November 4 & 5, 2023, Early Music Seattle is excited to present Orgelkids USA! Join us – and make sure to bring the whole family – 45 minutes before each of our concerts to build one of Bach’s favorite instruments! Orgelkids USA will have their incredible pipe organ kit that is design to empower children to build a playable pipe organ all on their own!
The glockenspiel (German: set of bells)is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. Early glockenspiels were percussion instruments that produced notes via small bronze bells that were tuned with a drumstick. The bells were replaced by metal sound plates in the 17th century. In the 18th century the instrument was played using a keyboard that struck the bottom of each plate with a hammer.
A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). The lithophone is an idiophone comparable to instruments such as the glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone and marimba. Read more…
The cornetto is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused with the trumpet-like cornet. Read more on Wikipedia…
What is a cornetto? Matthew Manchester explains the cornetto, a musical instrument that flourished from the medieval period to the baroque. The cornetto is the platypus of the music world, with finger-holes like a recorder but a mouthpiece like a trumpet. The instrument represented life, death, and eternity when it was played in the cathedrals and palaces of Europe.
lute
A lute is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term “lute” can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system). Read more on Wikipedia…
The Irish fiddle is one of the most important instruments in the traditional repertoire of Celtic music. The fiddle itself is identical to the violin, however it is played differently in widely varying regional styles. In the era of sound recording some regional styles have been transmitted more widely while others have become more uncommon.. Read more…
A Baroque violin is a violin set up in the manner of the baroque period of music. The term includes original instruments which have survived unmodified since the Baroque period, as well as later instruments adjusted to the baroque setup, and modern replicas. Baroque violins have become relatively common in recent decades thanks to historically informed performance, with violinists returning to older models of instrument to achieve an authentic sound. Read more on Wikipedia…
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. It is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music.
In the early Middle Ages peoples of northern Europe were playing the instrument. Fragments of 12th-century Norman bone whistles have been found in Ireland and an intact 14cm Tusculum clay whistle from the 14th century has been found in Scotland. In the 17th century whistles were called flageolets; a term to describe a whistle with a French-made fipple and such instruments are linked to the development of the English flageolet, French flageolet and recorders of the renaissance and baroque period.
The Sea organ in is an architectural sound art object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument, which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps.
The device was made by the architect Nikola Bašić as part of the project to redesign the new city coast and the site was opened to the public in April 2005. The waves interact with the organ and create somewhat random but harmonic sounds.
Click image to hear
HARSICHORD
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The Cajita is a Latin percussion instrument in which a little box is opened and closed to create the music of Peru. The instrument has its origins as a box to collect alms in for the Catholic Church. Denied the use of their traditional drums, enslaved people repurposed the box as a percussion instrument. The cajita is an example (or manifestation) of African descent populations’ cultural resilience and survival. The cajita will be used in De Inga y Mandinga’s May 5 and 6 performances at LANGSTON. Click here for more information about De Inga y Mandinga.
The mbira, or thumb piano, is a uniquely African percussion instrument used for many centuries and is still played in Africa today. The name is derived from the Shona language of Zimbabwe. Mbiras were used in ceremonial functions such as weddings, funerals, and to honor significant people, as well as for religious purposes to call on spirits and seek their advice. A small economy still exists in Africa that makes the instruments to sell.
The instrument is usually homemade and constructed by mounting metal keys onto a hardwood soundboard. According to Mbira.org, “The buzz is considered an essential part of the mbira sound, required to clear the mind of thoughts and worries so that the mbira music can fill the consciousness of the performers and listeners.”
The term naqqāra, naqqarat, naqqarah, naqqåre, nakkare, nagora comes from the Arabic verb naqr- that means “to strike, beat”. The naqqāra, nagara or nagada is a Middle Eastern drum with a rounded back and a hide head, usually played in pairs. It is thus a membranophone of the kettledrum variety. The instrument was also adopted in Europe following the Crusades, and known as the naccaire or naker. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Persian music, Turkish music and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played continually for 4,500–5,000 years in ancient Egypt, making it one of the oldest musical instruments still in use. Read more on Wikipedia…
The viola d’amore (pronounced [ˈvjɔːla daˈmoːre]; Italian for “viol of love”) is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin. Read more on Wikipedia…
The Kanun is the queen of Turkish music and will be featured in EMS’ April 23rd concert. It is a unique instrument with a bright timbre and a wide range of sound colors and pitches. The instrument is also found in the Arab world and is mentioned in The Stories of One Thousand and One Nights. It is a plucked box zither with a trapeze form, with the strings being plucked by a ring-shaped plectrum on the index fingers.
As an instrument, the human speaking voice produces a wide variety of pitches, offers complex tonality, and has percussive capacity. By subtly shifting the pitch or rhythm of words in a sentence, a storyteller can dramatically change the communication and convey multilevel nuances. For example, try saying, “I said I would go” as if you are surprised, then, as if you are defiant, then, as if you are confessing a crime. As you speak, listen to your voice and notice how the “music” of the sentence changes. Say the same sentence five times and, each time, emphasize or rhythmically accent a different word. Listen to how the communication changes when the “music” is altered..Continue reading…
Hear Marco Beasley, who sings April 23 at Town Hall Seattle performing Il Ponte Di Leonardo with Constantinople. Learn more and buy tickets.
CLAVICHORD
The late medieval era, the Renaissance, the Baroque period, and the classical era saw the use of a keyboard-like stringed instrument known as the clavichord. Although it was invented in the fourteenth century, its popularity in Europe rose in the 16th to 18th century. It was especially popular among German-speaking lands, in the Iberian Peninsula and the Scandinavia. The use of clavichord declined sharply in the 1850’s, but in the 1890’s, Arnold Dolmetsch revived its construction while Violet Gordon Woodhouse assisted in popularizing its use. Today, the use of clavichord is limited to Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical music enthusiasts.
As with many instruments with ancient origins, the exact predecessor of the bassoon is hard to pin down definitively. There are several historic instruments that predate what we think of as the modern bassoon, but none were actually supplanted completely by the bassoon.
