Wind Instruments (Aerophones)

Woodwind Instruments

Reedless Instruments
Double Reed Instruments
Single Reed Instruments

Brass Instruments

Percussion Instruments (Idiophones)

Percussion of Definite Pitch
Percussion of Indefinite Pitch

String Instruments (Chordophones)

Bowed or Plucked Strings
Plucked Strings

Keyboard Instruments

Harmonics

Wind Instruments (Aerophones)

Woodwind Instruments
[Image Gallery]

Tones are produced by the vibration of air blown into the instrument. With the exception of the saxophone, most woodwinds were originally made of wood. Today they are made of metal, plastic, and other materials. Reedless, double reed, single reed, and brass instruments form the wind family (aerophones).

Reedless Instruments

piccolo: highest-pitched woodwind.

flute: next highest woodwind (also alto, bass and contrabass flutes).

Double Reed Instruments (a reed is a small strip of cane, plastic, or metal used to produce sound)

oboe: highest-pitched of the double reed instruments.

English horn: resembles the oboe but is larger and lower pitched.

bassoon: the largest and lowest pitched of the double reed instruments. (also a lower-pitched contrabassoon).

Single Reed Instruments

clarinet: there are sopranino, soprano, alto, bass and contrabass clarinets.

saxophones – there are soprano, alto, baritone, and bass.

harmonica – small instrument consisting of metal reeds over which a player exhales and inhales to produce sound.

 

Brass Instruments
[Image Gallery]

Brass instruments are not necessarily made of the brass metal. The tone is produced by the forced vibrations of the player’s lips inside a mouthpiece.

trumpet: smallest and highest-pitched (soprano) brass instrument.

cornet: similar to in design to a trumpet but is shorter and has longer conical proportions.

flugelhorn: similar to in design and size to cornet but has a wider conical bore.

French horn: alto instrument that has extremely large range, but does not play as high as a trumpet or as low as a trombone.

trombone: a tenor brass instrument with a slide.

baritone: baritone brass instrument shaped like a small tuba.

euphonium: similar in shape and range to a baritone, but has a larger bore for a mellower sound.

tuba: the bass instrument of the brass family.

sousaphone: a type of brass tuba designed for carrying.

 

Percussion Instruments (Idiophones)
[Image Gallery]

An instrument that is struck by another object to produce sound. There are two categories:

Percussion of Definite Pitch

tympani: (kettledrum) drum consisting of a metal shell covered by parchment and usually played with soft mallets.

xylophone: an arrangement of tuned wooden bars played with hard mallets

marimba: an arrangement of graduated tuned bars that are amplified underneath by tube resonators and played with mallets.

vibraphone: similar to marimba but has metal bars and electrically driven rotating propellers within each resonator causing a vibrato sound. (originated in America).

chimes: largest resonating metal tubes, producing a church bell effect when struck with a wooden hammer.

bells: (glockenspiel – when portable) metal bars yielding a clear metallic tone when struck with hard mallets.

Percussion of Indefinite Pitch

triangle: metal rod bent into the shape of an equilateral triangle.

snare drum: a relatively small cylinder with stretched skins on both sides. The bottom head has gut or metal strings (snares) stretched across it, which sharpens its resonance. Sizes vary.

tom-tom: (tenor drum) cylinder drum that is deeper and lower-pitched than the snare drum and which has no snares.

bass drum: a large cylinder with stretched skins on both ends.

cymbals: two saucer-shaped plates, struck or rubbed together and sometimes also struck with drumsticks; Brass or bronze disks played by striking against one another or with sticks or mallets, producing a crisp ringing sound.

high-hat cymbals: pair of cymbals mounted facing each other on a rod so that a push on a foot-pedal causes the upper to drop upon the lower.

foot pedal: a drum set device that allows the drummer to play the bass drum or high-hat with feet rather than hands.

bongos: a conjoined pair of small tuned drums played with the fingers.

timbales: two conjoined open metal drums, larger than bongos and played with sticks.

conga: a tall, barrel-shaped hand drum.

clavés: pair of cherry-wood or maple sticks struck together for rhythmic accompaniment in Afro-Latin music.

maracas: seed or pebble-filled gourd-shaped rattles played in pairs to provide rhythmic accompaniment.

cowbell: (campana or cencerro) metal Afro-Cuban percussion instrument.

trap set: (drum set, drum kit, etc.) set of percussion arranged so one player can play all the component parts with both hands and feet. The snare drum, large tom-tom, head tom (small tom-tom), bass drum, high-hat, ride cymbal, ride cymbal, and crash cymbal form the basic set.

 

String Instruments (Chordophones)
[Image Gallery]

Tones are produced by plucking or bowing strings which sets the air in motion to produce sound.

A. String instruments that can be played by either bowing (arco) or plucking (pizzicato):

violin: smallest and highest-pitched (soprano) string instrument.

viola: next larger bowed instrument that is lower than the violin (alto).

cello: (violoncello) next larger bowed instrument pitched lower than a viola (tenor/baritone).

double bass: largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument.

B. String instruments that are only played by plucking:

harp: chordophone with plane of strings perpendicular to the sounding board and usually plucked to produce sound; In blues, a harmonica.

guitar: instrument with a long fretted neck; a flat, figure eight-shaped body; and generally six strings which are plucked.

banjo: instrument of African-American origins, with a long fretted neck and a flat, round body.

ukelele: small guitar-shaped instrument with a long fretted neck; generally four strings which are plucked. Hawaiian origins.

mandolin: newest member of the lute family consisting of four strings.

 

Keyboard Instruments
[Image Gallery]

Instruments possessing a series of keys which the player depresses to activate a mechanism which does one of the following:

1. strikes or plucks a string or other vibrating object.

2. channels compressed air into a rod or reedless pipe.

3. controls an electronic sound source.

piano: (pianoforte) taut strings are struck by hammers to produce sound.

organ: complex instrument capable of producing tones resembling a wide variety of instruments. Sound produced either by compressed air or electronically generated.

celesta: sound generated by tiny hammers striking metal bars.

harpsichord: tone produced by plectrums of crow quills plucking strings through a mechanism controlled by the keyboard. Shaped like a small grand piano.

clavichord: keyboard instrument in which depressing a key causes a metal blade (called a tangent) to strike a string.

synthesizer: any of a variety of electronic instruments capable of adjusting various parameters of sound by modifying wave forms to produce an unlimited quantity of sounds.

 

Harmonics

A musical instrument’s sound involves a phenomenon known as harmonics, or overtones. The arrangement of overtones gives each instrument its characteristic sound. This is why different instruments can play the same note and still have distinguishing features that let the ear know that it is a flute, violin, soprano saxophone, etc. Different overtones are more pronounced on certain instruments.