Thumb piano - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone

Idiophone

An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument's vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification...

common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

Description

Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family (specifically: lamellophones). Furthermore, the thumbs are not exclusively used, as some instruments are played with the thumbs and other fingers also.

Thumb pianos traditionally consist of a wooden board to which metal tines of varying lengths are affixed. Some have mechanisms for readily tuning the tines to different scales. The longest tines are typically in the center, with shorter (and thus higher-pitched) tines arranged alternately in ascending order towards both sides of the instrument. The thumb piano is most commonly held in both hands, with both thumbs being used to pluck tines either simultaneously or in turn

Modern variations of the instrument may have more than the traditional array of 15 tines, with as many as four fully chromatic octaves, making the playing of more complex music possible. The thumb pianos are made of different woods, either with only a sound board or often with a resonant chamber. Those with hollow resonating chambers for increased volume, often have two holes on the back that can be used to create a vibrato

Vibrato

Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...

as the fingers cover and open these holes.

Acoustics

Lamellophones are instruments which have little tines, or "lamellae", which are played by plucking. Unlike stringed instruments or air-column instruments like flutes, the overtones of a plucked lamella are inharmonic

Inharmonicity

In music, inharmonicity is the degree to which the frequencies of overtones depart from whole multiples of the fundamental frequency....

(i.e., the overtones and the fundamental vibration do not harmonize), giving the kalimba a rather odd sound. However, the inharmonic overtones are strongest in the attack and die out rather quickly, leaving an almost pure tone which is quite beautiful.

The tuning of most kalimbas, with the notes in the scale ascending on the tines from the center outward in an alternating right-left fashion, results in chords being made by adjacent tines. When any tine is plucked, the adjacent tines also vibrate, and these harmonizing secondary vibrations serve a similar role to the harmonic overtones of a string instrument - they increase the harmonic complexity of an individual note, though in a strange yet pleasing way.

Tines on the Array Mbira

Array mbira

The Array mbira is a hand-crafted modern musical instrument with a unique harp or bell-like sound. It is made in the United States by its inventor Bill Wesley and manufactured by Wesley with Patrick Hadley in San Diego, California, United States. It is a radical redesign of the African mbira and is...

are arranged so that the most consonant intervals (octaves, fifths, and fourths) vibrate along with the fundamental. Furthermore, each tine is bent at a certain angle to produce overtones (most notably the 6th harmonic, or two octaves plus a fifth) that are more consonant.

History

Various kinds of thumb pianos have existed in Africa for thousands of years. The keys were originally made of bamboo but over the years metal keys have been developed. The instrument is known by different names in different regions of Africa, including Mbira
Mbira
In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

, Mbila, Mbira Huru, Mbira Njari, Mbira Nyunga, Marimba, Karimba, Kalimba, Likembe, Okeme, as well as marímbula
Marímbula
A marímbula is a folk musical instrument of the Caribbean Islands . The marímbula is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. With its roots in African instruments, marimbula originated in the province of Oriente, Cuba in the 19th century...

(also called kalimba) in the Caribbean Islands.

The kalimba appears to have been invented twice in Africa: a wood or bamboo-tined instrument appeared on the west coast of Africa about 3000 years ago, and metal-tined lamellophones appeared in the Zambezi River valley around 1,300 years ago (Kubik, 1998). These metal-tined instruments traveled all across the continent and differentiated in their physical form and social uses as they spread. Kalimba-like instruments came to exist from the northern reaches of North Africa to the southern extent of the Kalahari desert, and from the east coast to the west coast, though many or most groups of people in Africa did not possess kalimbas. There were thousands of different tunings, different note layouts, and different instrument designs, but there is
a compelling case from Andrew Tracey

Andrew Tracey

Andrew Tracey, born 5 May 1936, Durban, South Africa,is a South African ethnomusicologist, promoter ofAfrican music,composer, folk singer, band leader, and actor...

about a hypothetical tuning and note layout of the original metal-tined instrument from 1,300 years ago.