Throughout the Middle Ages, there is extensive documentation and surviving examples of instruments that bear resemblance to bassoons called shawms. These early wind instruments were made with either single or double reeds and were a common sight in Europe. One type of shawm called the “bombarde,” which was a cylindrical tube with seven sound holes and played with a double reed, was particularly bassoon-like. Read more…
The rebec is a late medieval and renaissance gut-strung bowed instrument with 3 strings, its body carved from a solid piece of wood. Its sound has a nasal quality, unlike the more full-sounding modern violin, which shares some of the rebec’s characteristics: strings played with a bow, a fretless neck, a curved bridge to allow strings to be bowed singly, and a soundboard carved to have a gentle upward curve. Distinguishing the rebec from other medieval and renaissance bowed instruments, in particular the vielle (medieval fiddle), has been a matter of some contention until more recent scholarship re-evaluated the primary evidence. Continue reading complete article...
The wheelharp is a musical instrument with bowed strings controlled by a keyboard and a foot-controlled motor, similar to Leonardo da Vinci’s viola organista, a keyboard-operated string instrument for continuously sounding strings by rubbing the strings with spinning wheels, powered by a treadle controlled by one foot of the musician. Created by Jon Jones and Mitchell Manger, it looks and works like a cross between a harpsichord and a hurdy-gurdy: a motor driven wheel spins, rubbing against strings when the player depresses a key. To hear the wheelharp click image
The Baroque horn is commonly known as a “natural horn,” meaning it had no valves. The baroque player modulated the sound by changing breath or the mouth position. In this sense, the baroque era horn retained more in common with its ancestor, the simple hunting horn, than with its modern descendant. Early horns designed for an orchestral context still had small bells by modern standards and were typically played with the bells in the air. This is the kind of horn Bach would have known for Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 and for the B Minor Mass. Using just the notes of the harmonic series, these valveless horns were able to play in different keys through the use of crooks (exchangeable tubes of different lengths). In the classical period the instrument changed shape and had a larger bell. By covering and uncovering the bell of the horn with the right hand, the player could alter the notes. Mozart’s famous horn concertos were written for such an instrument.
Also called the Totem Harp, this instrument was created by composer Victor Gama. The Toha was inspired by the nests of an extinct species of Angolan birds, with the intent of evoking the spirit of the birds. The Toha can be played by two musicians at once. Click image to hear the toha
The crumhorn is a double reed instrument of the woodwind family, with construction similar to that of the chanter of a bagpipe. This crumhorn was most commonly used during the Renaissance period. In modern times, particularly since the 1960s, there has been a revival of interest in early music, and crumhorns are being played again.
Superstitious or not, many people start the new year by ringing bells. Ringing bells at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve is believed to scare off bad luck. These age-old traditions have given us the phrase “to ring out the old and ring in the new.”
Click image to hear New Year’s bells at Winchester Cathedral.
HORSE/SLEIGH BELLS
Ornaments, including bells of all kinds, have been used to adorn horses worldwide from at least 800 BCE through today. Horse bells attracted good luck; protected against disease, injury and evil; flaunted the owner’s wealth and status; and enhanced the horse’s natural beauty. Horse bells have always had a practical purpose as well as a decorative one. They warned pedestrians and other drivers to the approach of oncoming vehicles and alerted potential customers that street vendors and delivery wagons were in the neighborhood. Continue reading…
The goblet drum is a single head membranophone with a goblet shaped body used mostly in Egypt and is considered the National symbol of Egyptian Shaabi Music, also in parts of the West Asia, North Africa, SouthAsia, and Eastern Europe. The African djembe-wassolou is also a goblet membranophone. This article focuses on the Eastern and North-African goblet drum. Read more…
To hear the goblet drum, click image
BAROQUE FLUTE
The baroque flute (traverso, traversière) in D emerged toward the end of the 17th century, apparently the invention of the Hotteterre family of woodwind players/makers in Paris. Continue reading… Click to hear the Baroque flute
A cornu or cornum (horn) is an ancient Roman brass instrument about (9.8 ft) long in the shape in the shape of a letter ‘G’. It is upported by a wooden pole which allows for some of the weight to be held on the shoulder. The sound of a Roman cornu is produced by the vibrations of the lips, a procedure that generates a buzzing sound quite similar to that made by a French horn’s player. Some specimens survive in the archaeological record, two from the ruins of Pompeii.
According The Accordion Its Historical Due Throughout the Classical and Romantic periods, the humble accordion and its simpler cousin, the concertina, were important parlor, chamber, and accompanying instruments. The earliest forms of the accordion were inspired by the 1777 introduction of the Chinese free-reed sheng (bowl mouth organ) into Europe by Père Amiot, a Jesuit missionary in Qing Dynasty (or Era) China. Amiot entertained Beijing listeners by playing harpsichord versions of Rameau’s music, including Les sauvages (later part of Les Indes galantes). His introduction of the sheng set off an era of experimentation in free-reed instruments such as Anton Haeckel’s Physharmonika, a bellows-operated reed organ (Vienna, patented 1818), and Friedrich Buschmann’s mouthblown “Handäoline” (Berlin, patented 1822). Two of Haeckel’s instruments from 1825 can be seen in the Vienna Technical Museum. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg holds Europe’s largest collection of early German free-reed instruments, accordions, and harmonicas. Continue reading on Early Music America website.
The saung is the national instrument of Myanmar, where Buddhist musicians have played the curved harp since 200 A.D. The base is made from the wood of a tree that naturally curves to form the shape of the harp, and its 16 strings are made of silk.
According to the National Music Museum, “During the construction of a Burmese arched harp, a ceremony may be conducted to invite nat spirits to dwell within the harp, to ‘enliven its tunes.’ These spirits are believed to leave the harp through the soundholes while it is being played and return afterward.”
The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, three to five gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a figure-8 shaped body.
Saz is a Persian word meaning musical instrument. The Saz is the grandfather of the Greek Bouzouki. It originated in Central Asia where Turks lived before their westward migration. Like the guitar in Spain and the bouzouki in Greece, the Saz is the most popular stringed instrument in Turkey. To hear the saz click image
Few musical instruments are more deeply connected to the American experience than the banjo. The banjo was created by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Caribbean and colonial North America. Continue reading…
The bullroarer is a ritual musical instrument used by many ancient and current cultures around the world. Historically, it was used for communicating over long distances.
