Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

bass, in music

(Encyclopedia)bass bās [key], in musical harmony, the part of lowest pitch. The term is used for the lowest-pitched male voice and for instruments of low pitch, such as bass clarinet, bass drum, bassoon (bass oboe...

Saint-Dizier

(Encyclopedia)Saint-Dizier săN-dēzyāˈ [key], town (1990 pop. 35,558), Haute-Marne dept., NE France, on the Marne River. It is a trading and transportation center; its manufactures include machinery, musical ins...

musicology

(Encyclopedia)musicology, systematized study of music and musical style, particularly in the realm of historical research. The scholarly study of music of different historical periods was not practiced until the 18...

Kazanluk

(Encyclopedia)Kazanluk käˌzänləkˈ [key], town (1993 pop. 60,019), central Bulgaria, in the Kazanluk valley, a region famous for its rose fields. Kazanluk developed in the 17th cent. as a manufacturing center f...

Praetorius, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Praetorius, Michael prētôrˈēəs [key], 1571–1621, German composer and musicographer, whose name originally was Schultheiss. He was a prolific composer, his Musae Sioniae (9 vol., 1605–11) alon...

Chinese music

(Encyclopedia)Chinese music, the classical music forms of China. Throughout the political and social turmoil following World War I, Western (classical and popular) and Japanese sources dominated Chinese music. At...

type metal

(Encyclopedia)type metal, alloy of lead with antimony, tin, and sometimes copper, so named because of its one time extensive use for making printing type. Expanding upon solidification, the alloy takes a fine and c...

jongleurs

(Encyclopedia)jongleurs zhông-glörˈ [key], itinerant entertainers of the Middle Ages in France and Norman England. Their repertoire included dancing, conjuring, acrobatics, the feats of the modern juggler, singi...

Krnov

(Encyclopedia)Krnov kûrˈnôf [key], Ger. Jägerndorf, city (1991 pop. 25,436), NE Czech Republic, in Moravia, on the Opava River, near the Polish border. An industrial center, it manufactures textiles (especially...

transposing instrument

(Encyclopedia)transposing instrument, a musical instrument whose part in a score is written at a different pitch than that actually sounded. Such an instrument is usually referred to by the keynote of its natural s...

Browse by Subject