Non - Common Instruments & the instrument families
Non - Common Instruments
Mandolin
A mandolin (Italian: mandolino; literally "small mandola") is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or "pick". It commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison (8 strings), although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. The courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, and mandobass.
There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the carved-top mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-back has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued together into a bowl. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a much shallower, arched back, and an arched top—both carved out of wood. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, braced on the inside for strength in a similar manner to a guitar. Each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and traditional music. Carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are commonly used in Irish, British and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature an extra fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course.
Other mandolin varieties differ primarily in the strings, and include Milanese, Lombard, Brescian, and other six-course types (tuned in fourths), as well as four-string models (one string per course), and the Sicilian twelve-string (three strings per course) model. There have also been made instruments with sixteen-strings (four strings per course).
Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard (the top). Pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, and were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, which exert more pressure than the gut strings. The modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. There is usually one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic F (f-hole). A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling.
Zither
Zither is the name of both a class of musical stringed instruments, and of certain particular instruments within that class. The word zither is a German rendering of the Latin word cithara, from which the modern word guitar is also derived. Historically it has been used to describe any instrument of the cittern family, or an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body – similar to a psaltery. This article describes the second variety.
Zithers are played by strumming or plucking the strings, either with the fingers (sometimes using a tool called a plectrum), or sounding the strings with a bow. Varieties of the instrument like the santur or cimbalom are sounded by beating the strings with specially shaped hammers. Like a guitar or lute, a zither's body serves as a sound box, but unlike them and due to the manner of playing, a zither has no need for a distinctly separate neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty.
Modern common use refers to three specific instruments: the concert zither (German: Konzertzither), its variant the Alpine zither (both using a fretted fingerboard), and the chord zither (more recently described as a fretless zither). Concert and Alpine zithers are traditionally found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, north-western Croatia, the southern regions of Germany and alpine Europe. Emigration from these areas during the 19th centuries introduced the concert and Alpine zither to North and South America. Chord zithers similar to the instrument in the photograph also became popular in North America during the late 19th and early 20th century. These variants all use metal strings, similar to the cittern.
Guitarron
Guitarrón or guitarron may refer to:
Vihuela
The vihuela (Spanish pronunciation: [biˈwela]) is a guitar-shaped string instrument from 15th and 16th century Spain, Portugal and Italy, usually with six doubled strings.
Banjo
The banjo is a four-, five- or (occasionally) six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is typically a piece of animal skin or plastic, and the frame is typically circular. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, adapted from African instruments of similar design.
The banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in African American traditional music, before becoming popular in the minstrel shows of the 19th century. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music.
Sitar
The sitar English pronunciation: /ˈsɪtɑr/ or /sɪˈtɑr/ is a plucked stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani music and Indian classical music. The instrument is believed to have been derived from the veena, an ancient Indian instrument, which was modified by a Mughal court musician to conform with the tastes of his Persian patrons and named after a Persian instrument called the Setar (meaning three strings). The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India. It derives its distinctive timbre and resonance from sympathetic strings, bridge design, a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating chamber.In appearance, the Sitar is similar to the Tambura, except it has frets. The body of Sitar is more or less a spherical gourd at the lower end.
Used widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, the sitar became popularly known in the wider world through the work of Ravi Shankar beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The sitar saw further use in popular music after the Beatles featured the sitar in their compositions "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", "Within You Without You", "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Love You To". Their use of the instrument came as a result of George Harrison's taking lessons on how to play it from Shankar and Shambhu Das. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also used a sitar in "Paint It Black" and a brief fad began for using the instrument in pop songs.
Pipa
The pipa (Chinese: 琵琶; pinyin: pípa, [pʰǐpʰǎ]) is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa.
The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for almost two thousand years in China. Several related instruments in East and Southeast Asia are derived from the pipa; these include the Japanese biwa, the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà, and the Korean bipa. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer widely used; examples survive in museums, but recent attempts to revive the Korean instrument have been partially successful in recent years.
Laud
Laúd (Spanish: "lute") is a plectrum-plucked chordophone from Spain, played also in diaspora countries such as Cuba and the Philippines.
It belongs to the cittern family of instruments, with six double courses in unison (i.e. twelve strings in pairs), similar to the bandurria, but with a longer neck.
Traditionally it is used by folk string musical groups, such as the Filipino rondalla string ensemble, together with the guitar and the bandurria. Like the bandurria, it is tuned in fourths, but its range is one octave lower.
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system), more specifically to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes.
The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompanying instrument, especially in vocal works, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a written-out accompaniment. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist, "lewtist" or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any string instrument) is referred to as a luthier.
