Sunday, July 5, 2009

Drum


The drum is a member of the percussion group of music instruments, technically classified as a membranophone.Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of implement such as a drumstick, to produce sound. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the "Thumb roll". Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Most drums are considered "untuned instruments", however many modern musicians are beginning to tune drums to songs; Terry Bozzio has constructed a kit using diatonic and chromatically tuned drums. A few such as timpani are always tuned to a certain pitch. Often, several drums are arranged together to create a drum kit that can be played by one musician with all four limbs.

Duduk


The duduk (Armenian pronunciation: [duˈduk]) is a traditional woodwind instrument of Armenian origins, used famously in the 2000 movie Gladiator. This English word is often used generically for a family of ethnic instruments including the doudouk or duduk (դուդուկ) (previously dziranapogh (ծիրանափող, literally "apricot horn") in Armenian, the düdük or mey in Turkey, the duduki in Georgia, the balaban in Azerbaijan, the narmeh-ney in Iran, the duduka or dudka in Russia and Ukraine, duduk in Macedonia and Serbia, and the douduk in Bulgaria. The English word has been asserted as derived from the Russian word "dudka", or from the Turkish word "düdük".

Electronic


An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical audio signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker.
An electronic instrument may include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note. However, it is increasingly common for the user interface and sound-generating functions to be separated into a music controller (input device) and a music synthesizer, respectively, with the two devices communicating through a musical performance description language such as MIDI or OSC.
All electronic musical instruments can be viewed as a subset of audio signal processing applications. Simple electronic musical instruments are sometimes called sound effects; the border between sound effects and actual musical instruments is often hazy.
French composer and engineer Edgard Varèse created a variety of compositions using electronic horns, whistles, and tape. Most notably, he wrote Poème Électronique for the Phillips pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958.
Electronic musical instruments are now widely used in most styles of music. The development of new electronic musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research. Specialized conferences, notably the International Conference on New interfaces for musical expression, have organized to report cutting edge work, as well as to provide a showcase for artists who perform or create music with new electronic music instruments, controllers, and synthesizers.

Fife


Fife (Scots: Cooncil o Fife, Scottish Gaelic: Siorrachd Fìobha) is a council area of Scotland, situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. It was originally one of the Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland.
It is a lieutenancy area, and was a county of Scotland until 1975. It was very occasionally known by the anglification Fifeshire in old documents and maps compiled by English cartographers and authors. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer.
Fife was a local government region divided into three districts – Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and North-East Fife. Since 1996 the functions of the district councils have been exercised by the unitary Fife Council.
Fife is Scotland's third largest local authority area by population. It has a resident population of just under 360,000, almost a third of whom live in the three principal towns of Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. Kirkcaldy has Fife's largest population (48,108 in 2006).
The historical town of St Andrews is located on the east coast of Fife. It is well known for one of the most ancient universities in Europe, and as the home of golf.

Free reed


A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument where sound is produced as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows.The following illustrations depict the type of reed typical of harmonicas, pitch pipes, accordions and reed organs as it goes through a cycle of vibration. One side of the reed frame is omitted from the images for clarity; in actuality, the frame surrounds the reed on four. Airflow over one side of the reed creates an area of low pressure on that side (see the Bernoulli's principle article for details), causing the reed to flex towards the low-pressure side. The reed frame is constructed so that the flexing of the reed obstructs the airflow, which reduces or eliminates the low pressure area and allows the reed to flex back. to flex back.

Free reed aerophone


A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument where sound is produced as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows.The following illustrations depict the type of reed typical of harmonicas, pitch pipes, accordions and reed organs as it goes through a cycle of vibration. One side of the reed frame is omitted from the images for clarity; in actuality, the frame surrounds the reed on four. Airflow over one side of the reed creates an area of low pressure on that side,causing the reed to flex towards the low-pressure side. The reed frame is constructed so that the flexing of the reed obstructs the airflow, which reduces or eliminates the low pressure area and allows the reed to flex back. to flex back.

Percussion


A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by being hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration. The term usually applies to an object used in a rhythmic context or with musical intent.Percussion instruments are classified by various criteria sometimes depending on their construction, ethnic origin, function within musical theory and orchestration, or their relative prevalence in common knowledge.
Percussion instruments are sometimes classified as being "pitched" or "unpitched." While valid, this classification is widely seen as inadequate. Rather, it may be more informative to describe percussion instruments in regards to one or more of the following four paradigms:

Single reed

A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. Examples include clarinets, saxophones, and some bagpipes. In a single-reed instrument, the reed is attached to a mouthpiece that is blown into to vibrate the reed, producing the sound. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Examples include the oboe and the bassoon.

String musical instrument


A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. The most common string instruments in the string family are violin, cello, viola, double bass, mandolin, banjo, guitar, and harp.

Voice

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the primary sound source. Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts; the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx, and the articulators. The lung (the pump) must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds (this air pressure is the fuel of the voice). The vocal folds (vocal cords) are a vibrating valve that chops up the airflow from the lungs into audible pulses that form the laryngeal sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the vocal folds to ‘fine tune’ pitch and tone. The articulators (the parts of the vocal tract above the larynx consisting of tongue, palate, cheek, lips, etc.) articulate and filter the sound emanating from the larynx and to some degree can interact with the laryngeal airflow to strengthen it or weaken it as a sound source.
The vocal folds, in combination with the articulators, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound.The tone of voice may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, or happiness. Singers use the human voice as an instrument for creating music.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Wallpaper


Wallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. They are usually sold in rolls and are put onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come either plain (so that it can be painted), or with patterned graphics.Wallpaper printing techniques include surface printing, gravure printing, silk screen-printing, and rotary printing. Mathematically speaking, there are seventeen basic patterns, described as wallpaper groups, that can be used to tile an infinite plane. All manufactured wallpaper patterns are based on these groups. A single pattern can be issued in several different colorways.

