Making Music Made Easy As Soup

Music Instruments

Music harmony and music rhyttm are carried through to the audience by musical instruments. A musical instrument can be anything from 2 stick being banged together to a piano or a voice. For the purpose of making music, a musical instrument can be anything that makes a sound. However, the most well known and universally accepted instruments are divided into the following categories:

• Accordians
• Bass Guitars
• Brass (Trumpets, Trombones, Tubas)
• Drum Kits
• Electric Guitars
• French Horns
• Harmonica
• Piano/Keyboards (Grand Piano, Honkey Tonk, Electric Piano, Organs, Harpsichords, Clavinets)
• Pitched Percussion (Timpani [kettle drums], Xylophone, Vibrophone)
• Saxaphones (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone)
• Strings (Violins, Violas, Cellos, Double Basses)
• Synthesizers (Pads, Leads, FX, Soundscapes)
• Unpitched Percussion (Bongos, Congos, Triangle, Snares, Bass Drum, Cymbals, Tambourines, Shakers)
• Vocals
• Woodwinds (Piccolos, Flutes, Oboes, Clarinets, Bassoons)

Each musical instrument has to fulfill some role in the "musical soup".

Roles Of Musical Instruments

Each musical instrument will play a certain role in your creations. There may be multiple instruments playing the same role, however sometimes, they might clash. There are several roles that need to be filled:

• Controller of rhythmic drive (usually filled by the drum kit or the rhythm guitar)
• Provider of harmonic founation (usually filled by the bass guitar, or any bass instrument)
• Provider of harmony (Filled by any tuned instrument(s) - often more than 1 instrument)
• Provider of melody (Filled by any tuned instrument; often vocals)

Enough theory; let's move on to the practical aspect of making music. Let us explore how these elements can be joined together to make soup.

Next: Learn about Music Synthesis.