans-Martin Linde, Bernard Kranis and David Munrow. In modern times, people have written new music for the recorder. Some of these people are Paul Hindemith, Luciano Berio, John Tavener, Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Gordon Jacob and Edmund Rubbra.
The recorder is sometimes used in popular music. The Beatles played the recorder in their song "Fool on the Hill" and the Rolling Stones used a recorder in "Ruby Tuesday (song)".
Plastic recorders were invented in the 20th century. They are cheap and vary greatly in quality (that is often not related to the price) depending on the manufacturer. They are easy instruments to play simple music. Many elementary schools use plastic recorders to teach music to children.
The head joint of the recorder is used as a noise, rhythm and effect instrument, and as a toy musical instrument with children. Because the recorder head works like a whistle, it can be used as such. With a bit practice, it is easy to play all kind of rhythms. Effects are made by opening and covering the lower end of the head joint with the hand while blowing. Many players blow harder like "normal" recorder playing (like with a pea whistle), to get a very shrill and loud sound. Professor Agnes Dorwarth of the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg argues this is an attractive way to get children to play with part of the instrument, which can make playing the entire instrument more inviting.
Recorders are made in different sizes. The lowest note of most recorders is either C or F. This is the note that is heard when the player covers all the finger holes and the thumb hole. The soprano recorder is the size of recorder which is usually played in schools, also known as a Descant. The lowest note of the soprano recorder is C. Some recorders are smaller than the soprano recorder but are not common. The alto recorder is bigger than the soprano recorder. Its lowest is F. The other main sizes are the tenor recorder (with lowest note C) and the bass (with lowest note F). Instruments larger than the bass are made but are not common. These include the Great Bass, Contrabass, Subgreatbass and Subcontrabass. Recorders higher than a soprano recorder include the Sopranino and Garklein recorders.
The recorder is a very social instrument. Many people enjoy playing in small or large groups. Groups often play music that is written for several different sizes of recorder together. Often there is a separate musical part for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorders. This covers a wider range of notes, from high sounds to low, than any single instrument could play. Some music is written for a recorder duet (two instruments), trio (three), or quartet (four). These groups are called "ensembles," from the French word for "together." Some people play in recorder orchestras. These sometimes have 50 or 60 players with nine sizes of instrument.
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Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph (known as Adolphe) Sax (November 6, 1814 – February 4, 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who played the flute and clarinet. He is best known for inventing the saxophone.
Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant in Wallonia, Belgium. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age. He entered two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of fifteen. He studied those two instruments at the Royal School of Singing in Brussels.
Adolphe's first important invention was an improvement of the bass clarinet design. He patented this at the age of twenty-four. In 1841, Sax moved to Paris. Around this time he invented the saxophone.
He got a job teaching at the Paris Conservatoire starting in 1867.
Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. He died in 1894 in Paris.
Unforgiven
Unforgiven is a 1992 American western movie directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris. It ranks #98 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies and won the Best Picture Academy Award. It is set in the 1880s in Wyoming and Kansas about an aging outlaw and killer.
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital city of Romania. It is the largest city in the country. The city has a population of 1.9 million people. It is made up of 6 "sectors". It has a humid continental climate ("Cfa" in the Koeppen climate classification). It became the capital of Romania in 1862. It is the centre of Romanian media, culture and art. Bucharest is the 6th largest city in the European Union by population within city limits.
According to European standards, Bucharest is an old city. The first mention of it appears in 1459. Its eclectic architecture is a mixture of historical, transitional, Communist and modern styles. In the period between the two World Wars, thanks to the elegant urban architecture and ingenuity of the urban elite, Bucharest was named "Paris of the East", or "Little Paris" (Micul Paris).
Tocantins
Tocantins can refer to:
There are also some small Brazilian cities called "Tocantins".
Avalanche
An avalanche is a linked to snow. When there is too much snow on a mountain, some of the snow may fall, causing damage to things in its path. This is called an avalanche. People talk about avalanches because they may be dangerous to skiers and other people doing winter sports.
Large avalanches may carry stones, boulders and trees with them. They may bury people under them. If the people are not found rapidly enough by rescue teams they will die of suffocation (not getting enough air) or of hypothermia (freezing cold).
The chance of surviving an avalanche is as follows:
In Europe, the avalanche risk is widely rated on the following scale, which was adopted in April 1993 to replace the earlier non-standard national schemes. Descriptions were last updated in May 2003 to enhance uniformity pdf .
[1] Stability:
[2] additional load:
Gradient:
Avalanche size:
Surviving avalanches is very difficult, as the snow rushes at a very fast rate and can bury anyone alive in seconds. However, the snow in an avalanche acts like a liquid when descending. Thus, the best way is to actually 'swim' a backstroke. This will help as the person will be able to keep his/her face up and breathe, and also not get submerged in the snow at the same time (the force of swimming backwards is in contrast and opposes the force of the snow coming in his/her direction, rather than the snow totally taking over).