Balalaika
The balalaika (Russian: балала́йка, pronounced [bəɫɐˈɫajkə]) is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.
The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest: the piccolo balalaika, prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass balalaika, and contrabass balalaika. The prima balalaika is the most common. All have three-sided bodies; spruce, evergreen, or fir tops; and backs made of three to nine wooden sections (usually maple). They are typically strung with three strings.
The prima balalaika, secunda and alto are played either with the fingers or a plectrum (pick), depending on the music being played, and the bass and contrabass (equipped with extension legs that rest on the floor) are played with leather plectra. The rare piccolo instrument is usually played with a pick.
Dulcimer
Dulcimer may refer to:
Stringed musical instruments
Appalachian dulcimers:
Other:
Kora
A kora is a harp built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator with a long hardwood neck. The skin is supported by two handles that run under it, and it supports a notched double free-standing bridge. It doesn't fit into any one category of musical instruments, but rather several, and must be classified as a "double-bridge-harp-lute." The strings run in two divided ranks, making it a double harp. They do not end in a soundboard but are held in notches on a bridge, making it a bridge harp. They originate from a string arm or neck and cross a bridge directly supported by a resonating chamber, making it a lute too.
The sound of a kora resembles that of a harp, though when played in the traditional style, it bears a closer resemblance to flamenco and delta blues guitar techniques. The player uses only the thumb and index finger of both hands to pluck the strings in polyrhythmic patterns (using the remaining fingers to secure the instrument by holding the hand posts on either side of the strings). Ostinato riffs ("Kumbengo") and improvised solo runs ("Birimintingo") are played at the same time by skilled players.
Kora players have traditionally come from griot families (also from the Mandinka nationalities) who are traditional historians, genealogists and storytellers who pass their skills on to their descendants. The instrument is played in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso and the Gambia. A traditional kora player is called a Jali, similar to a 'bard' or oral historian. Most West African musicians prefer the term 'jali' to 'griot', which is the French word.
Traditional koras feature 21 strings, eleven played by the left hand and ten by the right. Modern koras made in the Casamance region of southern Senegal sometimes feature additional bass strings, adding up to four strings to the traditional 21. Strings were traditionally made from thin strips of hide, for example antelope skin - now most strings are made from harp strings or nylon fishing line, sometimes plaited together to create thicker strings.
By moving leather tuning rings up and down the neck, a kora player can retune the instrument into one of four seven-note scales. These scales are close in tuning to western major, minor and Lydian modes.
Didgeridoo
The didgeridoo (/ˌdɪdʒəriːˈduː/) (also known as a didjeridu) is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia potentially within the last 40,000 years and still in widespread use today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe". Musicologists classify it as a brass aerophone.
There are no reliable sources stating the didgeridoo's exact age. Archaeological studies of rock art in Northern Australia suggest that the people of the Kakadu region of the Northern Territory have been using the didgeridoo for less than 1,000 years, based on the dating of paintings on cave walls and shelters from this period. A clear rock painting in Ginga Wardelirrhmeng, on the northern edge of the Arnhem Land plateau, from the freshwater period (that was begun 1500 years ago) shows a didgeridoo player and two songmen participating in an Ubarr Ceremony.
A modern didgeridoo is usually cylindrical or conical, and can measure anywhere from 1 to 3 m (3 to 10 ft) long. Most are around 1.2 m (4 ft) long. Generally, the longer the instrument, the lower its pitch or key. However, flared instruments play a higher pitch than unflared instruments of the same length.
Steel Drum
Steelpans (also known as steel drums or pans, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steel band or orchestra) is a musical instrumentoriginating from Trinidad and Tobago. Steel pan musicians are called pannists.
Koto
The koto (Japanese: 箏) is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese zheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about 180 centimetres (71 in) length, and made from kiri wood (Paulownia tomentosa). They have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable bridges along the width of the instrument, and there is also 17-string koto as a variant of the koto. Players can adjust the string pitches by moving the white bridges in the picture before playing, and use three finger picks (on thumb, index finger, and middle finger) to pluck the strings, otherwise known as plectra.
Ukulele
The ukulele (/juːkəˈleɪliː/, ew-kə-lay-lee, from Hawaiian: ʻukulele [ˈʔukuˈlɛlɛ], oo-koo-le-le; British English: ukelele) sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments; it generally employs four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings.
The ukulele originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian interpretation of the machete, a small guitar-like instrument related to the cavaquinho, timple, braguinha and the rajão, taken to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants, many from the Macaronesian Islands. It gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century, and from there spread internationally.
The tone and volume of the instrument varies with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.