The oldest known example of a bullroarer was found in Ukraine, dating back to the Paleolithic period (about 18,000 BCE). In addition to the oldest bullroarer from Ukraine, archaeologists have uncovered ancient bullroarers in other parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Indian sub-continent, Australia, and the Americas.
Although several cultures have used the bullroarer, Australian Aborigines are best known for using the instrument. Aborigines use the bullroarer in initiation ceremonies, in burials to ward off evil spirits, and against bad omens.
The Macdonald is a piece by the legendary instrument maker Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 1737). It’s estimated that Stradivari made around 1,100 instruments, including violins, violas, cellos, harps, and even guitars. Today, only around 650 are known to still exist.
The rarest Strads are his violas, as it’s estimated that he only made around fifteen of them. The Macdonald Stradivarius is one of eleven true violas (not counting a twelfth that was whittled down from a viola d’amore) that still survive today. As many violin makers did back in the day, Antonio Stradivari labeled his finished products with the Latinized version of his name, which is why his instruments go by the “Stradivarius” title.
The zampogna is a traditional Italian instrument that resembles what most Americans would call a bagpipe. The pipes are attached to a stock which itself is attached to the large bag, that the player fills with air by blowing into it. Like the bagpipes, squeezing the air out of the bag makes a sound when moving through the pipes. The tuning of the pipes changes according to the region it comes from and the specific music to be played. There is also a distinction between double-reed and single-reed zampognas, with the double-reed version usually having more drones to create harmony.
Traditionally the bags are made from goat hides that are removed from the slaughtered animal in one piece, cured, turned inside out, then tied off just in front of the rear legs, one of the front legs serving to house the blow pipe with its simple leather valve (soffietto), and the other tied off. The typical round stock into which both chanters and drones are fixed goes into the neck of the skin. The hair is left on, and is contained in the inside of the bag (otre).
The zampogna is now mostly associated with Christmas, and the most famous Italian carol, “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (You Come Down From the Stars) is derived from traditional zampogna music. However, there is an ongoing resurgence of the instrument in secular use with the increasing number of folk music festivals and folk music ensembles.
The balalaika is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perfect fourth higher. The higher-pitched balalaikas are used to play melodies and chords. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian folk music and dancing. Continue reading on Wikipedia.
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
A salpinx is an ancient Greek musical instrument that is like the trumpet. The musical instrument is made up of a straight, narrow bronze tube with a mouthpiece of bone and a bell of different size and shape; extant descriptions opines that it is conical, bulb-like and spherical structures. Each type of bell may have a distinctive effect on the sound produced by the musical instrument. Continue reading…
The oboe is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The viola is a string instrument that is bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth above) and the cello (which is tuned an octave below). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The profile of the modern three-sectioned recorder so familiar to grade-school children, emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century, but the recorder’s history begins at least two or three centuries earlier. The two earliest extant recorders, both small, plain wooden instruments, date from the fourteenth century, and archival and pictorial evidence survives from the same period. A member of the flute family, the recorder was used for art music in western Europe throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As a musical instrument, the recorder is identified by its whistle mouthpiece (also known as a fipple or duct), by the seven fingerholes on the front of the instrument, and by the thumbhole on the back side. Until our time, it was usually made of wood, although occasionally of ivory. Continue reading…
Contrabass refers to several musical instruments of very low pitch—generally one octave below bass register instruments. While the term most commonly refers to the double bass (which is the bass instrument in the orchestral string family, tuned lower than the cello), many other instruments in the contrabass register exist. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The baroque trumpet is a musical instrument in the brass family. Invented in the mid-20th century, it is based on the natural trumpet of the 16th to 18th centuries, but designed to allow modern performers to imitate the earlier instrument when playing music of that time. Often synonymous with ‘natural trumpet’, the term ‘baroque trumpet’ is often used to differentiate an instrument which has added vent holes and other modern compromises, from an original or replica natural trumpet which does not. Read more on Wikipedia…
One of the period instruments in the Brandenburg Concertos 1.
Anton Joseph Hampel (1710-1771) is frequently credited with either inventing or codifying hand horn technique sometime after 1750. The primary source behind this is the Méthode de Premier et de Second Cor (1808) of Heinrich Domnich (1767-1844). Domnich was a student of the great horn virtuoso Johann Stich (1746-1803), who was better known under the Italianized name of Giovanni Punto, and it is thought that Domnich had obtained his information from Punto. Punto had been a pupil of Hampel and later also published an edition of a horn method by Hampel. Continue reading…
The trembita is a wooden alpine horn which is known for making impressively beautiful low sounds. It is common among the Hutsuls, highlanders who live in western Ukraine, eastern Poland, Slovakia, and northern Romania. This unique and distinctive wind instrument was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longestmusical instrument in the world. The Trembita is made of solid wood and looks like a tube which can be up to 13 feet long. Shepherds used the trembita to communicate with each other and to send some messages from a hilltop to a village. Nowadays we can hear thetrembita not only in folk but also in modern Ukrainian music.
The kobza is a Ukrainian folk music instrument of the lute family (Hornbostel-Sachs classification number 321.321-5+6), a relative of the Central European mandora. The term kobza however, has also been applied to a number of other Eastern European instruments distinct from the Ukrainian kobza. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The Brian Boru’s harp (also known as “Trinity College harp”) is a medieval musical instrument on display in the long room at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. It is an early Irish harp or wire-strung cláirseach. It is dated to the 14th or 15th century and, along with the Queen Mary Harp and the Lamont Harp, is the oldest of three surviving medieval harps from the region. The harp was used as a model for the coat of arms of Ireland and for the trade-mark of Guinness stout. Read more on Wikipedia…
A music box is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or lamellae) of a steel comb. The earliest known mechanical musical instruments date back to 9th-century Baghdad. In Flanders, in the early 13th century, a bell ringer invented a cylinder with pins which operate cams, which then hit the bells. The popular device best known today as a “music box” developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and were originally called carillons à musique (French for “chimes of music”). Some of the more complex boxes also contain a tiny drum and/or bells in addition to the metal comb.
