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Chinese music

(Encyclopedia)Chinese music, the classical music forms of China. Throughout the political and social turmoil following World War I, Western (classical and popular) and Japanese sources dominated Chinese music. At...

Harriot, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Harriot, Thomas hârˈēət [key], 1560–1621, English mathematician and astronomer. He was tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh, who sent him in 1585 to Virginia as surveyor with Sir Richard Grenville. Retur...

Mattei, Enrico

(Encyclopedia)Mattei, Enrico ānrēˈkō mät-tāˈ [key], 1906–62, Italian public administrator. After World War II he was given the task of dismantling the Italian Petroleum Agency, a Fascist state enterprise. ...

C, letter of the alphabet

(Encyclopedia)C, third letter of the alphabet. In position and form, but not in meaning, it corresponds to Greek gamma (see G). In English it is pronounced variously, e.g., in can, cent, church, and loch. In musica...

blueprint

(Encyclopedia)blueprint, white-on-blue photographic print, commonly of a working drawing used during building or manufacturing. The plan is first drawn to scale on a special paper or tracing cloth through which lig...

Petty, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Petty, Sir William, 1623–87, English statistician and physician. He was a founder of the Royal Society and was physician general to the army of Ireland in 1652. Petty's survey of the Irish estates a...

ladybird beetle

(Encyclopedia)ladybird beetle or ladybug, member of a cosmopolitan beetle family with over 4,000 species, including 350 species in the United States. Ladybird beetles are mostly under 1⁄4 in. (6 mm) long and are ...

Annapolis Convention

(Encyclopedia)Annapolis Convention, 1786, interstate convention called by Virginia to discuss a uniform regulation of commerce. It met at Annapolis, Md. With only 5 of the 13 states—Delaware, New Jersey, New York...

model and modeling

(Encyclopedia)model and modeling, in painting, the use of light and shade to simulate volume in the representation of solids. In sculpture the terms denote a technique involving the use of a pliable material such a...

octave

(Encyclopedia)octave ŏkˈtĭv [key] [Lat.,=eighth], in music, the perfect interval between the 1st and 8th tones of the diatonic scale. The upper note of a perfect octave has a frequency of vibration twice that of...