G5 LR 3B 5.6.5 Unexpected Music

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, Lexile, and Reading Recovery are provided in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

Unexpected Unexpected MusicMusic

GenreComprehension

Skills and StrategyText Features

Expository nonfi ction

Sequence

Draw Conclusions

Prior Knowledge

Headings

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Glossary

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Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.6.5

by Cynthia Clampitt

ISBN 0-328-13591-7

Wind Percussion

Reader Response1. What kinds of instruments does the author deal

with first, wind or percussion? Make a list of the instruments, using a two-column chart like the one below.

2. How would you use your prior knowledge of musical instruments to understand the writers descriptions of prehistoric instruments?

3. Why would antiquity and artifacts be good words to know when discussing archaeologists?

4. Which instrument or instruments in this book would you most like to see played? Why?

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Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois Parsippany, New Jersey New York, New YorkSales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts Duluth, Georgia Glenview, Illinois

Coppell, Texas Ontario, California Mesa, Arizona

Unexpected Unexpected MusicMusic

by Cynthia Clampitt

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ISBN: 0-328-13591-7

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Neanderthals were prehistoric people who lived more than 30,000 years ago.

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Ancient MusicPeople have been making music since time

immemorial. Archaeologists have found ancient artifacts that show that music was part of life long before anyone was writing about music.

It seems likely that the very earliest music consisted of singing and creating rhythms using rocks or sticks. But more complex music soon appeared, even among very early peoples, such as the Neanderthals. In fact, a Neanderthal flute made of bear bone was discovered in 1995 by archaeologist Ivan Turk in a cave in Eastern Europe. Experts have determined that this flute is at least 43,000 years old, which makes it the earliest musical instrument yet discovered. The more we study, the more we realize that music has always been an important part of human culture.


4Music and instruments have changed dramatically over time, yet some of the earliest elements of music persist, including the combination of singing and rhythm. Throughout history, people have found different ways of creating sound, melody, harmony, rhythmmusic. You might be surprised by some of the instruments that have existed, and even some of those that exist today. You might also be surprised to see similarities across the ages.

Thump, Toot, TwangThe actions needed to produce music were

established fairly early on. The essential actions include striking, as with a drum, blowing, as with a horn, plucking, as with a banjo, rubbing, as with a violin, and shaking, as with maracas. Even today, aside from synthesizers, these are still the means by which music is created. Lets look at the histories of some interesting instruments based on what action is needed to produce sound. Well start with instruments that are played by blowing into themthe wind instruments.


This ancient bone quena from Peru is similar in design and sound to wooden quenas played by Andean musicians today.

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Flutes FirstPerhaps a passing breeze first showed

that hollow tubes could create a tone, but whatever it was that led to the discovery, blowing into tubes was among the earliest ways of making music. Bones, bamboo, branches, and cane were the first things used to make flutes. Holes were added, to make it possible to create a range of musical notes. The Neanderthal flute mentioned earlier is the oldest musical instrument yet discovered, but cultures around the world came up with similar ideas over the millennia.

In China, archaeologists discovered 9,000-year-old bone flutes that can still be played. Flutes were among the first instruments developed by the ancient Egyptians, and were being played at least 5,000 years ago. In South America, Andean cultures developed flutes called quenas around 3,000 years ago.


The ancestors of Australias aborigines are thought to have come from Asia 40,000 years ago. The ancient wind instrument called

the didgeridoo is still used by some Australian aborigines today.

Todays flutes range from traditional instruments that are little changed from ancient flutes to the complex silver flutes one sees being played in modern orchestras. But flutes were soon joined by other wind instruments in the effort to create new sounds.

Horns are so called because the first horns were, in fact, animal horns. Rams horns and buffalo horns, when blown, produce a loud tone that can be heard over great distancesexcellent tools for communication, as well as for music.

Horns and flutes are among the oldest instruments that are still with us today, but there are many other wind instruments that date back to antiquity, including oboes, clarinets, ocarinas, and harmonicas. But there are many more wind instruments than these, and many of them may not be familiar to you.

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Weird and Wonderful Wind InstrumentsSome instruments are unfamiliar because they

are no longer widely used. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many interesting wind instruments were developed. We still hear the recorder being played, but musicians today only pick up crumhorns, racketts, and serpents when they want to re-create the sounds of ages past.

