 | |
| String instrument | |
|---|---|
| Classification | string |
| Inventor(s) | Horațiu Rădulescu |
| Developed | 1965 |
| Volume | low |
| Attack | slow |
| Decay | slow |
| Playing range | |
A0 – C8 | |
A sound icon is a grand piano standing on its side. It is primarily played by bowing the strings. It was the invention of Romanian-French composer Horațiu Rădulescu, who featured the instrument in several of his pieces.
Horațiu Rădulescu was a Romanian-French composer, best known for the spectral technique of composition.
Horațiu Rădulescu first conceived of the sound icon in 1965. It consists of a lidless grand piano that has been placed on its side, so that it resembles a harp. Typically, nylon cords are rubbed with rosin and woven behind the piano strings. When the cord is bowed against the string, it creates a unique timbre which has been described as “sounds of an infinite resonance that have no equivalent among other instruments”. [1]
Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch, is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black. At room temperature rosin is brittle, but it melts at stove-top temperature. It chiefly consists of various resin acids, especially abietic acid. The term "colophony" comes from colophonia resina, Latin for "resin from Colophon", an ancient Ionic city.
Piano wire, or "music wire", is a specialized type of wire made to become springs or to be used as piano strings. It is made from tempered high-carbon steel, also known as spring steel, which replaced iron as the material starting in 1834.
Rădulescu called his invention a sound icon, because he conceived it while living in Romania where “religion was only…possible through music”. To Rădulescu, the striking image of the grand piano on its side presented the instrument “in a new light; it now resembles a religious object – a Byzantine icon.” [2] The name also has a punning connotation because its acronym is “si”, the French and Italian syllable for “B”. [3]
An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components of a phrase or a word, usually individual letters and sometimes syllables.
B, also known as Si, Ti, or, in some European countries, H, is the seventh note of the fixed-Do solfège. Its enharmonic equivalents are C♭ and A
The sound icon is played in several ways. The primary technique is to bow the strings, a tradition which dates back to instruments like the bowed clavier and the hurdy gurdy. Unlike those instruments, which rely on rosined wheels to stimulate the string, the sound icon is bowed by weaving material between the strings. Rădulescu is reported to have used a variety of materials to both bow and pluck the piano strings, including fishing line as well as gold coins. [4]
The bowed clavier is a keyboard instrument strung with gut strings, the tone of which is produced by a steadily revolving, well rosined cylinder powered by a foot pedal, a mechanism similar to that found in the hurdy-gurdy.
Monofilament fishing line is fishing line made from a single fiber of plastic. Most fishing lines are now monofilament because monofilament fibers are cheap to produce and are produced in a range of diameters which have different tensile strengths. Monofilament line is also manufactured in different colors, such as clear, white, green, blue, red, and fluorescent.
The seminal technique for bowing the sound icon is to use a single horsehair as thin as 0.1 mm in diameter. Rădulescu was preoccupied with “reversing the proportion of the bows and strings” usually found in a violin. He wound the horsehair in a “V” shape around the string. Bowing the horsehair makes the piano string vibrate and creates a sympathetic resonance in the other strings. [2] The location of the bow on the string also creates a dramatic difference in the resulting sound. In works with multiple sound icons, Rădulescu would weave “spider webs of nylon threads of different thickness in between the pianos.” [3]
In each piece, Rădulescu would work out a very precise tuning for the sound icon to control the timbre of its sympathetic resonance. He called this tuning a “spectral scordatura”. [5] Rădulescu compared the droning nature of the sound icon to the Indian tanpura. [6]
The tanpura is a long-necked plucked string instrument, originating from India, found in various forms in Indian music. It does not play melody but rather supports and sustains the melody of another instrument or singer by providing a continuous harmonic bourdon or drone. A tanpura is not played in rhythm with the soloist or percussionist: as the precise timing of plucking a cycle of four strings in a continuous loop is a determinant factor in the resultant sound, it is played unchangingly during the complete performance. The repeated cycle of plucking all strings creates the sonic canvas on which the melody of the raga is drawn. The combined sound of all strings, each string a fundamental tone with its own spectrum of overtones, supports and blend with the external tones sung or played by the soloist.