Vvf

VVF, or, the Vegetarian' and Vegan Foundation, founded by Juliet Gellatley (along with Viva!), is a UK-based vegetarian and vegan campaigning charity along with an animal-rights based organization which promotes vegetarianism and veganism and an alternative healthy diet to meat - plant based. It also portrays factory farming as being cruel, environmentally damaging, and unhealthy and campaigns against it. Notable supporters include Sir Paul McCartney. VVF also publish a quarterly journal entitled VeggieHealth, which includes recent research and campaign information as well as recipes and much more.

Vp8

VP8 is the latest video codec from On2 Technologies meant to replace its predecessor VP.

Vp7

TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and VC-1.[citation needed] However, it should be noted that the objective measurements used by On2 Technologies do not correlate perfectly with subjective quality measurements.In December 2005, Skype announced that they had selected the VP7 codec for point-to-point video conferencing.Move Networks is also using the VP7 codec in its Move Media Player plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer, currently used by ABC and Fox for its streaming of full network shows.

Vp6

TrueMotion VP6 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3 and VP5. The VP6 codec has been used in products for broadcasting in the field, such as with BBC reporters and QuickLink software. This codec is used by Adobe Flash and Flash Video files.In November 2003, On2 announced that VP6 had been chosen as a codec for China's Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD), a competitor format to DVD. Beijing-based company E-World was to be the exclusive reseller of the EVD VP6 technology in China, with On2 Technologies earning royalty payments of about $2 USD per player. Then in April 2004 On2 announced that negotiations with E-World had broken down and that On2 would file multiple breach of contract claims against E-World in arbitration proceedings. In March 2005, On2 announced that the arbitrator had dismissed all of On2's claims and had decided that E-World owed nothing to On2. Although E-World included VP6 to its EVD standardization proposal to the Chinese government, it is not clear what, if any, action was then taken by the government. The EVD format initiative appears to be indefinitely stalled.In January 2005, On2 announced a new VP7 codec with better compression capabilities than VP6.In August 2005, Macromedia announced they had selected VP6 as the flagship new codec for video playback in the new Flash Player 8.As of September 2006, an open-source implementation of the decoder is part of the libavcodec project, though producing or dealing with VP6 video streams inside libavcodec/libavformat seems to be discouraged and/or refused due to clashes between the ffmpeg's developers and On2 technologies by a claim of Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets Infringement made by the corporation itself.

Vob

For Versioned Object Bases, see Rational ClearCase. For Voice over Broadband (VoB), see Voice over Internet Protocol.A VOB file (Video Object) is a container format in DVD-Video media. VOB is based on MPEG-2 program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. It contains the actual Video, Audio, Subtitle, and Menu contents in stream form.Other DVD files include IFO anA player of generic MPEG-2 files can play VOB files.ALLPlayer, MPlayer, VLC media player, Media Player Classic and more platform-specific players play VOB files.d BUP files.

Vc-1

VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard initially developed by Microsoft. It was released on April 3, 2006 by SMPTE. It is now a supported standard for HD DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and Windows Media Video 9.VC-1 is an evolution of the conventional DCT-based video codec design also found in H.261, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, and AVS. It is widely characterized as an alternative to the latest ITU-T and MPEG video codec standard known as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. VC-1 contains coding tools for interlaced video sequences as well as progressive encoding. The main goal of VC-1 development and standardization is to support the compression of interlaced content without first converting it to progressive, making it more attractive to broadcast and video industry professionals.Although widely considered to be Microsoft’s product, there are actually fifteen companies in the VC-1 patent pool (as of August 17, 2006). As an SMPTE standard, VC-1 is open to implementation by anyone, although implementers are hypothetically required to pay licensing fees to the MPEG LA, LLC licensing body or directly to its members, who claim to hold essential patents on the format (since it is a non-exclusive licensing body).Both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc have adopted VC-1 as a video standard, meaning their video playback devices will be capable of decoding and playing video-content compressed using VC-1. Windows Vista partially supports HD DVD playback by including the VC-1 decoder and some related components needed for playback of VC-1 encoded HD DVD movies.Microsoft has designated VC-1 as the Xbox 360 video game console’s official video codec, and game developers may use VC-1 for full motion video included with games. By means of an October 31, 2006 update, people can now play all formats of Windows Media Video on the Xbox 360 from a disc, USB storage device, or streaming from their PC via Windows Media Connect/Windows Media Player 11. This allows anyone to play VC-1 encoded files on the console.The FFmpeg project includes a free VC-1 decoder.

Theora

Theora is an open and royalty-free lossy video compression technology being developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation as part of their Ogg project. Based upon On2 Technologies' VP3 codec, Theora competes with MPEG-4, WMV, and similar low-bitrate video compression schemes.Theora is named for Theora Jones, Edison Carter's Controller on the Max Headroom television program.

Sheer

Sheer Music is a South African record label that focuses primarily on club, dance and trance tracks, and is one of the biggest distributors of dance music in South Africa. Sheer Music (also known as SheerDance) represents local and aspiring DJs and artists, often through collaboration with local radio stations such as 5FM.

Real audio

RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is played at the same time as it is downloaded. In the past, many internet radio stations used RealAudio to stream their programming over the internet in real time. In recent years, however, the format has become less common and has given way to more popular audio formats. It is used heavily by the BBC websites.The first version of RealAudio was released in 1995. As of 2008, the current version is RealAudio 10.
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