The torban is a Ukrainian musical instrument that combines the features of the Baroque lute with those of the psaltery. The torban differs from the more common European bass lute known as the theorbo in that it had an additional short treble strings (known as prystrunky) strung along the treble side of the soundboard. Read more on Wikipedia…
Jordi Savall plays the 7-string bass viol made by Barak Norman, London 1697
The viola da gamba or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each string. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument’s neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole[and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a 6-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute (and also like a present-day viol) that looked like but was quite distinct from (at that time) the 4-course guitar. (an earlier chordophone). Read more on Wikipedia.
About the Instrument Maker: Barak Norman (c.1670–c.1740) was the most important early English string instrument maker, and was noted for his viols and lutes. He also made violins, and was one of the earliest English cello makers. His work is characterized by beautiful modelling, good wood and very dark brown varnish; the tone is strong and rich. Early specimens are highly arched but later ones have medium arching and elaborate double purfling. The earliest recorded label (on a viol) is dated 1690.
The marimba is a set of wooden bars struck with mallets to produce notes. The keys are arranged similarly to a piano’s. Developed in Zimbabwe, the instrument is known as the ‘mother of song’ and creator of musical instruments. It was introduced to Central America in 1680, and in 1821 it was declared the national instrument of Guatemala. Read more on Wikipedia…
The udu is a plosive aerophone (in this case implosive) and an idiophone of the Igbo of Nigeria In the Igbo language, ùdù means ‘vessel’. Actually being a water jug with an additional hole, it was played by Igbo women for ceremonial uses. Usually the udu is made of clay. The instrument is played by hand. The player produces a bass sound by quickly hitting the big hole. There are many ways that the pitches can be changed, depending on how the hand above the small upper hole is positioned. Furthermore, the whole corpus can be played by fingers. Today it is widely used by percussionists in different music styles. Continue reading…
The Mandinka balafon, also called the bala or the balphone, is a kind of idiophone (an instrument which creates sound by vibrating). In the West, instruments like this are called xylophones. The balafon is associated with the Griot, an hereditary musicianship tradition of West Africa. In the Gambia this tends to be mostly found in Brikama (where there are also a lot of griot or ‘jeli’ families who play the kora or African harp). Continue reading…
The oboe is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm (25+1⁄2 in) long, with metal keys, a conical and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as “bright”. When the word oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais (English horn), or oboe d’amore. Continue reading…
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals such as beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve. While the triangle theoretically has a definite pitch, it is obscured by the overtones that are produced when struck. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The Baroque cello is a musical instrument that serves as a precursor to the modern cello. It appeared in many forms of music during the Baroque era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. When the eighteenth-century Classical period put greater demands on cellists, the Baroque cello gave way to modern cello design, which has endured ever since. Continue reading about the Baroque cello…
The buisine (Old French; also, busine, buysine, buzine) was a type of straight medieval trumpet usually made of metal, also called a herald’s trumpet. It had a very long and slender body, usually one to two metres in length (some were reported to have been at least six feet in length) that tapered toward the end into a slightly flared bell. It is commonly seen in paintings being played by angels and often also bearing the banner of a nobleman. The term descends from Buccina, a Roman military horn. The horn was mainly used for military and ceremonial purposes. The buisine or herald’s trumpet was widely used in Fanfares. These instruments would serve as a sort of timekeeper to announce events and meetings. Their long, tubed shape would allow them to hang flags and banners, which made them popular for events and ceremonies. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
Clapsticks, also spelt clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony. They are a type of drumstick, percussion mallet or claves that belongs to the idiophone category. Unlike drumsticks, which are generally used to strike a drum, clapsticks are intended for striking one stick on another. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
Chinese history books trace Chinese music back to an event in the Book Of Chronicles (Schu-Ching) as occurring during the reign of the legendary “Yellow Emperor”, Huang Ti, around the year 3000 B.C. Huang’s other accomplishments included the invention of boats, money, and religious sacrifice. He is said to have sent the noted scholar Ling Lun to the western mountain regions of his domain to find a way to reproduce the song of the phoenix bird. Ling returned with the cheng (or sheng), and captured music for mankind, taking the first step toward the genesis of the accordion. Continue reading…
The saung, also known as the saung-gauk, Burmese harp, Burma harp, or Myanmar harp), is an arched harp used in traditional Burmese music. The saung is regarded as a national musical instrument of Burma. The saung is unique in that it is a very ancient harp tradition and is said to be the only surviving harp in Asia. Continue reading…
The checoand the angara are two percussion instruments made out of gourds that come out of the Afro-Peruvian tradition. Both are big; that is to say, the checo is very big. Continue reading…
The šargija (shargia) is a plucked, fretted long necked lute used in the folk music of various Balkan countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo. The instrument is part of a larger family of instruments which includes the Balkan tambura and the bağlama (or tambura saz), tamburica, and the tambouras. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the šargija , click image
BALALAIKA
The balalaika is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular wooden, hollow body, fretted neck and three strings. Two strings are usually tuned to the same note and the third string is a perfect fourth higher. The higher-pitched balalaikas are used to play melodies and chords. The instrument generally has a short sustain, necessitating rapid strumming or plucking when it is used to play melodies. Balalaikas are often used for Russian folk music and dancing. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the balalaika, click image
HYDRAULIS OF DION
The Hydraulis of Dion is a unique exhibit of the Archaeological Museum of Dion. It is the oldest instrument of that type discovered so far. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the Hydraulis of Dion, click image
GHICHAK
The ghichak, a bowed instrument and related to the kamancheh, is believed to have come from the East. The ghichak is a favorite in Afghanistan, as is its sister form, the sarinda, and the Indian version, the saragi. The soundbox of ghichak has a unique form: the bridge rests on a skin covering a small tube which flows into two large openings on each side near the top of the finger board. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the ghichak, click image
NYCKELHARPA
A nyckelharpa, “keyed fiddle”, or literally “key harp”, is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is pressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string.
