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Necking it: the baroque theorbo, known to some as the giraffe of the lute world
Word of the week: Designed to emanate the music of the spheres, for opera, and also allow improvisation, this Baroque-era member of the lute family has has a hugely extended neck, second pegbox, large volume with ornate sound holes, and wide range with harmonic options
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Ethereal and otherworldly: the waterphone
Word of the week: Resonant, expressive, and eerily strange, this inharmonic idiophone instrument invented by Richard Waters in 1967 consists of a stainless steel resonator bowl or pan with a cylindrical neck and bronze rods, played by hand, with soft mallets or a bow
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One of many visual impressions of the great early Renaissance satirist François Rabelais
Word of the Week: It’s a bewildering world, and this wonderful sounding evocative verb, attributed originally to translated François Rabelais from 1469, indeed means to confuse, and its four syllables trundle musically with a form of crash-bang rhythm
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The ibex will clamber almost vertical walls …
Word of the week: From the genus Capra, or mountain goat, a species that survived the ice age, these specialist climbers have huge horns and spreading feet for death defying climbs and ascents, but how might they have inspired songwriters?
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Lou Reed
Word of the week: A rare and archaic word from the late 17th century, and an alternative adjective to hepatic, from the French jécoraire and Latin jecur, it means relating to the liver, but not necessarily organ songs
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Autumn is a kexy time of year …
The figure portrayed on this famous record cover could be described as a practitioner of nosism
Word of the Week: It sounds like a strange religion or nasal habit, but from Latin ‘nos’, this is the practice of using the ‘we’ pronoun when really only referring oneself in action or opinion - it’s more common in song than ‘we’ might imagine
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The Ariston Organette
Word of the Week: It’s a mechanical, hand-operated organ instrument first manufactured in the late 1870s playing music from perforated paper, cardboard, or metal disks on wooden rolls or “cobs” that clunkily and rather beautifully captures another era
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The phorminx (centre) alongside the harp and lyre.
Word of the week: Taking us back to some of the earliest ever music, in ancient Greek φόρμιγξ, the phorminx, a developed form of lyre, is one of the oldest instruments and the a forerunner to the kithara
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From The Quincunx, the 1989 novel by Charles Palliser
Word of the week: This ancient symbolic word is not really one to sing, but points down many cultural roads through history, as well as unearthing a variety of lesser known music
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Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Word of the week: What comes around … this week's rather shapely word circles culture in many directions – from medieval French poetry to a 17th-century musical form all the way to modern slang on sport stars to derogatory cars
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How do you recreate this on a record?
Word of the week: An evocative term suitable for hearing the effects of changeable weather, this is a lesser known word for a musical instrument used to recreate the sound of thunder. But how? And who uses it?
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A Seagull S6 acoustic guitar with a beautiful burnt umber finish
Word of the week: Strong in sound and pleasing to say, this week’s word is a dark brown with a hue of yellow or red, depending on type, but does it ever show its true colours in song?
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Watch out for watchet - seventh from right
Word of the week: It sounds like a small timepiece or a low-key warning, but this is really word of a shade of pale blue, an angler's fly, and also a harbour town in Somerset
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The Maui Xaphoon in C
Word of the week: It's another word for bamboo saxophone, handily pocket sized, cheaper than its metal cousin being without complex valves, and closer to a clarinet, yet sounding remarkably sax-like using a similar mouthpiece and reed
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But what happens after 22 miles?
Word of the week: Usually our entries are historical obscurities, but this verb is not yet in the formal lexicon, has only entered language via online circulation, yet has still inspired recent music and its definition harks back to great traditions
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David Bowie could certainly be described as epalpebrate in this still from The Man Who Fell To Earth
Word of the Week: It's an obscure adjective from the late 19th century to describe a person lacking something we all take for granted, but definitely notice when they are missing – eyebrows
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XTC like to talk about the foppotee, but not always in a derogatory way
Word of the week: It’s a very rare and also pleasant sounding, poetic word that was briefly used in the 17th century, but is in fact derogatory, pertaining to simpleton. It could well describe much behaviour in modern life too. But in songs, is it always wrong to be a foppotee?
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Short-tailed gymnure
Word of the week: Survival concerns? Maybe be more gymnure. Small, elusive and nocturnal, it's not a rat, nor a shrew, but a furry hedgehog, a Galericinae from the Erinaceidae family, with acute senses, especially of smell, and likely resembles the earliest form of mammal
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Miso soup
Word of the week: A derivative of the French jus for juice, this rarely tasted mid-17th-century word means full of broth or soup, a deliciously evocative adjective that bubbles up a variety of associations, but does it appear in song?
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