Overture (French ouverture, lit. "opening"; German Ouvertüre, Vorspiel, i.e., "prelude", lit. "play before") in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn began to use the term to refer to independent, self-existing instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme".

History

17th century

The idea of an instrumental opening to opera existed during the 17th century. Peri's Euridice opens with a brief instrumental ritornello, and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) opens with a toccata, in this case a fanfare for muted trumpets. More important, however, was the prologue, which comprised sung dialogue between allegorical characters which introduced the overarching themes of the stories depicted.

French overture

Overture is a music notation (scorewriter) program for Windows and Macintosh platforms, written by Don Williams. Visually, the Overture interface resembles Encore, another notation program originally by the same author. However, Overture is the first scorewriter program to feature full Virtual Studio Technology (VST) hosting; the software also plays MIDI files.

Current version

As of May 2015, Overture is at version 4.1.5.

Editing

In Overture, input of note data can be done by any of several methods: QWERTY keyboard, mouse, step entry MIDI keyboard recording, or real-time MIDI keyboard recording. Most notational symbols can be repositioned simply by dragging them with the mouse. Most other editing of notational symbols is performed by selecting the symbols using the mouse, and selecting the appropriate editing command from a menu or by clicking on a palette. MIDI data is edited in a special graphical view, where each note appears as a bar on a piano roll. Editing is done simply by adjusting the bars by dragging with the mouse.

Overture (Italian: Oeuverture) is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The film depicts the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations, set against the music of Beethoven's Egmont Overture, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Carpentry is a skilled trade in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters traditionally worked with natural wood and did the rougher work such as framing, but today many other materials are also used and sometimes the finer trades of cabinetmaking and furniture building are considered carpentry. Carpentry in the United States is almost always done by men. With 98.5% of carpenters being male, it was the fourth most male-dominated occupation in the country in 1999, and there were about 1.5 million positions in 2006. Carpenters are usually the first tradesmen on a job and the last to leave. Carpenters normally framed post-and-beam buildings until the end of the 19th century; now this old fashioned carpentry is called timber framing. Carpenters learn this trade by being employed through an apprenticeship training—normally 4 years—and qualify by successfully completing that country's department of labour competency test in places such as the UK, USA and South Africa. It is also common that the skill can be learnt by gaining work experience other than a formal training program, which may be the case in many places.

Carpenters is the third studio album by the Carpenters. Released on May 14, 1971, it was their most successful studio album ever, reaching number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 12 in the UK. With the hit songs "For All We Know", "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Superstar", Carpenters solidified Karen Carpenter's reputation as one of the most accomplished vocalists of the 20th century.

It has been said that the strength of these recordings is what caused Richard Carpenter to ask his sister to front the band for their live performances instead of playing behind the drums. Amongst many fans, the album has simply been referred to as "The Tan Album", because the original LP cover, complete with overlapping flap, looked like an oversized tan envelope, and is presumably a play on The Beatles' so-called White Album.

In Cash Box's Top 100 Albums of 1971, Carpenters was listed as one of the year's ten biggest albums. This is the first album to feature the familiar Carpenters logo.