The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the big Sorb geige or viol. Structurally, it is more closely related to the hurdy-gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
To hear the nyckelharpa, click image
WINTERGATAN MARBLE MACHINE
Wintergatan is without any shadow of a doubt an unbelievably talented Swedish Folk band. Their marble machine invention which is made out of wood is both incredible and ingenious.
The marble music machine is quite a creative and visually interesting musical concept! It was hoped that it would take around two months to build but in reality, took in fourteen. Not at all surprising considering the complexity in its design and implementation. The video below shows the first marble machine. Wintergatan is now building a second-generation marble machine, which you can see in the videos further down in this post. Continue reading …
To hear the Wintergatan marble machine, click image
ANGKLUNG
The angklung is a musical instrument from the Sundanese region in Western Java, Indonesia made of a varying number of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved to have a resonant pitch when struck and are tuned to octaves, similar to Western handbells. The base of the frame is held in one hand, while the other hand shakes the instrument, causing a repeating note to sound. Each performer in an angklung ensemble is typically responsible for just one pitch, sounding their individual angklung at the appropriate times to produce complete melodies. The angklung is popular throughout the world, but it originated in what is now West Java and Banten provinces in Indonesia, and has been played by the Sundanese for many centuries. The angklung and its music have become an important part of the cultural identity of Sundanese communities in West Java and Banten. Playing the angklung as an orchestra requires cooperation and coordination, and is believed to promote the values of teamwork, mutual respect and social harmony. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
To hear the angklung, click image
CORNAMUSE
Cornamuse is an instrument whose sound is associated with the Rennaisance, although its more primitive types were known many years before. No original instrument has been maintained till now, we only know its description and a picture kept in „Syntagnum Musicum” M.Praetorius. Similarly to most instruments of the 16th century, it was produced in different sizes: soprano in c, alto in f, tenor in c, bass in F, sub-bass in C. It is an instrument with a characteristic, growling timbre /like crumhorn/. A double reed is closed in a special „mouthpiece” thanks to which it sounds better and it is not put into the musician’s mouth directly. Continue reading…
To hear the cornamuse, click image
FIDDLE
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a “brighter” tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught ‘by ear’ rather than via written music. Continue reading on Wikipedia…
To hear the fiddle, click image
DULCIAN
One of the most significant innovations in sixteenth century woodwind instrument building was the development of the double bore principle. Two parallel holes drilled in the same piece of wood and connected at one end by a U-curve allowed an instrument to sound twice as low for its apparent length as one with a single bore. Little is known about where the earliest development took place, although some evidence points to Italy. The name dulcian (also dulzian, dulzian, dolzone, delzan, dulcan, dolcan) is from the Latin dulcis (sweet). This instrument was also called the curtal (or curtoll, curtail) from the Latin curtus(short). Continue reading from Iowa State University, Department of Theater and Music… To hear the dulcian, click image
The baroque trumpet is a musical instrument in the brass family. Invented in the mid-20th century, it is based on the natural trumpet of the 16th to 18th centuries, but designed to allow modern performers to imitate the earlier instrument when playing music of that time. Often synonymous with ‘natural trumpet’, the term ‘baroque trumpet’ is often used to differentiate an instrument which has added vent holes and other modern compromises, from an original or replica natural trumpet which does not. Read more on Wikipedia…
The vihuela is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of the lute in Italy and has a large resultant repertory. There were usually five or six doubled strings. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the vihuela, click image
builder- Alan Arthur Suits Santa Fe, New Mexico
JEWISH SHOFAR
A shofar is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram’s horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the player’s embouchure. The shofar is blown in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur; it is also blown every weekday morning in the month of Elul running up to Rosh Hashanah.[1] Shofars come in a variety of sizes and shapes, depending on the choice of animal and level of finish. Read more on Wikipedia…
A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses. It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Each glass is tuned to a different pitch, either by grinding each goblet to the specified pitch, in which case the tuning is invariable, or by filling the glass with water until the desired pitch is achieved. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear glass harp, click image
OLIFANT
Olifant (an alternate spelling of the word elephant) was the name applied in the Middle Ages to ivory hunting horns made from elephants’ tusks. One of the most famous olifants belonged to the legendary Frankish knight Roland, protagonist of The Song of Roland. Read more…
The name “tuba” comes from the Latin word for “tube,” but was also used for an ancient bronze instrument used in Greece and Rome. The name was later used as a blanket term for horns, trumpets, and bugles. Moritz called his invention the “basstuba” since it had a lower tone than historical “tubas.” Read more…
The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn or rubber mallets to produce musical tones. Resonators or pipes are suspended underneath the bars to amplify their sound. The bars of a chromatic marimba are arranged like the keys of a piano, with the groups of two and three accidentals raised vertically, overlapping the natural bars to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type of idiophone, but with a more resonant and lower-pitched tessitura than the xylophone. A person who plays the marimba is called a marimbist or a marimba player. Read more on Wikipedia…
The zufolo is also known as zuffalo, chiufolo, ciufolo, picco pipe, and as an instrument to teach birds because of its comparable sound, this Italian fipple flute is one of the shortest of that family and has origins in the 14th century. Ranging about 8cm long, has a rear thumb-hole, two front finger-holes, and a conical bore, but there are also longer versions with more holes, and the Sicilian version ranges up to 29cm, and is known as a friscalettu. It’s sound is very loud and carries distances, is clear and clean, and can be played in a variety of contexts. It is particularly useful for fast, traditional dances, but can also be effective for slower, more melacholy melodies. Read more…
To hear the zufolo, click image
PAN FLUTE
A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been popular as folk instruments. The pipes are typically made from bamboo, giant cane, or local reeds. Other materials include wood, plastic, metal and ivory.. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the pan flute, click image
GUGIN
The guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote “a gentleman does not part with his qin or se without good reason,” as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as “the father of Chinese music” or “the instrument of the sages”. The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long stringed instrument also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the gugin, click image
TAMBOURINE
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called “zills”. Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all. Tambourines are often used with regular percussion sets. They can be mounted, for example on a stand as part of a drum kit (and played with drum sticks), or they can be held in the hand and played by tapping or hitting the instrument. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the tambourine, click image
CELTIC HARP
The Celtic harp is a triangular frame harp traditional to Ireland and Scotland. It is known as cláirseach in Irish and clàrsach in Scottish Gaelic. In Ireland and Scotland, it was a wire-strung instrument requiring great skill and long practice to play, and was associated with the Gaelic ruling class. It appears on Irish and British coins and coat of arms of the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and Canada. Read complete article…
The Eastman School of Music has brought the sounds of the past to Rochester by installing an historic full-size Italian Baroque organ in the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery. The magnificent instrument, originally built around 1770 in the region of central Italy, represents the genesis of Baroque organ music played and taught worldwide. Read complete article…
To hear the Italian Baroque organ, click image
View the Installation of the Italian Baroque Organ at Memorial Art Gallery, June 2005
CASTANETS
Castanets, also known as clackers or palillos, are a percussion instrument (idiophone), used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a similar instrument called crotalum. The instrument consists of a pair of concave shells joined on one edge by a string. They are held in the hand and used to produce clicks for rhythmic accents or a ripping or rattling sound consisting of a rapid series of clicks.. Read more on Wikipedia…
The viola da gamba or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument’s neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid to late 15th century and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a 6-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute (and also like a present-day viol)[ that looked like but was quite distinct from (at that time) the 4-course guitar (an earlier chordophone). Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the viola da gamba, click image
To learn more about the viola da gamba, click here.