Horațiu Rădulescu featured sound icon in the following works:
Because of the difficulty of vertically orienting a grand piano, composers often simply write for “bowed piano”, using the technique that Rădulescu pioneered. Composers like John Oliver, Kirsten Broberg, and Stephen Scott have all written for bowed piano. Scott even formed the Bowed Piano Ensemble. Bands like Wilco and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have also used bowed piano.
In 2015, the sound icon was assigned as part of the instrumentation at Iron Composer.
The cello ( CHEL-oh; plural cellos or celli) or violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh; Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]) is a string instrument. It is played by bowing or plucking its four strings, which are usually tuned in perfect fifths an octave lower than the viola: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. It is the bass member of the violin family, which also includes the violin, viola and the double bass, which doubles the bass line an octave lower than the cello in much of the orchestral repertoire. After the double bass, it is the second-largest and second lowest (in pitch) bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. The cello is used as a solo instrument, as well as in chamber music ensembles (e.g., string quartet), string orchestras, as a member of the string section of symphony orchestras, most modern Chinese orchestras, and some types of rock bands.
The violin, also known informally as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused. The violin typically has four strings tuned in perfect fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings, though it can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow.
The viola (; Italian pronunciation: [viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4.
A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series. The term is employed in various disciplines, including music, physics, acoustics, electronic power transmission, radio technology, and other fields. It is typically applied to repeating signals, such as sinusoidal waves. A harmonic of such a wave is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the frequency of the original wave, known as the fundamental frequency. The original wave is also called the 1st harmonic, the following harmonics are known as higher harmonics. As all harmonics are periodic at the fundamental frequency, the sum of harmonics is also periodic at that frequency. For example, if the fundamental frequency is 50 Hz, a common AC power supply frequency, the frequencies of the first three higher harmonics are 100 Hz, 150 Hz, 200 Hz and any addition of waves with these frequencies is periodic at 50 Hz.
An nth characteristic mode, for n > 1, will have nodes that are not vibrating. For example, the 3rd characteristic mode will have nodes at L and L, where L is the length of the string. In fact, each nth characteristic mode, for n not a multiple of 3, will not have nodes at these points. These other characteristic modes will be vibrating at the positions L and L. If the player gently touches one of these positions, then these other characteristic modes will be suppressed. The tonal harmonics from these other characteristic modes will then also be suppressed. Consequently, the tonal harmonics from the nth characteristic modes, where n is a multiple of 3, will be made relatively more prominent.
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument:
A chordophone is a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification.
In music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto, is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings.
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick with hair affixed to it that is moved across some part of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones.
In music, inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency.
In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.
Scordatura[skordaˈtuːra], is a tuning of a stringed instrument different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain passages easier to play. It is common to notate the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch resulting is altered. When all the strings are tuned by the same interval up or down, as in the case of the viola in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, the part is transposed as a whole.
A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, but instead place the guitar on a table to manipulate it.
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
The music of Central Asia is as vast and unique as the many cultures and peoples who inhabit the region. Principal instrument types are two- or three-stringed lutes, the necks either fretted or fretless; fiddles made of horsehair; flutes, mostly open at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown; and jew harps, mostly metal. Percussion instruments include frame drums, tambourines, and kettledrums. Instrumental polyphony is achieved primarily by lutes and fiddles.
The bowed psaltery is a type of psaltery or zither that is played with a bow. In contrast with the centuries-old plucked psaltery, the bowed psaltery appears to be a 20th-century invention.
The Kobyz or kyl-kobyz is an ancient Kazakh string instrument. It has two strings made of horsehair. The resonating cavity is usually covered with goat leather.
String instruments are capable of producing a variety of extended technique sounds. These alternative playing techniques have been used extensively since the 20th century. Particularly famous examples of string instrument extended technique can be found in the music of Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, George Crumb, and Helmut Lachenmann.
Rebecca Saunders is a London-born composer who lives and works freelance in Berlin.
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