Bouzouki
The bouzouki (Greek: μπουζούκι pronounced [buˈzuci]; plural: μπουζούκια) is a Greek musical instrument that was brought to Greece in the 1900s by Greek immigrants from Asia Minor, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetika genre and its music branches. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. There are two main types of bouzouki. The trichordo (three-course) has three pairs of strings (known as courses), and the tetrachordo (four-course) has four pairs of strings.
Mandolin
A mandolin (Italian: mandolino; literally "small mandola") is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or "pick". It commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison (8 strings), although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. The courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, and mandobass.
There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the carved-top mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-back has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued together into a bowl. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a much shallower, arched back, and an arched top—both carved out of wood. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, braced on the inside for strength in a similar manner to a guitar. Each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and traditional music. Carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are commonly used in Irish, British and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature an extra fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course.
Other mandolin varieties differ primarily in the strings, and include Milanese, Lombard, Brescian, and other six-course types (tuned in fourths), as well as four-string models (one string per course), and the Sicilian twelve-string (three strings per course) model. There have also been made instruments with sixteen-strings (four strings per course).
Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard (the top). Pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, and were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, which exert more pressure than the gut strings. The modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. There is usually one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic F (f-hole). A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling.
Zither
Zither is the name of both a class of musical stringed instruments, and of certain particular instruments within that class. The word zither is a German rendering of the Latin word cithara, from which the modern word guitar is also derived. Historically it has been used to describe any instrument of the cittern family, or an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body – similar to a psaltery. This article describes the second variety.
Zithers are played by strumming or plucking the strings, either with the fingers (sometimes using a tool called a plectrum), or sounding the strings with a bow. Varieties of the instrument like the santur or cimbalom are sounded by beating the strings with specially shaped hammers. Like a guitar or lute, a zither's body serves as a sound box, but unlike them and due to the manner of playing, a zither has no need for a distinctly separate neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty.
Modern common use refers to three specific instruments: the concert zither (German: Konzertzither), its variant the Alpine zither (both using a fretted fingerboard), and the chord zither (more recently described as a fretless zither). Concert and Alpine zithers are traditionally found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, north-western Croatia, the southern regions of Germany and alpine Europe. Emigration from these areas during the 19th centuries introduced the concert and Alpine zither to North and South America. Chord zithers similar to the instrument in the photograph also became popular in North America during the late 19th and early 20th century. These variants all use metal strings, similar to the cittern.
Guitarron
Guitarrón or guitarron may refer to:
- Guitarron argentino, a six-stringed musical instrument from Argentina
- Guitarrón chileno, a 25-stringed, plucked instrument from Chile
- Guitarrón mexicano, a six-stringed, plucked instrument from Mexico
- Guitarrón uruguayo, a six-stringed, plucked instrument from Uruguay, tuned B2/Gb2/D2/A1/E1/B0 or A2/E2/C2/G1/D1/A0, used in tango and folk music
Vihuela
The vihuela (Spanish pronunciation: [biˈwela]) is a guitar-shaped string instrument from 15th and 16th century Spain, Portugal and Italy, usually with six doubled strings.
Banjo
The banjo is a four-, five- or (occasionally) six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is typically a piece of animal skin or plastic, and the frame is typically circular. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, adapted from African instruments of similar design.
The banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in African American traditional music, before becoming popular in the minstrel shows of the 19th century. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music.
Sitar
The sitar English pronunciation: /ˈsɪtɑr/ or /sɪˈtɑr/ is a plucked stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani music and Indian classical music. The instrument is believed to have been derived from the veena, an ancient Indian instrument, which was modified by a Mughal court musician to conform with the tastes of his Persian patrons and named after a Persian instrument called the Setar (meaning three strings). The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India. It derives its distinctive timbre and resonance from sympathetic strings, bridge design, a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating chamber.In appearance, the Sitar is similar to the Tambura, except it has frets. The body of Sitar is more or less a spherical gourd at the lower end.
Used widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, the sitar became popularly known in the wider world through the work of Ravi Shankar beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The sitar saw further use in popular music after the Beatles featured the sitar in their compositions "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", "Within You Without You", "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Love You To". Their use of the instrument came as a result of George Harrison's taking lessons on how to play it from Shankar and Shambhu Das. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also used a sitar in "Paint It Black" and a brief fad began for using the instrument in pop songs.
Pipa
The pipa (Chinese: 琵琶; pinyin: pípa, [pʰǐpʰǎ]) is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa.
The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for almost two thousand years in China. Several related instruments in East and Southeast Asia are derived from the pipa; these include the Japanese biwa, the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà, and the Korean bipa. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer widely used; examples survive in museums, but recent attempts to revive the Korean instrument have been partially successful in recent years.