SHENG
The sheng is a Chinese mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes. It is a polyphonic instrument and enjoys an increasing popularity as a solo instrument.
It is one of the oldest Chinese instruments, with images depicting its kind dating back to 1100 BCE, and there are original instruments from the Han era that are preserved in museums today. Traditionally, the sheng has been used as an accompaniment instrument for solo suona or dizi performances. It is one of the main instruments in kunqu and some other forms of Chinese opera. Traditional small ensembles also make use of the sheng, such as the wind and percussion ensembles in northern China. In the modern large Chineseorchestra, it is used for both melody and accompaniment. Read more on Wikipedia…
The vihuela is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of the lute in Italy and has a large resultant repertory. There were usually five or six doubled strings. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the vihuela, click image
KORA
The kora has 21 strings and is unique to West Africa, allowing performers to display their virtuosity and creativity. Originally, the kora was exclusively played by the griots, a caste of professional musicians who are like a repository of oral tradition. These hereditary genealogists help anchor the identity of everyone in the community. Read more…
To hear the kora, click image
MANDORA
Mandora, also spelled mandola, is a small, pear-shaped stringed instrument of the lute family. It was derived from earlier gittern or rebec models and acquired its name in the 16th century. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear the mandora, click image
CARILLON
A carillon is a musical instrument typically housed in the bell tower (belfry) of a church or municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to produce a melody, or together to play a chord. A traditional manual carillon is played by striking a keyboard—the stick-like keys of which are called batons—with the fists, and by pressing the keys of a pedal keyboard with the feet. The keys mechanically activate levers and wires connected to metal clappers which strike the bells. Read on Wikipedia…
To hear the carillon, click image
KINNOR
The ancient Hebrews had two stringed instruments, the kinnor and the nebel. In the English versions of the Old Testament the former word is wrongly translated harp. In both instruments the strings were set in vibration by the fingers, or perhaps by a little stick, the plectrum (as Josephus says). Bow instruments were unknown to the ancients. The strings were made of gut, metal strings not being used in olden times. The body of the instrument was generally made of cypress (II Sam. vi. 5) or, in very precious instruments, of sandalwood. Read more from the Jewish Encyclopedia…
To hear the kinnor, click image
COR ANGLAIS
The cor anglais or English horn is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe.
The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B♭ key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E3 (written B♮) below middle C to C6 two octaves above middle C. Read more on Wikipedia…
To hear and learn about the cor anglais, click image
To hear J.S. Bach: Concerto For Cor Anglais (From BWV 54) – 1. Larghetto, click here
QUEEN MARY HARP
The Queen Mary Harp is a Scottish clarsach currently displayed in the National Museum of Scotland. It is believed to date back to the 15th century, and to have originated in Argyll, in South West Scotland. It is one of the three oldest surviving Gaelic harps, the others being the Lamont Harp and the Trinity College Harp.. Read more on Wikiprdia…
The arghul also spelled argul, arghoul, arghool, argol, or yarghul, is a musical instrument in the reed family. It has been used since ancient Egyptian times and is still used as a traditional instrument in Egypt and Palestine. Read more on Wikiprdia… Click image to hear the arghul
According The Accordion Its Historical Due by Laura Stanfield Prichard
Throughout the Classical and Romantic periods, the humble accordion and its simpler cousin, the concertina, were important parlor, chamber, and accompanying instruments. The earliest forms of the accordion were inspired by the 1777 introduction of the Chinese free-reed sheng (bowl mouth organ) into Europe by Père Amiot, a Jesuit missionary in Qing China. Amiot entertained Beijing listeners by playing harpsichord versions of Rameau’s music, including Les sauvages (later part of Les Indes galantes). His introduction of the sheng set off an era of experimentation in free-reed instruments such as Anton Haeckel’s Physharmonika, a bellows-operated reed organ (Vienna, patented 1818), and Friedrich Buschmann’s mouthblown “Handäoline” (Berlin, patented 1822). Two of Haeckel’s instruments from 1825 can be seen in the Vienna Technical Museum. The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg holds Europe’s largest collection of early German free-reed instruments, accordions, and harmonicas. Read complete EMA article…
The Loughnashade Horn is one of the top ten most important archaeological finds in Ireland. It has been given pride of place in the National Museum of Ireland and is regularly cited as one of the most unique and intriguing insights into Irish history. Despite all of this, few people have ever actually heard of it, let alone seen it in the flesh. Often overlooked by more well known and more ornate objects such as the Ardagh Chalice, Tara Brooch or the Broighter Hoard, the Loughnashade Horn often gets forgotten about. Here’s what you need to know about it and why its importance needs to be recognised more often. Read more…
Click image to hear the Loughnashade Horn
To learn more about the Loughnashade Horn, click here
SITAR
The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India and flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th-century India. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the sitar
BANDORA
The bandora is a large long-necked plucked string-instrument that can be regarded as a bass cittern though it does not have the re-entrant tuning typical of the cittern. Probably first built by John Rose in England around 1560, it remained popular for over a century. A somewhat smaller version was the orpharion.