The thumb piano was typically played while walking by traveling Griot

Griot

A griot or jeli is a West African storyteller. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards...

s, African poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

bards who keep the history of the tribe or village, and to entertain people with songs, stories, poems, dances, etc. It was thought in ancient times that the thumb piano was able to project its sound into the heavens and could draw down spirits to the earth. Some of them were evil spirits so the people would stop playing the music until the spirits had departed from the area.

Many players and griot clans have their own idiosyncratic tunings. Most of the time the instrument is played solo and tuning is not as critical as when playing with other musicians. But the tuning can be changed by adjusting the length of the metal tines inward or outward. It is also often an important instrument to be played at religious ceremonies, weddings, and other social gatherings. It is a particularly common musical instrument of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Shona people

Shona people

Shona is the name collectively given to two groups of people in the east and southwest of Zimbabwe, north eastern Botswana and southern Mozambique.-Shona Regional Classification:...

of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

.

In the mid 1900’s the instrument was the basis for the development of the Kalimba, a westernized thumb piano designed and marketed by the ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey

Hugh Tracey

Hugh Tracey was an important twentieth century ethnomusicologist. He and his wife collected and archived music from Southern and Central Africa. He began making field recordings of music in the early 20's, through the 70's....

. This has become very important in popularizing the instrument outside of Africa. While the arrangement of notes on a thumb piano is considerably different from those on a piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

or guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, their arrangement is fairly intuitive, and it is considered to be an instrument easily learned. This quality is exploited in many elementary schools who use the thumb piano as an entry-level instrument. One of its indigenous names for this instrument can be translated as “The thing that makes walking easier” and as such it could be considered “the first walkman

Walkman

Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones...

.”

Tunings

Most western instruments have a simple linear visual mapping from the instrument to the pitch which is played: on a piano, the further left you go, the lower you go, and higher notes are to the right. String instruments have a similar mapping – the further up the neck you go, the lower the pitch – but this progression is realized independently on each string. Most western string instruments have a similar progression from one string to the next: each violin string, for example, is a perfect 5th higher than the previous one. Such consistent spatial mappings from the instrument to the pitches it plays promotes the development of intuition and aids in the learning of the instrument and even the ability to improvise or play by ear.

It is common on African mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

and other lamellophones to have the lowest notes in the center with higher notes to the far left and the far right - this is an ergonomic nicety, in that the thumb can pivot such that all the tines are easy to reach. However, traditional African tunings use notes that do not lie on the grid of the western tempered scale

Equal temperament

An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. As pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency, this means that the perceived "distance" from every note to its nearest neighbor is the same for...

, and traditional kalimba note layouts are often idiosyncratic, sometimes with adjacent tines making part of a scale, but then an odd note thrown in that defies the pattern.

The Hugh Tracey kalimbas are tuned diatonically

Diatonic and chromatic

Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony...

in the key of G. The arrangement of the notes on the Hugh Tracey kalimba borrows from the typical scheme with the lowest notes in the center and the upper notes on the left and the right, but a regular note layout is used, with the notes in the ascending scale alternating strictly right-left and going outwards towards the two sides. With this bidirectional note layout, it seems that all intuition from linearly mapped instruments goes out the window. This arrangement requires that the kalimba player develop a new intuition, but that new intuition is not as hard to come by as the more idiosyncratic note layouts of the traditional African lamellophones.

The diatonic western kalimba tuning Hugh Tracey used was practical for a worldwide instrument - with hundreds of African kalimba tunings, the chosen western standard would maximize the number of people who would immediately connect with the kalimba. The beauty of this note arrangement, with notes going up the scale in a right-left-right-left progression, is that modal 1-3-5 or 1-3-5-7 chords are made by playing adjacent tines and are trivial to learn and play. If chords are played in the lower octave, the same notes will appear on the opposite side of the kalimba in the upper octave, which makes it very easy to simultaneously play a melody in the upper octave and an accompanying harmony in the lower octave. So, the arrangement of notes on the Hugh Tracey kalimba (and on virtually any kalimba you find, as this note layout scheme has been adopted by virtually everyone who copies the Hugh Tracey kalimba) makes some complex musical operations very simple and easy.

