Étude

An étude (/ ˈtjd/; French pronunciation: [eˈtyd], a French word meaning study) is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, of considerable difficulty, and designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano. Of the vast number of études from that era some are still used as teaching material (particularly pieces by Carl Czerny and Muzio Clementi), and a few, by major composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy, achieved a place in today's concert repertory. Études written in the 20th century include those related to traditional ones (György Ligeti), those that require wholly unorthodox technique (John Cage), and ones that are unusually easy to play.

19th century

Studies, lessons and other didactic instrumental pieces composed before the 19th century are very varied, without any established genres. The pieces in lute instruction books, such as the celebrated Varietie of Lute-Lessons (1610), may be arranged in order of increasing difficulty, but will usually include both simple teaching pieces and masterworks by renowned composers. Domenico Scarlatti's 30 Essercizi per gravicembalo ("30 Exercises for harpsichord", 1738) do not differ in scope from his other keyboard works, and Johann Sebastian Bach's four volumes of Clavier-Übung ("keyboard practice") contain everything from simple organ duets to the extensive and difficult Goldberg Variations.

Étude (instrumental)

"Étude" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984 (see 1984 in music). It is from the album The Killing Fields, the soundtrack album for the film of the same name . It was reissued in 1990, when it was used in a commercial for Nurofen. The 1990 release also featured a track called "Gakkaen" by The Ono Gagaku Kai Society.

"Étude" is taken from the Francisco Tárrega piece "Recuerdos de la Alhambra".

Music video

The music video for "Étude" which appears on the Elements – The Best of Mike Oldfield video shows a boy watching parts of The Killing Fields on a television from a reel-to-reel tape machine and looking through photographs. The boy also plays with a Fairlight CMI, which the soundtrack album was composed on.

Track listing

7-inch vinyl

  • "Étude" (edit) – 3:07
  • "Evacuation" (edit) – 4:11
  • 12-inch vinyl

  • "Étude" – 4:38
  • "Evacuation" – 5:13
  • 1990 release

  • "Étude" – Mike Oldfield
  • "Gakkaen" – The Ono Gagaku Kai Society

  • References

  • "Singles". Amadian. Retrieved 2009-03-01. 
  • String

    String is a flexible piece of twine which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects. A rope is made of six twines while a string is made up of less than 6 twines.

    Examples of string use include:

  • Bowstring, for propelling an arrow
  • Drawstring
  • Kite
  • Pullstring
  • String art
  • String bag
  • String figure, design formed by weaving string around one's fingers
  • Stampede string, a long string usually made from leather or Human hair and typically run half-way around the crown of a cowboy hat
  • String or strings may also refer to:

    Music

  • String (music), the flexible element that produces vibrations and sound in string instruments
  • String band, musical ensemble composed mostly or entirely of string instruments, common in bluegrass, jazz, and country music
  • String instrument, a musical instrument that produces sound through vibrating strings
  • List of string instruments
  • String orchestra, orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family
  • String piano, a pianistic extended technique in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, rather than striking the piano's keys
  • Thong (clothing)

    The thong is a garment generally worn as either underwear or as a swimsuit in some countries. It may also be worn for traditional ceremonies or competitions, such as sumo wrestling.

    Viewed from the front, the thong typically resembles a bikini bottom, but at the back the material is reduced to a minimum. Thongs are almost always designed to cover the genitals, pubic hair, anus, and perineum, and leave part or most of the buttocks uncovered. The back of the garment typically consists of a thin waistband and a thin strip of material, designed to be worn between the buttocks, that connects the middle of the waistband with the bottom front of the garment. It is also used as a descriptive term in other types of garment, such as a bodysuit, bodystocking, leotard, or one-piece swimsuit in the context "thong backed."

    One type of thong is the G-string, the back of which consists only of a (typically elasticized) string. The two terms G-string and thong are often used interchangeably; however, they can refer to distinct pieces of clothing. Thongs come in a variety of styles depending on the thickness, material, or type of the rear portion of fabric and are available for both men and women throughout most of the world.

    String (computer science)

    In computer programming, a string is traditionally a sequence of characters, either as a literal constant or as some kind of variable. The latter may allow its elements to be mutated and the length changed, or it may be fixed (after creation). A string is generally understood as a data type and is often implemented as an array of bytes (or words) that stores a sequence of elements, typically characters, using some character encoding. A string may also denote more general arrays or other sequence (or list) data types and structures.

    Depending on programming language and precise data type used, a variable declared to be a string may either cause storage in memory to be statically allocated for a predetermined maximum length or employ dynamic allocation to allow it to hold variable number of elements.

    When a string appears literally in source code, it is known as a string literal or an anonymous string.

    In formal languages, which are used in mathematical logic and theoretical computer science, a string is a finite sequence of symbols that are chosen from a set called an alphabet.

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