Life Token

Time marches on in every arena, and this extends to musical instruments. The Hammond B-3 drawbar electric organ and the Moog synthesizer were considered revolutionary in their time, and technology has now touched the piano in the form of the digital piano. Until the digital piano came on the scene, musicians either played the traditional [...]

Born William Martin Joel in The Bronx, in 1949, Billy Joel studied piano as a child and became an acclaimed pianist and songwriter. Although he joined a band called the Echoes, his early recording experience came from playing studio piano for recording sessions, and it was in this role that he performed in “The Leader [...]

Harmonicas are hand-held instruments that create sound when you blow or suck air through small reeds. In the family of mouth organs, also known as mouth harps, harmonicas are generally seen as a folk instrument because they are accessible to an untrained musician and produce raw, emotional music. In many cultures, instruments like harmonicas have [...]

Tamron is a leading manufacturer of single-lens reflex (SLR) camera lenses for both standard and digital cameras, and closed-circuit TV (CCTV) lenses. It is the U.S. sales subsidiary of the optics manufacturer Tamron Co., Ltd. Currently based in Commack, New York in the United States, the company was originally founded in 1950 in Japan by [...]

The tubax is both a group of redesigned saxophones first created by a German instrument maker named Benedikt Eppelsheim in 1999, and in particular an Eb instrument with modern saxophone fingering, the mouthpiece of a baritone saxophone, and a range an octave below the baritone saxophone. It is thus equivalent in range to the contrabass [...]

Iolanthe, or The Peer and the Peri is an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan. Sir William Schwenck Gilbert wrote the libretto, and Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan composed the music. Iolanthe was their seventh operetta together, following Patience. Iolanthe premiered in London at the Savoy Theatre, Richard D’Oyly Carte’s new theater, on 25 November 1882. Iolanthe [...]

Creating music using unusual elements is nothing new to creative people. The invention of the musical saw is an excellent example of that strain of creativity. Here are some facts about the musical saw and how it is used in several musical genres. Many people are surprised to learn that the musical saw is in [...]

Pete Seeger is an American folk singer, song writer, political activist, and banjo player, whose given name was Peter R. Seeger. Pete Seeger was born in Patterson, New York on 3 May 1919, the son of musicologist Charles Seeger and violinist Constance Seeger, both of whom taught at Juilliard. In addition, Pete Seeger’s stepmother Ruth [...]

Don Pasquale is a drama buffo opera in three Acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, who is also known for another comic opera: L’elisir d’amore, as well as for his historical operas Lucia di Lammermoor — which some people may not know is based on a true story, as well as Anna Bolena and [...]

Stephen Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist whose full given name was Stephen Joshua Sondheim. Sondheim was born in New York, New York on 22 March 1930 and studied piano as a child. But it was his reaction to seeing a Broadway musical at age nine that began his interest in theater. That same [...]