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![]() Two vibraharps displayed at Century Mallet in Chicago, Illinois | |
Formerly | List
|
---|---|
Type | Private (1880–1977) Brand (1977–present) |
Industry | Musical instruments |
Founded | 1880 |
Founder | John Calhoun Deagan |
Headquarters | 1770 W Berteau Avenue, , |
Parent | Slingerland (1977–84) Yamaha Corporation (1984–present) |
J. C. Deagan, Inc. is a former musical instrument manufacturing company that developed and produced instruments from the late 19th- to mid-20th century. It was founded in 1880 by John Calhoun Deagan and initially manufactured glockenspiels. It was noted for its development of the xylophone, vibraharp, organ chimes, aluminum chimes, aluminum harp, Swiss handbells, the marimba, orchestra bells, and marimbaphone.
Church bells were revolutionized by Deagan through his design of tubular bells, and the NBC chimes were Deagan's creation. [1] Railroad passengers were summoned to the dining car with "G-E-C" played on a Deagan chime. [2]
The brand name ultimately was acquired by Yamaha, in 1984, and they distribute and sell products with the Deagan name. [3] [4] The tower of the former headquarters, still bearing the company name, is a landmark in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. [5]
The company was founded by John Calhoun Deagan (1853–1934), a professional clarinetist, in 1880. The J. C. Deagan company originally headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, until it moved to Chicago, Illinois, in the early 20th century. Deagan was unsatisfied with the intonation of the glockenspiels used in theater orchestras, with which he had performed. He experimented with the instrument's acoustics and tuning, and developed the first "scientifically tuned" glockenspiel. On the Sensations of Tone by German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz was a strong influence on Deagan's advances. [6] The company remained in the control of Deagan's descendants for two generations beyond.
In 1975 the tower chime and carillon division was sold to Verdin. [7]
In 1977 the remainder of the Deagan company (instruments and mallets) was sold to Slingerland Drum Company, which added the Deagan instruments to its products. [8] [9] Slingerland then sold the Deagan company to the "Sanlar Corporation", a corporation set up by Slingerland accountant Larry Gasp and his wife Sandra, in 1984. [9] [6] [10] [11] Upon Sanlar's bankruptcy in 1986, the Deagan mark and assets were sold to Yamaha. [11] [12]
A 25 tubular bell set by Deagan is still in daily use at St. John Cantius Church of Chicago, using its original player rolls. It was originally at Laureldale Cemetery in Reading, Pennsylvania and relocated to St. John Cantius in 1999. [13]
The 97-bell carillon at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park has the most bells of any tubular-bell carillon. It was installed there during the summer of 1958, after first having been installed (with 75 bells) in the Florida exhibit building of the 1939 World's Fair. [14] Deagan craftsmen required more than a year to build the huge set of bells, perhaps the greatest single manufacturing project in the firm's 78-year history. [15]
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone.
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the marimba has a lower range. Typically, the bars of a marimba are arranged chromatically, like the keys of a piano. The marimba is a type of idiophone.
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a vibraphonist,vibraharpist, or vibist.
The glockenspiel or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone.
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillons, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within an ensemble. Each bell is a metal tube, 30–38 mm (1+1⁄4–1+1⁄2 in) in diameter, tuned by altering its length. Its standard range is C4–F5, though many professional instruments reach G5. Tubular bells are often replaced by studio chimes, which are a smaller and usually less expensive instrument. Studio chimes are similar in appearance to tubular bells, but each bell has a smaller diameter than the corresponding bell on tubular bells.
A percussion mallet or beater is an object used to strike or beat a percussion instrument in order to produce its sound.
In a marching band, drum and bugle corps, or indoor percussion ensemble, the front ensemble or pit is the stationary percussion ensemble. This ensemble is typically placed in front of the football field, though some designers may use atypical layouts. Some high school marching bands opt not to march any percussion instruments but instead have a "full" front ensemble.
The Verdin Company is a manufacturer of bronze bells, clocks and towers based in Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States. The company has been making bells for use in bell and clock towers, peals, chimes, and carillons since 1842. They also manufacture electronic carillons, street clocks, glockenspiels, and monuments. There is now an organ division serving churches and other institutions combining organ and bell music.
A piano with an aluminum piano plate, called the Alumatone plate, was announced in 1945 by Winter and Company, piano manufacturers, and Alcoa, a manufacturer of aluminum and aluminum products. The metal frame of a piano, often called the plate or harp, anchors both ends of the strings, withstanding a tension of 20 tons or more. The first completely metal frames were patented in the mid-1820s, and they are now generally cast in iron.
Electronic carillon is a blanket term used to refer to an automated system which imitates the sound of a carillon. These systems simulate and amplify bell sounds which are then played from loudspeakers housed in a bell tower.
Clair Omar Musser (1901–1998) was a marimba virtuoso, a conductor and promoter of marimba orchestras, a composer, a teacher, a designer of keyboard percussion instruments, an inventor, and an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.
A keyboard percussion instrument, also known as a bar or mallet percussion instrument, is a pitched percussion instrument arranged in a similar pattern to a piano keyboard and played with hands or percussion mallets. While most keyboard percussion instruments are fully chromatic, keyboard instruments for children, such as ones used in the Orff Schulwerk, may be diatonic or pentatonic.
A chime bar or resonator bell is a percussion instrument consisting of a tuned metal bar similar to a glockenspiel bar, with each bar mounted on its own wooden resonator. Chime bars are played with mallets again similar to a glockenspiel.
This is a partitioned list of percussion instruments showing their usage as tuned or untuned. See pitched percussion instrument for discussion of the differences between tuned and untuned percussion. The term pitched percussion is now preferred to the traditional term tuned percussion:
Song bells are a musical instrument in the keyboard percussion family. They are a mallet percussion instrument in the metallophone family that is essentially a cross between the vibraphone, glockenspiel, and celesta. They have bars made of aluminum.
The Leedy Manufacturing Company was an American manufacturer of percussion instruments headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Leedy was highly successful in the early twentieth century, and was at one point the largest manufacturer of drums and other percussion instruments in the world.