Instruments from other countries or cultures may also be unfamiliar. For example, if you havent been to Australia, you might never have heard a didgeridoo played. This ancient instrument originated among the aborigines who lived in the northernmost part of Australia, and when Europeans first arrived, it was only played there. However, the didgeridoos popularity has now spread throughout the country.

Didgeridoos were traditionally found as much as they were made. Termites eat the hearts

out of some trees, and aborigines would look for hollowed out trees and cut off branches that were the needed length and thickness. As with other wind

instruments, the larger and longer the hollow branch, the deeper the tone. The

outside would be smoothed and usually painted, and the didgeridoo was ready for use.

A musician blowing through the didgeridoo produces a deep, rhythmic tone. By vibrating his

lips, the player can make different sounds.


Snake charmers know how to make it appear as if they can charm cobras.

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In the markets of northern India, you might find a snake charmer playing a pungi in front of a basket with a cobra in it. The snake charmer moves the pungi slowly from side to side, and the cobra weaves back and forth as the charmer plays. The snake charmer wants you to believe that the snake is charmed by the music, but snakes are deaf. While the cobra may be able to sense the vibrations of the pungis reed, it is the motion of the instrument that holds its attention. The music is for the people who are watching.

The pungi is made of two bamboo tubes attached to a coconut shell or dried gourd. Inside the shell, there are two reeds. These reeds vibrate when air is blown over them, producing the characteristic sound of this unusual instrument.


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Not all wind instruments are played by directly blowing into the pipe that makes the music. With bagpipes, the player fills a bag with air, and it is the air in the bag that plays the pipes. Bagpipes were invented in ancient Israel and were popular among ancient Greeks and Romans. They are still played in these regions, but today these wonderful instruments are most closely associated with the Scots and Irish.

The klon-put of Vietnam uses large bamboo tubes that are laid flat on a stand. The klon-put is played only by women. Players stand at one end

of the bamboo tubes and clap their hands, which produces enough of a breeze in the tube to

create a lovely tone.One of the strangest wind instruments of

allone that almost isnt a wind instrumentis the pyrophone. This instrument is dependent on fire (pyro) for its sound. The first pyrophones were built in the 1700s and 1800s. Metal or glass tubes are heated by fire, and as the tube and the air inside heat up, a tone is produced. These instruments are not common because they are dangerous and difficult to play. But there is increased interest in them today because the principles that make them work have applications for engines and refrigerators!


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Boom, Clatter, DingPictured at left are just a few of the many

instruments whose sound is produced by hitting or shaking them. Percussion means striking one thing against another, so these are known as percussion instruments. In some of these instruments, the striking is done internally. This is true of rattles like the one in the upper right-hand corner. Seeds inside the rattle strike the insides when the rattle is shaken. Some instruments are played by hitting them with sticks (drums or cymbals) or hands (drums, bongos, tambourines). Still others hit themselves, such as castanets, where two pieces of wood are clapped together rhythmically. Many cultures create a solid beat simply by smacking two sticks together.

Making sound by hitting things is one of the oldest forms of music, and it remains among the most popular. Today, castanets, drums, and tambourines all have important places in creating music, but modern percussionists are also using nontraditional items to create complex rhythms. Garbage cans, plastic tubing, and other everyday items add new sounds to the world of percussion.

For the earliest musicians, however, rocks and sticks were the available percussion instruments. This is not as uninteresting as it might sound. Surprisingly, many rocks create lovely tones. At a Stone Age site in southern India, archaeologists found a group of boulders that appear to have been used to make musical sounds. When struck by a small granite rock, these boulders make loud, gonglike ringing tones.

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A Buddhist monk beats a ceremonial drum as a call to prayer at a temple in South Korea.

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Long ago, it was discovered that the stalactites and stalagmites in caves make hauntingly beautiful musical tones when struck. While ancient people probably used rocks or sticks to produce crystalline tones from these rock formations, the huge Stalacpipe Organ in Virginias Luray Caverns uses rubber mallets that are connected to a keyboard. These mallets tap stalactites that have been selected to produce a full range of musical notes, so entire songs can be played. This unusual organ is said to be the largest musical instrument in the world.

Among percussion instruments, drums seem to be the most popular. Cultures around the world have drumming traditions. In some towns, all the locals turn out to drum together. In other places, drumming is a special part of ceremonies or holidays.

