Musical Instruments I INTRODUCTION
Musical Instruments I INTRODUCTION World Music Tour Click on the instruments to hear music from around the world. © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Musical Instruments, tools used to expand the limited scope of musical sounds—such as clapping, stamping, whistling, humming, and singing—that can be produced by a person's unaided body. Throughout the world, instruments vary greatly in purpose and design, from natural, uncrafted objects to complicated products of industrial technology. Although sirens, automobile parts, and radios have been employed in avant-garde compositions, this article mainly concerns those specialized implements intended for performing the world's conventional folk, popular, and classical musics. II THE PRODUCTION OF SOUND Sound arises from vibration transmitted by waves to the ear. Incoherent, violent vibration is normally interpreted as noise, whereas regular, moderate motion produces tones that can be pleasing. The faster the vibration, the higher the pitch that is perceived. Some pipe organs encompass the full audible range of pitch, approximately 16 Hz (hertz, or cycles per second) to 20,000 Hz, or more than ten octaves, but most instruments have a much more limited compass; indeed, many play only a single note or have no identifiable pitch at all. The greater the amplitude or power of audio waves, the louder their sound, which in some electronically amplified music can reach a painful, ear-damaging intensity. The timbre, or tone color, of the sound is influenced by the presence and relative strength of overtones, or harmonics, in the sound wave. The perception of timbre, however, is also affected by the duration and location of the sound, and by its envelope, or its characteristics of attack (onset) and decay (which may, for example, be abrupt or gradual, or—especially in attack—may involve transient harmonics).
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