Product Description: In The Shofar, Jeremy Montagu offers a detailed study of the ram’s horn of the Bible, describing its history and use—both ritual and secular—from biblical times to the present. Because the same person normally blows the shofar each year during the Jewish High Holy Days, few are aware of the wide differences among communities around the world: the varying points in the Jewish liturgical service when the shofar is blown, what sound combinations exist, and the many varieties of the instrument...read more

Product Description: Humanity has blown horns and trumpets of various makes and models, lengths and diameters since prehistoric times. In Horns and Trumpets of the World, the eminent scholar Jeremy Montagu surveys the vast range in time and type of this instrument that has accompanied everything in human history from the war cry to the formal symphony, from the hunting call to the modern jazz performance...read more

Product Description: For everyone who's read the Bible and wondered what David's harp, or Nebuchadnezzar's sackbut and cornett really were, Jeremy Montagu, retired curator of Oxford's Bate Collection of Historical Instruments, has composed an astoundingly thorough investigation and explanation of the musical instruments that pepper the pages of Western Civilization's most holy book...read more

This fascinating book presents the history of percussion instruments from the Old Stone Age to the present day. Jeremy Montagu, a performer, historian, and curator of musical instruments, discusses common and uncommon percussion instruments from all parts of the world, tracing their development and use through the ages and across cultures.After exploring the origins and antiquity of percussion instruments, Montagu investigates their appearance in the Middle Ages, in particular the nakers, tabors, cymbals, and triangles that are immediately ancestral to those we use today. He then describes instruments of the Renaissance and Early Baroque, High Baroque (from which we can trace surviving instruments and specific music), Classical, Romantic, and Modern Periods. Montagu follows the development of orchestral and band percussion from the late eighteenth century, moving from the introduction of the “Turkish music” to the modern pop bands, military, marching, and concert bands, and concert and studio orchestras. The book concludes with a wide-ranging survey of world percussion, covering instruments commonly played in schools, colleges, and orchestras. It incorporates appendices on playing techniques, technical matters, and the sociology of drummers, and is abundantly illustrated with rare images. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The Montagu Collection, of worldwide coverage and all types of instruments, began to take shape in the early 1960s when what had been a small and very random collection was then rapidly expanded to illustrate lectures and to provide material for research on all aspects of organology...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Illustrates and describes string, keyboard, woodwind, brass, percussion, and electronic instruments and traces their development

Surveys musical styles and describes the construction and use of keyboard, percussion, brass, string, and wind instruments during the early baroque, high baroque, and classical eras between 1600 and 1800

Through an in-depth study of instruments and illustrations from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the author pieces together information on instruments available to early musicians and the religious and secular purposes for which they were used