Among the worlds most famous drumming traditions is Japanese taiko drumming. Taiko drumming has been used in classical performances and rituals for more than 1,400 years. Famous taiko groups perform concerts worldwide. This drumming combines endurance with grace, and the movements of the drummers often look like a combination of dance and martial arts. There is a wide range of drums in taiko, but the most impressive is the massive o-daiko, which means big drum. These drums can weigh as much as 900 pounds. Even larger drums can be found in shrines and temples.


Steel drums, which produce musical notes, are popular in the Caribbean.

Not all drums simply create rhythms. The steel drums of the Caribbean, which were traditionally hammered out of 55-gallon steel oil drums, produce a full range of musical notes. Skilled musicians can play a wide range of songs and dance tunes on these cleverly crafted drums, though the music most associated with these tuneful drums is calypso.

The steel drum, also called a steel pan, is the only acoustic instrument invented in the twentieth century. They were invented in Trinidad after World War II, when many empty oil drums became available. Today, the steel drum is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, although these drums have now spread throughout the islands of the Caribbean.

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A 53-year-old man known as Cyrille the Spoonman, who makes his living playing spoons on the street in downtown Montreal, Canada, was asked in December 2004 to stop. Hundred of supporters wrote letters in protest of a proposed law to outlaw spoon-playing.

You may be surprised to learn that spoons are popular percussion instruments. When two spoons are held slightly apart and back-to-back, a skilled player can create complex rhythms by smacking the spoons against hand and knee.

Spoon playing is most commonly associated with American folk music. Its hard to know when spoon playing began, but it was at its height in the United States during the early 1900s. Spoons made up part of the rhythm section of the jug bands that became widely popular, their influence spreading with the rise of bluegrass, country music, and jazz.

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The glockenspiel, marimba, and xylophone are all percussion instruments that, like steel drums, can be used to play melodies, rather than just create rhythm. In each of these instruments, rows of metal or wood bars, each one shaped and sized for a specific musical note, are struck with hammers or mallets to produce tunes. Although these instruments are similar, they arose in different cultures, from African to European to Latin American.

Once you look around, youll find that there is an amazing assortment of percussion instruments. And that doesnt include strange items, such as garbage cans, used by some modern percussionists. Bells (from hand bells to church bells), gongs, triangles, and maracas are all instruments played by striking or shaking.

Glockenspiel


Benjamin Franklin said that, Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest personal satisfaction.

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Rubbing Things the Right WayIf youve ever run a wet finger around the edge of

a glass and listened to the high, clear note it produces, youll understand the inspiration for Benjamin Franklins glass armonica. He had a glassblower create a series of bowls, each sized to make a different musical note. The bowls were mounted on a rod that was turned by a wheel. A water trough kept the edges of the bowls wet, and a foot peddle kept the wheel turning. When Franklin first played the instrument for his wife, she said its music was so beautiful, it sounded like it came from heaven.

The glass armonica became one of the most popular instruments of the 1700s. Famous composers, including Beethoven and Mozart, wrote music for it. However, by the 1820s, it had nearly been forgotten. Today, only a few glass armonicas are still being played.


The saw is played by drawing the bow along the edge. Bending the

saw blade while it is being played changes

the tone.

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Instruments that are played by rubbing a bow across strings are widespread. Depending on your culture, the violin and bass fiddle might come to mind, but so might the erhu, morin khuur, or saringda, from China, Mongolia, and India, respectively.

But bows are not just rubbed against strings. No one is absolutely certain when or where people began playing musical saws with bows, but like spoons, an idea was transferred to something close at hand. Like the spoons, the saws popularity in the United States spread with the rise of interest in country and folk music in the 1920s and 1930s. While saw playing is not as big as it was then, it remains popular, and musical saws are still manufactured in several countries.


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In the hurdy-gurdy, strings are not rubbed by a bow, but rather by a wooden wheel that is turned by a handle at the end of the instrument. Notes are made with wooden keys that press on the two melody strings. Though the hurdy-gurdys history dates back to the Middle Ages, interest in this unusual instrument has been renewed in recent years, and electronic versions are being used in rock, jazz, and other music.

Plucking and PickingOf course, rubbing strings isnt the only option;

you can also pick, pluck, or strum. Even violins can be plucked. Guitars and banjos are among the most common examples of plucked, picked, and strummed instruments.

