Overview
Be an eyewitness to the creation of music in all its forms and the amazing variety of instruments -- from zithers and pan pipes to electric guitars and synthesizers. See why most violin players require frogs. Find out about the ripples of sound created using a drum. Discover what an oboe and a snake charmer's vegetable gourd have in common.Text and pictures introduce musical instruments from early times to the present--from pipes and flutes to electronic synthesizers.
Synopsis
New Look! Relaunched with new jackets and 8 pages of new text!
Here is an original and exciting look at the fascinating world of sound and music. Superb real-life photographs of instruments ranging from zithers and panpipes to electric guitars and synthesizers offer a unique "eyewitness" view of ancient and contemporary music. See how strings vibrate to make a note sound, how an invisible "column" of air sounds a pipe, which instrument resembles a peacock, how sousaphone players wear their instruments. Learn who invented an important new key system, how to master the bagpipes, why pipe organs have "ears" and "mouths", and why French horns are "doubled up". Discover how a vegetable gourd charms snakes, why tangled fingers led to the invention of the piano, why spiders add a "buzz" to xylophones, where reindeer toe-bones were used as whistles, and much, much more!
School Library Journal
Gr 4-7-- Four more subject-surveys, in a handsome picture series, that will catch youthful imaginations with their wide-ranging selections of fascinating items, beautifully photographed. Topics are developed in two- to four-page groupings, with cross-references and an index--and browsers will find themselves caught and drawn into the flow. Music traces families of instruments and discusses the physics of sound with diagrams and cut-aways. From a 40,000-year-old bone whistle to components of an electric guitar, there are wonderful photos of ancient harps, bagpipes, pianos, and oriental instruments. Shell prods children to think about cases, whether egg, husk, or skull, but deals mostly with mollusks, urchins, and crustaceans. Early Humans shows early human fossils, and pictures selective topics (e.g., art, magic, tools, writing) for the human family up through the Iron Age. Examples come from Africa, Europe, the Americas, early China, the Near East, and Australia. Mammal explores that class in terms of its attributes, evolution, and variety of adapted forms. Photos of the bones of a seal's flipper, an elephant's foot, a panda's jaw, and a close-up of a whale's baleen are sure to appeal to children. While scale is infrequently given, relative sizes of objects are usually clear. A good source for often-asked-for and hard-to-find illustrations, this series could find a place in any library. --Ruth M. McConnell, San Antonio Pub . Lib .