Dictionary of Music - Birding America

mute 255laboratory. In practice, however, taped naturalsounds have usually been employed together withelectronically produced sounds, voices, or musicalinstruments. Composers of musique concrèteinclude Pierre Schaeffer (who first coined the termc. 1948), Pierre Henry, Varèse, Boulez, Messiaen,Marius Constant, Luc Ferrari, and François Bayle.Many feel that the main contribution of musiqueconcrète has lain in admitting all kinds of sound tothe realm of music, instead of restricting the composerto vocal and instrumental sounds of definitepitch. The sound track of some motion pictures is aversion of musique concrète. See also SOUNDINSTALLATION.Mussorgsky (moo sôr′skē), Modest (mo dest′),1839–1881. Also, Moussorgsky. A Russian composerwho is remembered as one of the Five (seeFIVE, THE), a group of composers who wanted tofound a truly Russian music, and as the creator ofwhat many consider the masterpiece of Russiannationalist music, the opera Boris Godunov. Mussorgskystarted his career as a professional armyofficer, but he resigned in 1859 to devote himself tomusic. Ten years later he wrote Boris, the only largescalework he ever completed. In this opera, which isbased on a tragedy by the great Russian poetPushkin, Mussorgsky’s gift for creating melodiesthat follow the natural inflections of the Russian languagegreatly enhances the powerful drama, which,unlike earlier Russian operas, does not follow theconventions of Italian opera. Mussorgsky’s otherworks include some outstanding songs (among themthe beautiful song cycle Songs and Dances ofDeath), a set of piano pieces called Pictures at anExhibition (later transcribed for orchestra by Ravel),the symphonic poem A Night on Bald Mountain, andseveral unfinished operas, among them The Fair atSorotchinsk, completed by César Cui, and Khovanshchina,completed and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov.Mustel organSee under HARMONIUM.muta (moo — ′tä) Italian: “change.” 1 A direction towind-instrument players to change instruments, asfrom oboe to English horn, from flute to piccolo, orfrom B-flat clarinet to A clarinet. 2 A direction totimpanists to change the tuning of one or more oftheir drums, as in muta la in si, which instructs thetimpanist to change the tuning of the drum originallytuned to A (la in Italian) to B (si in Italian). 3 Adirection to brass-instrument players to changecrooks so as to convert, for example, from Frenchhorn in F to French horn in E.mutation stop An organ stop whose pipes aretuned to a harmonic of the basic pitch of each noteon the keyboard. A quint stop, for example, producesthe note an octave and a fifth above the noteordinarily produced by each key (when the key formiddle C is played, it will sound instead the secondG above middle C). Similarly, a tierce stop producesthe note two octaves and a third above the note ordinarilyproduced by each key. These pitches are thoseof the second and fourth overtones of the notes ordinarilyproduced. Mutation stops are used only tomodify the tone of some other stop tuned to thebasic notes. See also HARMONIC SERIES; MIXTURESTOP; ORGAN.mute Any device that muffles the sound of amusical instrument, making it softer and, usually,also changing the tone quality (and sometimes thepitch). Mutes are used in stringed instruments, brassinstruments, and drums.Instruments of the violin family (violin, viola,cello, and double bass) are muted by means of apronged device, which is clamped over the bridge toproduce a muffled, thin sound.The first brass instruments for which muteswere devised were the trumpets, in which a pearshapedblock of wood was placed inside the bell.This kind of mute also raised the pitch of the instrument,so a crook had to be used to lower it again.Later, trumpet mutes, in the shape of cups or hollowcones, were used for horns, trombones, and tubas.Today, however, the French horn is often muted byhand (players put their hand inside the bell both toalter the tone and to correct the pitch of the instrument),a procedure also known as STOPPING.French-horn mutes of cardboard or metal that donot affect the pitch are also used occasionally.Orchestral trombone mutes usually consist of cone-