With a dull instrument, the harmonics die out, but with a sustaining instrument, the harmonics continue to sound along with the fundamental note.
Only the bass part was written down; it was played by low, sustaining instruments bowed or blown, while plucked or keyboard instruments supplied the chords suggested by the bass and melody lines.
Their movements are precise and specific, each action exemplifying a verb, as Mr. Turnage's vibrantly rhythmic score, played live by the Undance Band, sings out with melodic swoops from the woodwinds and sustained wind instrument lines.
It was also where he learned to play the xiao, an ancient flutelike instrument that sustained him as a street musician during long bouts of joblessness after his release.
As some instruments play sustained notes, others saw away, creating undulant waves and grainy inner textures.
Little bits of melody are supported, comforted really, by precise gestures in the instruments: a sustained open fifth on the cello, an undulant riff on the percussion, a flighty flute passage.
The strike was bigger than last year's, but hardly the sustained response with "all instruments of our national power" that the President promised in his televised address announcing the attack.
Starting on a single, sustained tone low in the instrument's range, the unaccompanied flute line gradually takes shape as an alluring, gently chromatic fantasy.
Vocal or instrumental, it is accompanied by a drone (sustained-tone) instrument and often also by a melodic instrument that repeats the soloist's phrases after a lag of a few seconds.
Dating from 1989, Tableau for Orchestra weaves eruptions and whispers over a series of sustained monotones and chords, shuttled from one instrument or group of instruments to another in a virtuoso display of shifting colours.
World Tour also adds an open string note for bass players, represented by a line across the fret instead of any note gems, that is played by strumming without holding down any fret buttons (the sixth installment, Warriors of Rock, features an open note sustain for bass instruments as well).
