Horn (instrument)

A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike other brass instruments such as the trumpet, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument, and a section of brass or woodwind instruments, or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts.

Types

Variations include:

History

As the name indicates, people originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. This original usage survives in the shofar (Hebrew: שופר), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals. The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called קרן (keren) in Hebrew, qarnu in Akkadian, and κέρας (keras) in Greek.

Music

Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound and silence. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound). Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and with vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping, and there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces and pieces that combine singing and instruments. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses"). In its most general form, the activities describing music as an art form include the production of works of music (songs, tunes, symphonies, and so on), the criticism of music, the study of the history of music, and the aesthetic examination of music. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound."

Music (short story)

"Music" is a short story by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov originally published in Russian in 1932.

Summary

The story uses third-person narration and tells the story of Victor, a self-conscious man for whom "music he did not know... could be likened to the patter of a conversation in a strange tongue." When Victor arrives at a party, he finds the other guests listening with varying degrees of engagement to a man named Wolfe play the piano. As Victor does not know the song being played, he loses interest. He catches a glimpse of his ex-wife at the party, but cannot look at her. He laments the fact that now he must "start all over" the long task of forgetting her (in a flashback, it's revealed that she left him for another, who may or may not be at the party). Throughout the entire story, Victor views the music as a structure that has him encaged in an awkward situation with his ex-wife; it had seemed to him "a narrow dungeon" until it ends, thus giving his ex-wife the opportunity to leave, which she does. Victor then realizes that the music was not a dungeon, but actually "incredible bliss, a magic glass dome that had embraced and imprisoned him and her," and which allowed him to "breathe the same air as she." After she leaves, another party-goer comments to Victor that he looked immune to the music and that he didn't think such a thing possible. His own inanity is revealed when Victor asks him what was played and he cannot tell whether it was Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata or Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska's rather easy piece, Maiden's Prayer.

Music (Erick Sermon and Marvin Gaye song)

"Music" is a 2001 hit single by Erick Sermon featuring archived vocals from Marvin Gaye.

The song was thought of by Sermon after buying a copy of Gaye's Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions album, which overlook some of the original album's earlier mixes. After listening to an outtake of Gaye's 1982 album track, "Turn On Some Music" (titled "I've Got My Music" in its initial version), Sermon decided to mix the vocals (done in a cappella) and add it into his own song. The result was similar to Natalie Cole's interpolation of her father, jazz great Nat "King" Cole's hit, "Unforgettable" revisioned as a duet. The hip hop and soul duet featuring the two veteran performers was released as the leading song of the soundtrack to the Martin Lawrence & Danny DeVito comedy, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" The song became a runaway success rising to #2 on Billboard's R&B chart and was #1 on the rap charts. It also registered at #21 pop giving Sermon his highest-charted single on the pop charts as a solo artist and giving Gaye his first posthumous hit in 10 years following 1991's R&B-charted single, "My Last Chance" also bringing Gaye his 41st top 40 pop hit. There is also a version that's played on Adult R&B stations that removes Erick Sermon's rap verses. The song was featured in the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film The Lincoln Lawyer.

Horn (Chinese constellation)

The Horn mansion (角宿, pinyin: Jiǎo Xiù) is one of the Twenty-eight mansions of the Chinese constellations. It is one of the eastern mansions of the Azure Dragon.

Asterisms

Horn (anatomy)

A horn is a pointed projection on the head of various animals consisting of a covering of keratin and other proteins surrounding a core of live bone. In mammals, true horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae (pronghorn) and Bovidae (cattle, goats, antelope etc.).

One pair of horns is usual; however, two or more pairs occur in a few wild species and domesticated breeds of sheep. Polycerate (multi-horned) sheep breeds include the Hebridean, Icelandic, Jacob, Manx Loaghtan, and the Navajo-Churro.

Horns usually have a curved or spiral shape, often with ridges or fluting. In many species only males have horns. Horns start to grow soon after birth, and continue to grow throughout the life of the animal (except in pronghorns, which shed the outer layer annually, but retain the bony core). Partial or deformed horns in livestock are called scurs. Similar growths on other parts of the body are not usually called horns, but spurs, claws or hoofs depending on the part of the body on which they occur.

Horn of Kankas

The Kankas noble family, otherwise known as Horn, is a noble family from Finland of medieval frälse.

Its first known member, Olof Mattsson, was documented between 1381 and 1415, having a seat in Halikko, near the present town of Salo. His seal featured the figure of a drinking horn. The family became one of the most prominent in Finland at the end of Middle Ages. In the 16th century, the use of the word signifying their horned logo became established as surname.

Its head, Sir Claes Christersson Horn (1518–66), was among the first to be created friherre (baron) in Sweden, which took place at the coronation of Eric XIV of Sweden in 1560. Friherre Claes got the title Baron of Åminne (fi. Joensuu).

Other branches

A genealogically junior branch descended from baron Claes' uncle, knight Henrik Klasson Horn (1512–95), who held his seat at Kankainen Manor in Masku which is nearer to Turku than Halikko.

Sir Henrik Horn (Marienborg) (1618–93) was created friherre of the barony of Marienborg in Livonia in 1651 by queen Christina of Sweden. His male line went extinct in 1728. He was a nephew of Gustav, Count of Björneborg (fi. Pori).