Cultures worldwide have stringed instruments that fall in this category, from Greeces bouzouki to Hawaiis ukelele. History, too, is filled with plucked instruments, including lyres, lutes, zithers, and a wide array of harps. It seems likely that the first stringed instruments had only one string, but people were soon experimenting with multiple strings, new materials, and different lengths of strings. Rock paintings in France dating to 15,000 B.C. show harplike instruments, and paintings in 5,000-year-old Egyptian tombs show harps and other stringed instruments. Pictures show that the type of small, hand-held harp known as a lyre was being played in Sumeria by 2,800 B.C.


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Stringed instruments evolved in different ways in different countries. In Europe, lutes and guitars were being plucked. In India, the sitar was developed. This is a complex instrument with two separate sets of strings, one set for creating the melody and one to supply a humming background sound. This classical Indian instrument became popular in the West after the rock group The Beatles took interest in Indian music.

Pianos and hammer dulcimers are in a special categorystringed instruments that are neither plucked nor rubbed. In fact, with both of these instruments, the strings are struck. Inside the piano, hammers that are controlled through the keyboard do the striking. For the hammer dulcimer, the musician controls by hand the small hammers designed specifically for this instrument.

Indian sitar


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The Long Life of Unexpected MusicPeople want music in their livesand this has

been true since the dawn of time. Throughout history, people have experimented with ideas and instruments. Often, they simply used what was at hand, from rocks to spoons. They just as often worked hard to create beautiful instruments that produced a wide range of notes.

Today, these traditions continue. People look at the things around them to try to make music, from rubbing glasses and blowing into bottles to the modern percussionists who use garbage can lids. They also continue to craft complex instruments, both traditional and new. In the late 1900s, the range of sounds available to musicians was expanded by the invention of the synthesizer.

The first synthesizers were developed for scientific research, but in the 1960s, physicist Robert Moog developed a synthesizer with keyboards that could be used by musicians. This new machine created a wide range of electronically generated musical notes. Later synthesizers made it possible to capture or imitate other sounds.

So today, like people tens of thousands of years ago, we search for new sounds. We look for new ways of filling our lives with music. The next time you find yourself tapping your fingers on your desk or humming a tune, remember that you are part of a long history of creating rhythm and melody.


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Now Try ThisMusic Research

Looking back through history or reading about other cultures around the world can bring you into contact with a wide range of unexpected instruments, from the Aeolian wind harp to the nose flute. What other unexpected or unusual instruments are there in the world, either from the past or from other cultures? What else is there to learn about the instruments, people, or traditions mentioned in this book? This is your opportunity to learn more.


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1. Think about what interests you most about musicthe people who write music, those who play it, the history of instruments, how the instruments are played, the culture or history behind a specific music form.

2. Review this book to find an instrument, playing style, or piece of music history that catches your interest. Alternatively, you can do an Internet search for stringed instruments, Chinese instruments, Renaissance music, unusual instruments, or some other category that interests you.

3. Using the library or the Internet, research the topic you have selected. Try to find a recording, such as a CD or MP3 file, that can let you know what the music or instrument sounds like.

4. Write a one-page report on what you have learned. Share the report with your class.

Heres How to Do It!


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Glossaryaborigines n. original inhabitants of a country or area, especially as distinguished from later settlers; Australian aborigines.

acoustic adj. having to do with a musical instrument that is not electronically amplified.

antiquity n. times long ago.

archaeologists n.scientists who study the people, customs, and life of ancient times.

artifacts n. anything made by human skill or work.

oboe n. a woodwind instrument in which a thin, high-pitched sound is produced by a double reed.

ocarina n. a small wind instrument, traditionally made of clay, with finger holes and a whistlelike mouthpiece.

principles n. basic rules of science that explain how something works.

reeds n. thin pieces of wood, metal, or plastic inside some musical instruments that produce a sound when a current of air moves them.


Wind Percussion

Reader Response1. What kinds of instruments does the author deal

with first, wind or percussion? Make a list of the instruments, using a two-column chart like the one below.

2. How would you use your prior knowledge of musical instruments to understand the writers descriptions of prehistoric instruments?

3. Why would antiquity and artifacts be good words to know when discussing archaeologists?

4. Which instrument or instruments in this book would you most like to see played? Why?

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G5 LR 3B 5.6.5 Unexpected Music