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harmonica

(Encyclopedia)harmonica. 1 The simplest of the musical instruments employing free reeds, known also as the mouth organ or French harp. It was probably invented in 1829 by Friedrich Buschmann of Berlin, who called h...

Gómez, Juan Vicente

(Encyclopedia)Gómez, Juan Vicente gōˈmĕs [key], 1857–1935, caudillo of Venezuela (1908–35). Of indigenous and white parentage, Gómez was born on a ranch in the Western Andes and grew up a nearly illiterat...

gibbon

(Encyclopedia)gibbon, small ape, family Hylobatidae, found in the forests of SE Asia. The gibbons are known as the small, or lesser, apes; they are the most highly adapted of the apes to arboreal life. They are hig...

Furtwängler, Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Furtwängler, Wilhelm fo͝ortˈvĕng-lər [key], 1886–1954, German conductor, b. Berlin; son of Adolf Furtwängler. One of the greatest orchestral conductors of the 20th cent., he studied music in ...

electronics

(Encyclopedia)electronics, science and technology based on and concerned with the controlled flow of electrons or other carriers of electric charge, especially in semiconductor devices. It is one of the principal b...

alliteration

(Encyclopedia)alliteration əlĭtˌərāˈshən [key], the repetition of the same starting sound in several words of a sentence. Probably the most powerful rhythmic and thematic uses of alliteration are contained i...

Coltrane, John

(Encyclopedia)Coltrane, John kōltrānˈ, kōlˈtrān [key], 1926–67, American jazz musician, b. Hamlet, N.C. He began ...

Pennebaker, D. A.

(Encyclopedia)Pennebaker, D. A. (Donn Alan Pennebaker), 1925–2019, pioneering documentary filmmaker, b. Evanston, Ill. His first film, Daybreak Express (1958), is a five-minute short detailing New York's doomed T...

percussion instrument

(Encyclopedia)percussion instrument, any instrument that produces musical sound when its surface is struck with an implement (such as a mallet, stick, or disk) or with the hand. Perhaps the most universally familia...

Barenboim, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Barenboim, Daniel bârˈənboimˌ [key], 1942–, Israeli pianist and conductor, b. Buenos Aires, Argentina. He made his debut in Buenos Aires at seven. His family settled in Israel in 1952, and he st...