Alternative tunings are possible, as the tines of most kalimbas are easily pushed in and out to sharpen or flatten their pitch. Some alternative tunings simply change the key of the kalimba, without changing the note layout scheme. Other alternative tunings move the kalimba to non-modal scales (such as Middle-Eastern scales). Each note of the kalimba can be tuned independently (unlike a guitar), so any scale, western or non-western, is possible, and traditional African scales are still accessible to this modern African instrument. Composer Georg Hajdu

Georg Hajdu

Georg Hajdu is a German composer of Hungarian descent. His work is dedicated to the combination of music, science and computer technology. He is noted for his opera Der Sprung – Beschreibung einer Oper and the network music performance environment Quintet.net.-Biography:Hajdu was born to Hungarian...

has tuned the Hugh Tracey alto kalimba to the chromatic steps of the Bohlen–Pierce scale in a piece called Just Her - Jester - Gesture. The Bohlen–Pierce scale subdivides the just twelfth into 13 steps.

The Chromatic Kalimba is also a fairly new instrument. There are a few different makers of the chromatic kalimba. One is the Hugh Tracey/AMI 2 octave kalimba which ranges from the G below middle C up to the G above the top line of the treble clef. The accidentals are mounted on the rear side of the kalimba as flats right under their adjacent parent note from the top. Recently, (2010) Aaron Chavez modeled an idea for the 4 octave chromatic kalimba utilizing octaves C2-C6. JBH Guitars is the original maker of this 4 octave chromatic.

Other variants

A special type of thumb piano is the Array mbira

Array mbira

, consisting of as many as 150 tines configured in a special order based on the circle of fifths

Circle of fifths

In music theory, the circle of fifths shows the relationships among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys...

(see Isomorphic keyboard

Isomorphic keyboard

An isomorphic keyboard is a musical input device consisting of a two-dimensional array of note-controlling elements on which any given sequence and/or combination of musical intervals has the “same shape” on the keyboard wherever it occurs – within a key, across keys, across octaves, and across...

.) The Guitaret

Guitaret

The Guitaret is an electric lamellophone made by Hohner and invented by Ernst Zacharias, in 1963. Zacharias also invented similar instruments like the Pianet, Cembalet and the Clavinet....

is an electric lamellophone made by Hohner

Hohner

Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments. Founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner , Hohner is identified especially with harmonicas and accordions. The Hohner company has invented and produced many different styles, and most of the...

and invented by Ernst Zacharias

Ernst Zacharias

Ernst Zacharias is a German musician and engineer. In the 1950s and 1960s, he invented various electro-mechanical musical instruments for the German musical instrument manufacturer Hohner, including the Cembalet, the Clavinet, the Guitaret, and the Pianet...

, in 1963.

In the late 20th century instrument builder and musician Robert Grawi was inspired by playing cross rhythms on a thumb piano to create a new westernized African instrument called the gravikord

Gravikord

The gravikord is an electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1986.- Description :The gravikord is a new instrument developed on the basis of the West African kora. It is made of welded stainless steel tubing, with 24 nylon strings but no resonating gourd or skin. The bridge is made...

. It is an electric double harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

made of modern materials mostly stainless steel tubing. The tuning is based on the "G" tuning of the kalimba but its overall structure is based on the West African kora

Kora

Kora may refer to:* Kora , a stringed musical instrument of West African origin* Kora , a New Zealand reggae band** Kora , Kora album released in 2007* Kora , a type of pilgrimage in the Buddhist tradition...

. It has 24 notes evenly divided between two ranks of strings in notches on a free standing double bridge. Tones rise in a strictly alternate right/left hand symmetry familiar to any kalimba or thumb piano player, so that any tunes and techniques that are learned on these instruments can also be played on the gravikord.

