MUSICAL INSTRUMENT | DESCRIPTION |
accordion | Accordion is a musical instrument, invented in Berlin in 1822, in which wind is supplied to free reeds by bellows. |
bagpipe | Bagpipe is a musical wind instrument peculiar to Scotland where air stored in a bag is pressed out through pipes. |
banjo | Banjo is a stringed musical instrument with a neck and head like a guitar and a circular body like a tambourine. Banjos were very popular with early Americans. |
bassoon | Bassoon is double-reed woodwind instrument with a deep tone. It is a prominent musical instrument in modern orchestra with the double one sounding an octave below the ordinary one. |
cello | Cello is a large bass instrument of the violin family. Spanish-born Pablo Casals was one of the most prominent 20th-century performers of the cello. |
clarinet | Clarinet is a woodwind instrument with a single reed that sounds similar to a violin. The B-flat soprano is its most common size. |
cornet | Cornet is a brass musical instrument like a small trumpet. It is closely related to the bugle and flugelhorn. It is used in marching and military bands. |
cymbal | Cymbal is a brass plate clashed against another or with a stick to act as a percussion musical instrument. |
drum | Drum is a percussion musical instrument played with sticks or fingers. The single-headed mid-eastern darabuka and the double-headed Japanese tsuzumi are types of drums. |
flute | Flute is a musical wind instrument consisting of a pipe with finger-holes along it and a blow-hole for the mouth at the end. Lord Krishna, the Indian God, is depicted playing it. |
harp | Harp is a musical instrument played by plucking strings with fingers. The strings are stretched over a slightly curved triangular board. |
hurdy-gurdy | Hurdy-gurdy is a musical instrument with strings played by turning a handle and seen on European streets. |
lyre | Lyre is an obsolete musical instrument with strings in a U-shaped frame. Its name is also given to an Australian bird whose tail has the same shape. The kinnor of the ancient Hebrews, the instrument of King David, was a type of lyre. |
oboe | Oboe is a woodwind instrument of treble pitch with a double reed that has a deep, rich tone. |
piano, pianoforte | Piano (or formally Pianoforte) is a large musical instrument with metal strings struck by hammers operated by a keyboard. It was played by jazz great Jelly Roll Morton. It was also played by Chico in the Marx Brothers movies. |
sitar | Sitar is a stringed Indian instrument popularized by Ravi Shankar. |
tambourine | Tambourine is a percussion musical instrument made of a hoop with parchment stretched on one side and small metal discs set in slots. |
triangle | Triangle is a musical instrument consisting of a steel rod bent into a triangle. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt had a solo of this percussion instrument in his 'Triangle Concerto' in 1849. |
trombone | Trombone is a large, powerful wind instrument of the trumpet family made of brass and having a sliding tube. |
ukulele | Ukulele (Hawaiian name meaning flea) is a small four-stringed guitar-like musical instrument that originated in the late 19th century. |
violin | Violin is a musical instrument with four strings of treble pitch and played with a bow. Vivaldi, the composer of 'The Four Seasons', was a virtuoso of the violin. |
xylophone | Xylophone is a percussion musical instrument with flat wooden bars struck with small hammers. The word 'xylophone' is derived from two Greek words meaning 'wood' and 'sound'. |