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Miass

(Encyclopedia)Miass mēäsˈ [key], river (c.390 mi/630 km long), W Siberian Russia. It rises in the eastern slopes of the S Urals and flows N and NE past Chelyabinsk into the Iset, a tributary of the Ob River. The...

bass viol

(Encyclopedia)bass viol bās vīˈəl [key], properly, the largest instrument of the viol family. The term now refers most often to the double bass. ...

sonata

(Encyclopedia)sonata sənäˈtə [key], in music, type of instrumental composition that arose in Italy in the 17th cent. At first the term merely distinguished an instrumental piece from a piece with voice, which w...

clock

(Encyclopedia)CE5 A pendulum clock: Weight-driven clock mechanism clock, instrument for measuring and indicating time. Predecessors of the clock were the sundial, the hourglass, and the clepsydra. See also watc...

Robinson, Bill

(Encyclopedia)Robinson, Bill, 1878–1949, African-American tap dancer popularly known as “Bojangles,” b. Richmond, Va., as Luther Robinson. An influential virtuoso tap dancer, he was a tap innovator and repute...

Tovey, Sir Donald Francis

(Encyclopedia)Tovey, Sir Donald Francis tōˈvē [key], 1875–1940, English pianist and musicologist, grad. Oxford, 1898. As a pianist he appeared in England and on the Continent after 1900 and in the United State...

Graham, George

(Encyclopedia)Graham, George, 1674?–1751, English instrument maker. A clockmaker by trade, Graham designed clocks and watches that earned him membership in the Royal Society and were still manufactured into the p...

rebec

(Encyclopedia)rebec rēˈbĕk [key], one of the earliest forms of the violin. It was pear-shaped, had from three to five strings, and possessed a strident tone. Its use, which began in the 13th cent., was to play m...

stereopticon

(Encyclopedia)stereopticon stĕrēŏpˈtĭkən [key], optical projection instrument making multiple use of the magic lantern. The magic lantern uses lenses to throw on a screen a magnified image from a transparent ...

spectrophotometer

(Encyclopedia)spectrophotometer, instrument for measuring and comparing the intensities of common spectral lines in the spectra of two different sources of light. See photometry; spectroscope; spectrum. ...