Scan 82
The New Encyclopedia Of Music And Musicians, 1929
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1in a mode with which a melody in that mode may begin. Most of the modes have two or more such tones. G.
3Inner Parts, Inner Voices. In harmony, the voice-parts other than the highest and the lowest (which are the outer parts); in ordinary 4-part writing, the alto and tenor; also called interior parts or voices.
5Inner pedal, a pedal- or organ-point in the inner parts; see Organ-Point.
7In nomine. In old English music, a title used both for certain antiphons or short motets and for organ- or virginal-pieces. G.
9The term is supposed to come from an introit, antiphon or Psalm beginning with words like 'In nomine Jesu' or 'In nomine tuo.' It may be derived from the formula used with the sign of the Cross (as at the opening of the Mass), 'In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritui Sancti.'
11A fuga in nomine is a fugue that is free, irregular and hence 'nominal.'
13Inscription. The technical term for a motto, sign or other device placed at the head of a canon that is not fully written out, nominally to indicate its intended resolution, but often to render it more enigmatic; see Canon. G.
15Instruments. In producing musical tones men have always sought to devise mechanical apparatus to assist and supplement what they undertake vocally. All such implements are technically called instruments. Their primary purpose is to enable the one who uses them to extend the range and diversify the character of tonal effect without detaching it from himself or relinquishing the power to direct it as his own expression. Thus viewed, even the mechanism of the human voice, though largely instinctive and unconscious in action, is properly to be regarded as an instrument. Ideally, therefore, an instrument is a tool or implement rather than a machine, even though some instruments are so extensive and complicated as to have great interest as machines. But the distinction has importance as regards true instruments in comparison with mechanical appliances for the automatic reproduction of musical effects; see Automatic Appliances. G.
17One of the striking features in a survey of primitive and semicivilized life everywhere is the fact that musical instruments abound and receive peculiar attention as to both construction and decoration. Among the objects found in connection with the vestiges of prehistoric man are flutes of bone. Even nature-peoples who have few other implements are seldom without devices for making music. The exuberant fancy of the Orient has exhibited itself copiously in this direction, and from the Orient, as well as out of its own ingenuity, the medieval European world came to possess a multiplicity of forms that in turn became the ancestors of modern instruments. Artistic progress has tended always to reduce the total number of types, but to refine and perfect these with utmost care. So it comes about that in a representative collection or catalogue of instruments those of importance to modern art are far outnumbered by those from outside the circle of advanced culture.
19Every instrument involves four essential elements that are useful for definition and classification. These are (a) a vibratile body of solid material or of confined air, (b) provision for increasing sonority and influencing quality by resonance, (c) a vibration-producing agency to set the vibratile body in action, and (d) appliances connected with this to regulate pitch, force, duration and quality in the tones produced. Using these as bases for classification, instruments may be described (a) as pneumatic (the principal stops in a pipe-organ, flute, flageolet), stringed (harp, violin, zither, piano), tongued or reed- (oboe, clarinet, reed-organ, the reed-stops in a pipe-organ), tympanic (drum, tambourine, xylophone), or vibrating entire (bell, gong, tuning-fork). (b) as depending on the sonority of an air-column confined in a tube (practically all so-called wind-instruments, including those named pneumatic and tongued above), on that of a resonance-box or body of whatever shape (viols, lutes, harps, drums, marimba), on that of a soundboard or resonance-plate (piano, zither), and on some other devices hard to classify. (c) as flatile or inflate, blown either by the breath (flute, horn, bassoon), by air mechanically compressed and directed (organ, concertina, bagpipe), or even by the wind (molian harp), percussive or pulsatile, struck by the hand or a hammer of some sort (drums, bells, piano), or struck together (cymbals, clappers), plucked or twanged, pulled aside and then released, whether with the finger or some form of plectrum (harp, lute, harpsichord, music-box), or fricative, rubbed by the finger (musical glasses), by a bow (all viols or bowed instruments), or by a wheel (hurdy-gurdy), and (d) as harmonic, the scale depending on the natural harmonics of a confined air-column (horns, trumpets), of free intonation, depending (mostly) on the player's action in 'stopping' (violin and its modern relatives), of intonation partly harmonic and partly determined by means of side-holes (flute, clarinet ocarina), or valves that change the effective length of the air-column (saxhorns, cornet, trombone), fretted, so that the action of 'stopping' is largely predetermined in effect (lute, guitar), or of fixed intonation, the several vibratile bodies being tuned or otherwise adjusted so as to be used without change in pitch on the player's part (harp, lyre, all so-called keyboard-instruments). The keyboard constitutes a modern application to several varieties of instruments that is of conspicuous mechanical and artistic importance; see Keyboard.
21Further divisions of a general character are between instruments that belong to primitive life or to peoples outside the main European circle (a class that may be called ethnic or exotic) and those belonging more directly to the historic evolution of modern European culture; between instruments that are essentially popular (folk-instruments) and those that have become objects of concentrated artistic or professional improvement and application; between solo and concerted instruments, the one adapted to produce a single tone at a time (or little more) and the other designed to produce harmony and counterpoint as well. The instruments now ranked as orchestral are commonly grouped in divisions or groups—the strings (violins, violas, 'cellos, double-basses), the wood-wind (flutes and piccolo, oboes, English horn and bassoons, clarinet and basset-horn), the brass-wind (French horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, etc.) and the percussives (tympani, bass-drum, cymbals, triangle, etc.), with usually also a harp outside the classification, as well as a piano (in concertos). Band-instruments belong to the last three of these classes (omitting the strings).
23For special purposes and especially in comprehensive treatises on the subject and in the arrangement and cataloguing of great collections many other distinctions are naturally made.
25One who plays upon an instrument (of any kind) is an instrumentalist; opposed to vocalist or singer.
27Music conceived, composed or arranged for or in the special style appropriate to instruments is instrumental; opposed to vocal, choral, etc.
29Instruments, Collections of. From time to time enthusiasts about particular instruments, such as the violin or the piano, have made important collections of specimens that illustrate the work of different makers and the advance in perfection from period to period. Not until comparatively recently, however, have collections been gathered on a more comprehensive plan, aiming to present many types, from all countries and representing the instrument-mak-
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