The bandora is frequently one of the two bass instruments in a broken consort as associated with the works of Thomas Morley, and it is also a solo instrument in its own right. Anthony Holborne wrote many pieces for solo bandora. The multiple lute settings of Pacoloni appear both with and without optional wire-strung instruments. Read more…
Click image to hear the bandora
VIOLONCELLO
The historical violoncello has evolved to become the instrument we now know as the “cello.” The violoncello appeared by the early 16th century, part of the “violin family” of stringed instruments. The violoncello – like its siblings, the violin and viola – has four strings. It is substantially larger than the other two, and has the deepest sound or “voice.” Read more…
Click image to hear the violoncello
RAUSCHPFEIFE
Rauschpfeife is a commonly used term for a specific type of capped conical reed musical instrument of the woodwind family, used in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. In common with the crumhorn and cornamuse, it is a wooden double-reed instrument with the reed enclosed in a windcap. The player blows into a slot in the top of the windcap to produce the sound. Read more…
Click image to hear the rauschpfeife
METALLOPHONE
A metallophone is a musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal (other than a metal string), consisting of tuned metal bars, tubes, rods, bowls, or plates. Most frequently the metal body is struck to produce sound, usually with a mallet, but may also be activated by friction, keyboard action, or other means. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the metallophone
COPPER SERPENT
The serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett, although it is not part of the cornett family, due to the absence of a thumb hole. It is generally made out of wood, with walnut being a particularly popular choice. The outside is covered with dark brown or black leather. Despite wooden construction and the fact that it has finger holes rather than valves, it is usually classed as a brass; the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification places it alongside trumpets. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the copper serpent
PHORMINX
The phorminx was one of the oldest of the Ancient Greek stringed musical instruments, in the yoke lutes family, intermediate between the lyre and the kithara. It consisted of two to seven strings, richly decorated arms and a crescent-shaped sound box. It most probably originated from Mesopotamia. While it seems to have been common in Homer’s day, accompanying the rhapsodes, it was supplanted in historical times by the seven-stringed kithara. Nevertheless, the term phorminx continued to be used as an archaism in poetry.. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the phorminx
LAUNTENWERCK
The lautenwerck is a European keyboard instrument of the Baroque period. It is similar to a harpsichord, but with gut rather than metal strings, producing a mellow tone. The instrument was favored by J. S. Bach, who owned two of the instruments at the time of his death, but no specimens from the 18th century have survived to the present day. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the lautenwerck
DIDGERIDOO
Top Ten Facts
Possibly the world’s oldest musical instrument.
A wind instrument originally found in Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.
Is made from limbs and tree trunks hollowed out by termites (insects).
Is cut to an average length of 1.3 metres and cleaned out with a stick. or hot coals.
Was used as an accompaniment to chants and songs.
Produces a low-pitch, resonant sound with complex rhythmic patterns.
In some tribal groups only played by men but in most groups by men, women and children.
Traditional forms of the didjeridoo where found right accross the Australian Northern Territory.
The Didgeridoo is the sound of Australia.
If the earth had a voice it would be the sound of the Didgeridoo.
The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible. Read more on Wikipedia…
The guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote “a gentleman does not part with his qin or se without good reason,” as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as “the father of Chinese music” or “the instrument of the sages”. The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long stringed instrument also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the baroque gugin
GÜIRO
The güiro instrument is a long, hollow gourd with ridges that produce sound when a stick, called a pua, is scraped along the sides of the instrument. The güiro is classified as a percussion idiophone because the entire instrument vibrates to create sound. Popular in Latin American music and a staple of worldwide dance rhythms, this percussion instrument has been around for hundreds of years and continues to gain popularity. Read complete article…
The bagpipe, of course, is an ancient instrument. What distinguished the musette, a bagpipe popular in baroque era France, was the use of a bellows. In 18th-century depictions it’s possible to see this little bellows tucked under the forearm of the player. Read more…
Click image to hear the musette
MANDOLIN
A mandolin (Italian: mandolino pronounced [mandoˈliːno]; literally “small mandola”) is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison (8 strings), although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. The courses are typically tuned in a succession of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. Read more on Wikipedia…
Click image to hear the mandolin
CONCH HORN
Conch, or conque, also known as a “seashell horn” or “shell trumpet“, is a wind instrument that is made from a conch, the shell of several different kinds of sea snails. Their natural conical bore is used to produce a musical tone. Conch shell trumpets have been played in many Pacific Island countries, as well as South America and Southern Asia.” Read more…
The historical violoncello has evolved to become the instrument we now know as the “cello.” The violoncello appeared by the early 16th century, part of the “violin family” of stringed instruments. The violoncello – like its siblings, the violin and viola – has four strings. It is substantially larger than the other two, and has the deepest sound or “voice.” Read more…
Click image to hear the violoncello
BANDORA
The bandora is a large long-necked plucked string-instrument that can be regarded as a bass cittern though it does not have the re-entrant tuning typical of the cittern. Probably first built by John Rose in England around 1560, it remained popular for over a century. A somewhat smaller version was the orpharion.
The bandora is frequently one of the two bass instruments in a broken consort as associated with the works of Thomas Morley, and it is also a solo instrument in its own right. Anthony Holborne wrote many pieces for solo bandora. The multiple lute settings of Pacoloni appear both with and without optional wire-strung instruments. Read more…
Click image to hear the bandora
RACKETT
The rackett, cervelas, or Sausage Bassoon is a Renaissance-era double reed wind instrument, introduced late in the sixteenth century and already superseded by bassoons at the end of the seventeenth century. Read more…
Click image to hear the rackett
MESOPOTAMIAN LYRE
The lyre was played in Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq) over 4,000 years ago. Music was an important aspect of many celebratory and ritual occasions in ancient Mesopotamia. The lyre is made of lavishly decorated silver and red limestone. The frame, tuners and strings are modern reproductions made from casts of the long-decayed wooden parts. The decorated panels below the bull’s head depict fallow deer and a tree on a hill, lions attacking a goat, and a lion attacking a gazelle. Read more about lyres…
Click image to hear the Mesopotamia lyre
To learn more about The Lyre of Mesopotamia click here.