Popularity

Hugh Tracey

, an English ethnomusicologist who moved to Africa in 1920, spent several years from the 1920s through the 1950s traveling about in rural Africa (i.e., as far away as he could get from western musical influences such as radio, eastern-influenced bands, and Christian missionaries) where he recorded traditional music and documented the tunings and note layouts of the different kalimbas. However, when Hugh Tracey founded the company African Musical Instruments and started building kalimbas in Rudespoort, South Africa, and exporting them around the world in 1954, the note layout and tuning were not traditional. Rather, the kalimbas were tuned diatonically in the key of G, with adjacent notes on the scale sitting on opposite sides of the kalimba.

The first kalimba to be exported commercially out of Africa was the Hugh Tracey

Hugh Tracey

Kalimba. After years of studying African music and dozens of prototype instruments, Hugh Tracey's company African Musical Instruments also began manufacturing kalimbas, a western version of the mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

, in the late 1950s. The name kalimba is a Bantu word which means "little music", and is similar to the word karimba, a type of mbira.

While kalimba initially meant the Hugh Tracey kalimba, the name kalimba is now a generic name and can describe any non-traditional thumb piano, or can even be used generically for the traditional lamellophones of Africa (i.e., the mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

, karimba, sansa, etc.).

In the early 1960s, Hugh Tracey secured an initial order of 10,000 kalimbas with Creative Playthings

Creative Playthings

Creative Playthings was an educational toy store and catalogue that was established by Frank and Theresa Caplan in 1945. The goal of Creative Playthings was to provide simple and beautifully designed toys to promote a child’s creativity and imagination....

of Princeton NJ, a company which designed and distributed innovative toys and furniture, mostly made from natural materials. And so, many people bought their first kalimba from a toy store. People quickly realized that the kalimba was not a toy, but a real instrument capable of real music.

Soon, African Musical Instruments began making other styles of kalimba with similar, but different note layouts. The original kalimba was named the Treble, and a larger, lower pitched 15-note model called the Alto was introduced. See the ALTO tuning chart below:
Similarly, different kalimba models with the same note layout were also introduced over time. Most traditional African kalimbas had the tines mounted on a flat board, rather than on a box, though some traditional kalimbas were mounted on a piece of wood which was hollowed out to provide a resonant box. The flat board kalimbas could be placed inside or on top of a hollow gourd, which was used as a resonator to amplify and alter the quality of the sound the kalimba produced. The new board-mounted Hugh Tracey kalimbas were a nod to the traditional African kalimba designs. The smaller board-mounted Hugh Tracey kalimbas were given the name "celleste" (as in "celleste treble").

Shortly after the Hugh Tracey kalimba started being sold around the world, artisans and craftspeople started copying the design, or adapting the design. Several high quality kalimba makers exist around the world today: Lucinda Ellison, Andrew Masters, David Bellinger, Steve Catania, Luc DeCock, R. P. Collier, and Greg Trimble. On the other hand, most kalimbas sold today are inexpensive copies made in third world countries such as Pakistan or Indonesia.

African Musical Instruments continues to produce high quality kalimbas from their shop in South Africa. They have expanded their offerings to over a dozen different kalimba models, ranging from an 8-note student model to a modern version of a traditionally tuned Shona karimba. AMI also makes high quality marimbas and drums.

A few artists, including Genesis

Genesis (band)

Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...

, Earth, Wind & Fire

Earth, Wind & Fire

Earth, Wind & Fire is an American soul and R&B band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969 by Verdine and Maurice White. Also known as EWF, the band has won six Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards. They have been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of...

, Jo Mango

Jo Mango

Jo Mango is a British alternative folk and acoustic band from Glasgow. Jo Mango is also the adopted name of the lead singer and primary songwriter of the group.*Jo Mango: lead vocals, rhythm guitar, kalimba, toy piano, concertina...

, King Crimson

King Crimson

King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...

, John Mayer

John Mayer

John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

, Laura Barrett

Laura Barrett

Laura Barrett is a Canadian indie pop singer-songwriter, best known for incorporating the kalimba into her music. In addition to her solo work, Barrett has also performed as a member of The Hidden Cameras, Henri Fabergé and the Adorables, Woodhands and Sheezer....

