Musical Instruments
Not everyone is gifted with an exceptional singing voice. That's where instruments come in! The principal types of musical instruments are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic instruments. Musical instruments have been used since the earliest times, and modern technology has in many cases simplified or improved the construction of instruments, while mechanization has made possible the mass production of instruments of all kinds. It remains true, however, that the production of an instrument of the highest quality still demands the highest degree of individual skill.
Musical Instruments Encyclopedia Articles
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flute
Flute, wind instrument in which the sound is produced by a stream of air directed against a sharp edge, upon which the air breaks up into eddies that alternate regularly above and below the edge, setting...
trumpet
Trumpet, brass wind musical instrument sounded by lip vibration against a cup mouthpiece. Ethnologists and ethnomusicologists use the word trumpet for any lip-vibrated instrument, whether of horn, conch,...
bell
Bell, hollow vessel usually of metal, but sometimes of horn, wood, glass, or clay, struck near the rim by an interior clapper or exterior hammer or mallet to produce a ringing sound. Bells may be categorized...
organ
Organ, in music, a keyboard instrument, operated by the player’s hands and feet, in which pressurized air produces notes through a series of pipes organized in scalelike rows. The term organ encompasses...
electronic instrument
Electronic instrument, any musical instrument that produces or modifies sounds by electric, and usually electronic, means. The electronic element in such music is determined by the composer, and the sounds...
stringed instrument
Stringed instrument, any musical instrument that produces sound by the vibration of stretched strings, which may be made of vegetable fibre, metal, animal gut, silk, or artificial materials such as plastic...
electronic music
Electronic music, any music involving electronic processing, such as recording and editing on tape, and whose reproduction involves the use of loudspeakers. Although any music produced or modified by electrical,...
lyre
Lyre, stringed musical instrument having a yoke, or two arms and a crossbar, projecting out from and level with the body. The strings run from a tailpiece on the bottom or front of the instrument to the...
xylophone
Xylophone, percussion instrument consisting of a set of graduated, tuned wooden bars supported at nodal (nonvibrating) points and struck with sticks or padded mallets. The xylophone possibly originated...
drum
Drum, musical instrument, the sound of which is produced by the vibration of a stretched membrane (it is thus classified as a membranophone within the larger category of percussion instruments). Basically,...
guitar
Guitar, plucked stringed musical instrument that probably originated in Spain early in the 16th century, deriving from the guitarra latina, a late-medieval instrument with a waisted body and four strings....
percussion instrument
Percussion instrument, any musical instrument belonging to either of two groups, idiophones or membranophones. Idiophones are instruments whose own substance vibrates to produce sound (as opposed to the...
bell chime
Bell chime, (from medieval Latin cymbala, meaning “bells”) set of stationary bells tuned in a musical series, traditionally in diatonic sequence (seven-note scale) plus a few accidentals (sharps and flats)....
pipa
Pipa, short-necked Chinese lute prominent in Chinese opera orchestras and as a solo instrument. It has a shallow, pear-shaped body with a wooden belly and, sometimes, two crescent-shaped sound holes. The...
musical instrument
Musical instrument, any device for producing a musical sound. The principal types of such instruments, classified by the method of producing sound, are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic....
bagpipe
Bagpipe, wind instrument consisting of two or more single- or double-reed pipes, the reeds being set in motion by wind fed by arm pressure on an animal-skin (or rubberized-cloth) bag. The pipes are held...
oboe
Oboe, treble woodwind instrument with a conical bore and double reed. Though used chiefly as an orchestral instrument, it also has a considerable solo repertoire. Hautbois (French: “high [i.e., loud] wood”),...
wind instrument
Wind instrument, any musical instrument that uses air as the primary vibrating medium for the production of sound. Wind instruments exhibit great diversity in structure and sonority and have been prominent...
clarinet
Clarinet, single-reed woodwind instrument used orchestrally and in military and brass bands and possessing a distinguished solo repertory. It is usually made of African blackwood and has a cylindrical...
keyboard instrument
Keyboard instrument, any musical instrument on which different notes can be sounded by pressing a series of keys, push buttons, or parallel levers. In nearly all cases in Western music the keys correspond...