JIAHU FLUTE
Chinese archeologists have unearthed what is believed to be the oldest known playable musical instrument, a seven-holed flute fashioned 9,000 years ago from the hollow wing bone of a large bird. Read more…
Click image to hear the Jiahu flute
ARCHLUTE
The archlute is a European plucked string instrument developed around 1600 as a compromise between the very large theorbo, the size and re-entrant tuning of which made for difficulties in the performance of solo music, and the Renaissance tenor lute, which lacked the bass range of the theorbo. Essentially a tenor lute with the theorbo’s neck-extension, the archlute lacks the power in the tenor and the bass that the theorbo’s large body and typically greater string length provide. Read more…
Click image to hear the archlute
HOHLE FELS FLUTE
The Hohle Fels (also Hohlefels, Hohler Fels, German for “hollow rock”) is a cave in the Swabian Jura of Germany that has yielded a number of important archaeological finds dating from the Upper Paleolithic. Artifacts found in the cave represent some of the earliest examples of prehistoric art and musical instruments ever discovered. The cave is just outside the town of Schelklingen in the state of Baden-Württemberg, near Ulm. Read more...
Click image to hear the hohle fels flute
For more information: Click here to learn the history of the Hohle Fels Cave flute
ORGANISTRUM
The organistrum is an early form of hurdy-gurdy. Generally considered the ancestor of all subsequent hurdy-gurdies, the organistrum differs substantially from later instruments in that it was played by two individuals: one turned the crank while the other pulled the keys upward to change the musical pitch of the melody strings.. Read more…
Click image to hear the organistrum.
SHUTTLE PIPES
Shuttle pipes are a type of bagpipes which derive their name from the drones used to produce the harmony. Rather than the long tube-like drones of most bagpipes, shuttle pipes use a shuttle drone, a cylindrical chamber enclosing a series of drone tubes, each terminating in a slot covered by a sliding “shuttle” which can be adjusted to lengthen or shorten the distance traveled by air moving through the tube, thus flattening or sharpening the pitch of the note produced. Read more...
Click image to hear the Shuttle Pipe.
TUTANKHAMUN’S TRUMPETS
Tutankhamun’s trumpets are a pair of trumpets found in the burial chamber of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The trumpets, one of sterling silver and one of bronze or copper, are considered to be the oldest operational trumpets in the world, and the only known surviving examples from ancient Egypt.Read more…
Click image to hear the Tutankhamun’s trumpets.
PSALTERY
A psaltery (Greek: ψαλτήρι) (or sawtry [archaic]) is a stringed instrument of the zither family.The psaltery of Ancient Greece (epigonion) was a harp-like winged instrument. The word psaltery derives from the Ancient Greek ψαλτήριον (psaltḗrion), “stringed instrument, psaltery, harp” and that from the verb ψάλλω (psállō), ” to touch sharply, to pluck, pull, twitch” and in the case of the strings of musical instruments, “to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, and not with the plectrum.” The psaltery was originally made from wood, and relied on natural acoustics for sound production. Read more…
Click image to hear the psaltery.
OBOE BARROCO
The baroque oboe seems to have developed from the shawm starting around the 1650s in Paris. Earlier instruments were loud double reeds intended for use outdoors (a use that continued through the 17th century in the “waits” bands of England) , and while the new, more refined oboe (and its larger cousins) maintained that function in the oboe bands of France, it also began to find a place in the orchestra starting in the 1670s. Its early orchestral use was in doubling the first violin part, but gradually it began to be used independently for its own color and expressive capability. The baroque oboe’s sound is less compact and more plaintive than that of the modern oboe and has been described as more like the human voice than any other instrument.Read more…
Click image to hear the oboe barroco which will be played by Ars Longa musicians.
THEORBO
The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending out from the soundbox. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with one hand while “fretting” (pressing down) the strings with the other hand; pressing the strings in different places on the neck produces different pitches (notes), thus enabling the performer to play chords, basslines and melodies.Read more…
Click image to hear the theorbo.
TIMPANI
Timpani or kettledrums are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorized as a semi-spherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Most modern timpani are pedal timpani and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century.Read more…
Click image to hear the timpani.
NEVEL
The nevel or nebel was a stringed instrument used by the ancient Hebrew people. The Greeks translated the name as nabla. Read more…
Click image to hear the nevel.
BAROQUE FLUTE
A revolution in flute making took place in the second half of the 17th century. The instrument emerged as the ‘baroque flute’ with significant modifications including a conical bore, the addition of a key for the right hand little finger, and a more ornate body made in several pieces. It was now fully chromatic (in large part because of the key), but more significantly, it was better suited tonally for a role as a soloist (primarily because of the bore change). The bore change made a big difference in sound—improving the intonation and increasing the volume in the lowest notes, in particular—and incidently allowed the finger holes to be placed higher on the tube, making it slightly easier to handle with small hands than a renaissance flute at the same pitch. Read more…
Click image to hear the Baroque flute.
BAROQUE GUITAR
The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string. Read more…
Click image to hear the Baroque guitar
VIELLE
The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the Medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, three to five gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a figure-8 shaped body. Whatever external form they had, the box-soundchest consisted of back and belly joined by ribs, which experience has shown to be the construction for bowed instruments. The most common shape given to the earliest vielles in France was an oval, which with its modifications remained in favor until the Italian asserted itself as the better type, leading to the violin. Read more…
Click image to hear the vielle. (Instrument used in EMS’s “The Play of Daniel”)
NYCKELLHARPA
A nyckelharpa “keyed fiddle”, or literally “key harp”, plural nyckelharpor) is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string. Read more…