Laud
Laúd (Spanish: "lute") is a plectrum-plucked chordophone from Spain, played also in diaspora countries such as Cuba and the Philippines.
It belongs to the cittern family of instruments, with six double courses in unison (i.e. twelve strings in pairs), similar to the bandurria, but with a longer neck.
Traditionally it is used by folk string musical groups, such as the Filipino rondalla string ensemble, together with the guitar and the bandurria. Like the bandurria, it is tuned in fourths, but its range is one octave lower.
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system), more specifically to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes.
The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompanying instrument, especially in vocal works, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a written-out accompaniment. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist, "lewtist" or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any string instrument) is referred to as a luthier.
Balalaika
The balalaika (Russian: балала́йка, pronounced [bəɫɐˈɫajkə]) is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.
The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest: the piccolo balalaika, prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass balalaika, and contrabass balalaika. The prima balalaika is the most common. All have three-sided bodies; spruce, evergreen, or fir tops; and backs made of three to nine wooden sections (usually maple). They are typically strung with three strings.
The prima balalaika, secunda and alto are played either with the fingers or a plectrum (pick), depending on the music being played, and the bass and contrabass (equipped with extension legs that rest on the floor) are played with leather plectra. The rare piccolo instrument is usually played with a pick.
Dulcimer
Dulcimer may refer to:
Stringed musical instruments
- Hammered dulcimer, free-standing, trapezoidal, with horizontal strings struck by handheld "hammers"
- Fretted, generally played on the lap by plucking, i.e.
Appalachian dulcimers:
- Typical Appalachian dulcimer
- Banjo dulcimer, with banjo-like resonating membrane
- Resonator dulcimer, with inset conical resonator
Other:
- Bowed dulcimer, teardrop-shaped & played upright with a bow
- Electric dulcimer
Kora
A kora is a harp built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator with a long hardwood neck. The skin is supported by two handles that run under it, and it supports a notched double free-standing bridge. It doesn't fit into any one category of musical instruments, but rather several, and must be classified as a "double-bridge-harp-lute." The strings run in two divided ranks, making it a double harp. They do not end in a soundboard but are held in notches on a bridge, making it a bridge harp. They originate from a string arm or neck and cross a bridge directly supported by a resonating chamber, making it a lute too.
The sound of a kora resembles that of a harp, though when played in the traditional style, it bears a closer resemblance to flamenco and delta blues guitar techniques. The player uses only the thumb and index finger of both hands to pluck the strings in polyrhythmic patterns (using the remaining fingers to secure the instrument by holding the hand posts on either side of the strings). Ostinato riffs ("Kumbengo") and improvised solo runs ("Birimintingo") are played at the same time by skilled players.
Kora players have traditionally come from griot families (also from the Mandinka nationalities) who are traditional historians, genealogists and storytellers who pass their skills on to their descendants. The instrument is played in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso and the Gambia. A traditional kora player is called a Jali, similar to a 'bard' or oral historian. Most West African musicians prefer the term 'jali' to 'griot', which is the French word.
Traditional koras feature 21 strings, eleven played by the left hand and ten by the right. Modern koras made in the Casamance region of southern Senegal sometimes feature additional bass strings, adding up to four strings to the traditional 21. Strings were traditionally made from thin strips of hide, for example antelope skin - now most strings are made from harp strings or nylon fishing line, sometimes plaited together to create thicker strings.
By moving leather tuning rings up and down the neck, a kora player can retune the instrument into one of four seven-note scales. These scales are close in tuning to western major, minor and Lydian modes.
Didgeridoo
The didgeridoo (/ˌdɪdʒəriːˈduː/) (also known as a didjeridu) is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia potentially within the last 40,000 years and still in widespread use today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe". Musicologists classify it as a brass aerophone.
There are no reliable sources stating the didgeridoo's exact age. Archaeological studies of rock art in Northern Australia suggest that the people of the Kakadu region of the Northern Territory have been using the didgeridoo for less than 1,000 years, based on the dating of paintings on cave walls and shelters from this period. A clear rock painting in Ginga Wardelirrhmeng, on the northern edge of the Arnhem Land plateau, from the freshwater period (that was begun 1500 years ago) shows a didgeridoo player and two songmen participating in an Ubarr Ceremony.
A modern didgeridoo is usually cylindrical or conical, and can measure anywhere from 1 to 3 m (3 to 10 ft) long. Most are around 1.2 m (4 ft) long. Generally, the longer the instrument, the lower its pitch or key. However, flared instruments play a higher pitch than unflared instruments of the same length.
Steel Drum
Steelpans (also known as steel drums or pans, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steel band or orchestra) is a musical instrumentoriginating from Trinidad and Tobago. Steel pan musicians are called pannists.
