Dictionary of Music - Birding America

132 étudesome other instruments that a particular note orgroup of notes is to be damped or stopped (silenced)immediately after being sounded.étude (ā tYd′) French: “study.” An instrumentalpiece designed to improve the player’s technique.Études usually contain technically difficult material—arpeggios,trills, octaves, double stops, etc.Although some études, such as finger exercises, areprincipally technical studies, others give the materialartistic form, that is, they are pieces in which musicalsubstance and technical difficulty coincide.Chopin’s piano études were among the first toaccomplish this unity of beauty and technique. Alsooutstanding are Liszt’s Paganini Études, which aretranscriptions of violin studies, and his very difficultTranscendental Études, which he revised severaltimes, creating new textures and tone colors fromthe technical complexities.Études in the form of finger exercises, mainly forkeyboard instruments, were written as far back asthe sixteenth century. Études with genuine musicalinterest were written by Johann Baptist Cramer,Muzio Clementi (especially his Gradus ad Parnassum,1817–1826), and Carl Czerny. The Czechpianist Ignaz Moscheles wrote études specificallyintended for concert performance, so-called concertétudes. None of these, however, approaches thestature of Chopin’s and Liszt’s piano études. Outstandingviolin études were written by RodolpheKreutzer, Jacques Rode, Niccolò Paganini, CharlesAuguste de Bériot, and others. (See also FINGEREXERCISE; RICERCAR, def. 3.)etwas (et′väs) German: “somewhat.” Used inmusical directions such as etwas bewegt (“somewhatlively”).euphonium (yoo — fō′nē əm). A valved instrumentof baritone range that is used largely in bands andonly occasionally in orchestras. Some authoritiesconsider it a kind of saxhorn, and others a tubawith a higher than normal range. The euphoniumresembles the BARITONE HORN but usually has fourvalves instead of three, and a wider, conical bore(cone-shaped inside), ending in a wide bell. Likethe baritone horn, the euphonium may be shapedfig. 94 p/u from p. 136fig. 95 p/u from p. 136either like a trumpet or bugle, with the bell pointingforward or with the bell turned back and up, like atuba (the latter variety is shown in the accompanyingillustration). The euphonium usually is pitchedin B-flat (but sometimes in C) and has a range ofthree octaves, from the B-flat two octaves belowmiddle C to the B-flat above middle C. It is a transposinginstrument, its music being written a ninth(an octave plus a second) higher than it sounds.—double euphonium A euphonium that has, inaddition to the regular bell, the bell of a saxtromba.The player chooses one bell or the other by meansof a valve.eurhythmics (yoo rith⁄ ′ miks). A system of musicaltraining through body movements. Although he wasnot the first to think of body movements to expressmusical rhythms, the Swiss composer and teacherÉmile Jaques-Dalcroze is largely responsible formaking eurhythmics a method of learning music. Notonly can rhythm be taught in this way, but intervalsand pitches can be translated into physical movement(using the rungs of a ladder for the scale, forexample), as can other aspects of music. Eurhythmicsis used mainly to teach young children the basic elementsof music; classes and schools of eurhythmicsare widely established in Europe and America.