musical instrument

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References & Edit History Related Topics

Images & Videos

Children playing musical instruments.

Bone whistle, c. 10,000 bc; in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, Eng.

Ram's horn shofar

lamellaphone with bamboo tongues

A Sakha group (from eastern Siberia) playing the khomus, a type of Jew's harp.

Typically ornate Hardanger fiddle (detail), a Norwegian folk instrument.

Musician playing a changgo, a Korean two-headed drum.

Tambourine with snare and jingles, detail from an early 14th-century English manuscript (add. 42130, fol. 164); in the British Library, London

Sheng; in the Horniman Museum, London.

Listen to the discussion about the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota

Read Next

Woman Playing a Theorbo to Two Men, oil on canvas by Gerard Terborch, 1667-1668. (Baroque Art)

What’s That Sound?: 8 Intriguing Early Musical Instruments

Undated photograph of American violinist Nathan Milstein playing a 1716 Stradivarius violin. Undated photo.

What’s So Special About Stradivarius Violins?

Old broken disused piano with damaged keys

Is the Piano a Percussion or a Stringed Instrument?

Discover

Cathedrale St.Jean in Lyon, France has a 14th-century astronomical clock that shows religious feast days till the year 2019; Perpetual Calendar

Ten Days That Vanished: The Switch to the Gregorian Calendar

King Cobra snake in Malaysia. (reptile)

9 of the World’s Deadliest Snakes

Gutzon Borglum. Presidents. Sculpture. National park. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt. Abraham Lincoln. Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota.

9 Memorials and Monuments in the United States

Amendments 1-10 to the Constitution of the United States constitute what is known as the Bill of Rights on an American flag.

What Is the Emoluments Clause?

Shadow of a man holding large knife in his hand inside of some dark, spooky buiding

7 of History's Most Notorious Serial Killers

Berries and leaves of the bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) plant. Poisonous plant

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Dancers at a Cinco de Mayo festival at the Mission District, San Francisco, California. (Photo dated 2019.) holidays

Is Cinco de Mayo Mexico's Independence Day?

musical instrument: Related Content

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Photos and Videos

Children playing musical instruments.

Bone whistle, c. 10,000 bc; in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, Eng.

Ram's horn shofar

lamellaphone with bamboo tongues

A Sakha group (from eastern Siberia) playing the khomus, a type of Jew's harp.

Typically ornate Hardanger fiddle (detail), a Norwegian folk instrument.

Musician playing a changgo, a Korean two-headed drum.

Tambourine with snare and jingles, detail from an early 14th-century English manuscript (add. 42130, fol. 164); in the British Library, London

Sheng; in the Horniman Museum, London.

Kenyah boys playing the jatung utang (a type of xylophone) in Kalimantan Timur (East Kalimantan), Indon.

Listen to the discussion about the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota

Watch a man playing a Brazilian musical bow called Berimbau

See a man playing a 'calabash drum'

The intricate process of constructing a grand piano

View a demonstration to understand the physics behind the working of an electric guitar

See All Videos and Images →

Topics

keyboard instrument wind instrument stringed instrument percussion instrument automatic instrument electronic instrument effects pedal music box transposing musical instrument metronome dress furniture textile glassware toy metamaterial wax tableware history of technology Internet

Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

Key People

Stradivari, detail of an engraving by Fred Hillemacher, c. 1886, after a portrait, 1681

Antonio Stradivari

Italian violin maker

Theobald Boehm

German woodwind maker

Victor-Charles Mahillon

Belgian music scholar

Curt Sachs

German musicologist

John Philip Sousa.

John Philip Sousa

American composer

Erich Moritz von Hornbostel

Austrian musicologist

Dolmetsch, pen-and-ink drawing by Edmond X. Kapp, 1920; in a private collection

Arnold Dolmetsch

British musician

Praetorius, Michael

Michael Praetorius

German musician

Quiz

Blue electric guitar isolated on white.

Tapping Keys and Plucking Strings

Ukrainian wooden flute. (Ethinic, music, musical, traditional, wood, wind)

Instruments: From Carillons to Electric Guitars

Toy xylophone musical instrument.

Instruments

Gong. Closeup of a khong wong gong circle chime. Thai classical musical instrument, part of piphat ensemble. (percussion, music)

Music Quiz

Young girl wearing a demin jacket playing the trumpet (child, musical instruments, Asian ethnicity)

Sound Check: Musical Vocabulary Quiz

Trumpet musical instrument.

Musical Instruments

Harmonica with sheet music.

Test Your Instrument Knowledge

A woman wearing a hanbok plays the traditional Korean musical instrument kayagum (gayageum).

Another Musical Instruments Quiz

classical music. A musician reads sheet music and plays a cello (cellist) with violinists in an orchestra. String instruments produce sound waves.

The Sound of Music

List

Woman Playing a Theorbo to Two Men, oil on canvas by Gerard Terborch, 1667-1668. (Baroque Art)

What’s That Sound?: 8 Intriguing Early Musical Instruments

Demystified

Undated photograph of American violinist Nathan Milstein playing a 1716 Stradivarius violin. Undated photo.

What’s So Special About Stradivarius Violins?