Koto
The koto (Japanese: 箏) is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese zheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about 180 centimetres (71 in) length, and made from kiri wood (Paulownia tomentosa). They have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable bridges along the width of the instrument, and there is also 17-string koto as a variant of the koto. Players can adjust the string pitches by moving the white bridges in the picture before playing, and use three finger picks (on thumb, index finger, and middle finger) to pluck the strings, otherwise known as plectra.
Ukulele
The ukulele (/juːkəˈleɪliː/, ew-kə-lay-lee, from Hawaiian: ʻukulele [ˈʔukuˈlɛlɛ], oo-koo-le-le; British English: ukelele) sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments; it generally employs four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings.
The ukulele originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian interpretation of the machete, a small guitar-like instrument related to the cavaquinho, timple, braguinha and the rajão, taken to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants, many from the Macaronesian Islands. It gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century, and from there spread internationally.
The tone and volume of the instrument varies with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.
Bouzouki
The bouzouki (Greek: μπουζούκι pronounced [buˈzuci]; plural: μπουζούκια) is a Greek musical instrument that was brought to Greece in the 1900s by Greek immigrants from Asia Minor, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetika genre and its music branches. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. There are two main types of bouzouki. The trichordo (three-course) has three pairs of strings (known as courses), and the tetrachordo (four-course) has four pairs of strings.
Instrument Families
A family of musical instruments is a grouping of several different but related sizes or types of instruments. Some schemes of musical instrument classification, such as the Hornbostel-Sachs system, are based on a hierarchy of instrument families and families of families.
Some commonly recognized families are:
Family relationships are not always clear-cut. For example, some authorities regard families as encompassing only instruments of different pitch range that have similar construction and tone quality. They therefore, for example, do not regard the cor anglais as a member of the oboe family, because its narrow bore and piriform bell give it a distinctly different tone quality from the oboe.
A family of musical instruments is a grouping of several different but related sizes or types of instruments. Some schemes of musical instrument classification, such as the Hornbostel-Sachs system, are based on a hierarchy of instrument families and families of families.
Some commonly recognized families are:
- Brass family
- Strings family
- Woodwind family
- Percussion Family
Family relationships are not always clear-cut. For example, some authorities regard families as encompassing only instruments of different pitch range that have similar construction and tone quality. They therefore, for example, do not regard the cor anglais as a member of the oboe family, because its narrow bore and piriform bell give it a distinctly different tone quality from the oboe.
Brass Instruments
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments".
There are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. Slides, valves, crooks, or keys are used to change vibratory length of tubing, thus changing the available harmonic series, while the player's embouchure, lip tension and air flow serve to select the specific harmonic produced from the available series.
The view of most scholars is that the term "brass instrument" should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above, and not by whether the instrument is actually made of brass. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent and the didgeridoo, while some woodwind instruments are made of brass, like the saxophone.
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments".
There are several factors involved in producing different pitches on a brass instrument. Slides, valves, crooks, or keys are used to change vibratory length of tubing, thus changing the available harmonic series, while the player's embouchure, lip tension and air flow serve to select the specific harmonic produced from the available series.
The view of most scholars is that the term "brass instrument" should be defined by the way the sound is made, as above, and not by whether the instrument is actually made of brass. Thus one finds brass instruments made of wood, like the alphorn, the cornett, the serpent and the didgeridoo, while some woodwind instruments are made of brass, like the saxophone.
String Instruments
String instruments or stringed instruments are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings. In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which also vibrates, along with the air inside it. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. Common instruments in the string family include the violin, guitar, sitar, electric bass, viola, cello, harp, double bass, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki.
String instruments or stringed instruments are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings. In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which also vibrates, along with the air inside it. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. Common instruments in the string family include the violin, guitar, sitar, electric bass, viola, cello, harp, double bass, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki.
Woodwind Instruments
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the more general category of wind instruments. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments (otherwise called reed pipes). What differentiates these instruments from other wind instruments is the way in which they produce their sound.
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the more general category of wind instruments. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments (otherwise called reed pipes). What differentiates these instruments from other wind instruments is the way in which they produce their sound.
Percussion Instruments
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater (including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles); struck, scraped or rubbed by hand; or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice.
The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone (which do not have piano keyboards) are included.
Percussion instruments are most commonly divided into two classes: Pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, and unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes or sounds without an identifiable pitch.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater (including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles); struck, scraped or rubbed by hand; or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice.
The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone (which do not have piano keyboards) are included.
Percussion instruments are most commonly divided into two classes: Pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, and unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes or sounds without an identifiable pitch.