, and Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The Band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard...

have also incorporated the kalimba into Western pop and rock music styles.

Maurice White, the Founder and Leader of the popular group Earth, Wind & Fire

Earth, Wind & Fire

, gave immense exposure to the Kalimba in the band's music. Earth, Wind & Fire recordings such as "Kalimba Story", "Evil", "Biyo" and "Departure", all revolved around White's electrified Kalimba solos. The Kalimba also proved to be an iconic symbol of the band's reflection of African-ism.

Use in New Music

Finally, the kalimba also found its way into the domain of New Music where it is often used together with live-electronics. In his composition kalimBAO (2006), Sascha Lino Lemke uses a Kalimba with microtonal tunings, whereas in Karlheinz Essl's

Karlheinz Essl

Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser and composition teacher.- Biography :Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition , electro-acoustic music and double bass...

Sequitur XIV the kalimba is processed with a custom-made computer program. Both pieces were premiered by pianist Jennifer Hymer

Jennifer Hymer

-Education:Jennifer Hymer was trained as a pianist for classical and contemporary music at the University of California at Berkeley and Mills College studying with Bay Area pianist Julie Steinberg...

who also specializes in Kalimba performance.

The kalimba /mbira features extensively in the work of English composer and performer Tom Green both as Another Fine Day and with The Orb

The Orb

Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...

. The British national newspaper, The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

, placed Green's kalimba driven album 'Life Before Land' at number three in it's list of all time greatest ambient albums.

A Kalimba (or Mbira) playing the opening theme from Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

's "A Saucerful of Secrets" along with milk-bottle flute introduces the first tune "I Believe in Milko" from The Ninth Tentacle's first album for the Cellartapes record-label: Voyeuradeism.

The 2007 tribute record "Four Songs by Arthur Russell

Arthur Russell

Arthur Russell may refer to:* Arthur Russell, 2nd Baron Ampthill , Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India* Arthur Russell , British athlete...

" features Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman

Jens Lekman

Jens Martin Lekman is a Swedish musician. His music is guitar-based pop with heavy use of samples and strings, with lyrics that are often witty, romantic, and melancholic. The English lyrics reflect an advanced knowledge of the language and its idioms...

using a kalimba in his rendition of Russell's "A Little Lost". While he had initially played ukulele for the cover (as broadcast live on the radio series "No Love For Ned" 21 February 2005), Lekman thereafter frequently featured the kalimba version in his live sets for a period.

In the late 20th century instrument builder and musician Robert Grawi was inspired by playing cross rhythms on the kalimba to create another new westernized African instrument called the gravikord

Gravikord

. It is an electric double harp

Harp

made of modern materials mostly stainless steel. The tuning is based on the "G" tuning of the kalimba but its structure is based on the West African kora

Kora

. It has 24 notes evenly divided between two ranks of strings which rise in a strictly alternate right/left hand symmetry familiar to any kalimba player, so that any tunes and techniques that are learned on the kalimba can also be played on this instrument.

The kalimba was used by James Horner in the soundtrack to ALIENS, specifically in the cue "The Complex" (6-M-1).

External links

http://www.kalimbamagic.com/
http://www.asza.com/ikalim.shtml
http://ilam.ru.ac.za/
http://www.kalimba.co.za/
http://www.nscottrobinson.com/mbira.php
http://www.youtube.com/kalimbamagic
http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textk/Kalimba.html The tuning diagrams are incorrect.
http://www.acoustics.org/press/155th/chapman.htm David M.F. Chapman "The Sound of the African Thumb Piano (kalimba), Acoustics '08, Paris.
World Musical Instrument Database. New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

: Archive of Contemporary Music
ARChive of Contemporary Music
The ARChive of Contemporary Music is a non-profit music library and archive based in New York City. It contains over 5 million items.-People:The ARC was founded in 1985 by current Director, B. George and David Wheeler in Lower Manhattan...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Description

Acoustics

History

Tunings

Other variants

Popularity

Use in New Music

See also

Further reading

External links