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Musical Instruments
I

INTRODUCTION

World Music Tour
Click on the instruments to hear music from around the world.
© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Musical Instruments, tools used to expand the limited scope of musical sounds--such as clapping, stamping, whistling, humming, and singing--that can be produced by
a person's unaided body. Throughout the world, instruments vary greatly in purpose and design, from natural, uncrafted objects to complicated products of industrial
technology. Although sirens, automobile parts, and radios have been employed in avant-garde compositions, this article mainly concerns those specialized implements
intended for performing the world's conventional folk, popular, and classical musics.

II

THE PRODUCTION OF SOUND

Sound arises from vibration transmitted by waves to the ear. Incoherent, violent vibration is normally interpreted as noise, whereas regular, moderate motion produces
tones that can be pleasing. The faster the vibration, the higher the pitch that is perceived. Some pipe organs encompass the full audible range of pitch, approximately
16 Hz (hertz, or cycles per second) to 20,000 Hz, or more than ten octaves, but most instruments have a much more limited compass; indeed, many play only a single
note or have no identifiable pitch at all.
The greater the amplitude or power of audio waves, the louder their sound, which in some electronically amplified music can reach a painful, ear-damaging intensity.
The timbre, or tone color, of the sound is influenced by the presence and relative strength of overtones, or harmonics, in the sound wave. The perception of timbre,
however, is also affected by the duration and location of the sound, and by its envelope, or its characteristics of attack (onset) and decay (which may, for example, be
abrupt or gradual, or--especially in attack--may involve transient harmonics). The sounds of musical instruments are caused and modified by three components: (1) the
essential vibrating substance (such as a violin string), set into motion by bowing, blowing, striking, or some other method; (2) the connected reflector, amplifier, or
resonator (soundboard, tube, box, or vessel); and (3) associated sound-altering devices, among them keys, valves, frets, and mutes.

III

SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION

Instruments can be classified in different ways--for example, by their primary materials (metal, wood, earthenware, skin, and so forth, an arrangement followed in East
Asia); their social status and appropriate setting (church, military, parlor); or their musical role (rhythmic, melodic, chordal, drone). Since the 2nd century

BC,

Western

audiences have conventionally distinguished among winds, strings, and percussion. This exclusive division, however, does not accommodate instruments such as the
piano, which employs both strings and a percussion mechanism; or the aeolian harp, a zither the strings of which are vibrated by the wind. Nor is the familiar distinction
of brasses from woodwinds quite logical: Saxophones and orchestral flutes are metal woodwinds, whereas early "brasses" were often made of animal horn (the shofar),
wood (the serpent, a bass instrument), or even ivory (the cornetto, a small Renaissance horn).
A comprehensive classification based on acoustical principles was devised in the 19th century. Instrument families are defined in terms of what vibrates to produce the
sound. These families are the idiophones--solid, intrinsically sonorous objects; membranophones--taut membranes; aerophones--enclosed or free masses of air; and
chordophones--stretched strings. A fifth family, electrophones--oscillating electronic circuits--originated recently.

IV

IDIOPHONES

Cymbals
Cymbals are percussion instruments and members of the family of musical instruments known as idiophones. They are
made of bronze and are played by being struck together or by striking a single cymbal with a stick or wire brush. Ancient
cymbals from Assyria date from 800 bc. These cymbals are made by Zildjian in Armenia.
Dorling Kindersley

The largest, most varied and widespread, and probably the oldest instrument family consists of idiophones. Known at least since the Stone Age, idiophones range in
complexity from hollowed logs (slit-drums) of indefinite or tuned pitch that are used rhythmically, often to send signals, to precisely tuned cast-bronze bells that,
combined in a carillon, form the most massive and expensive of instruments. Bells vibrate at their rim, whereas gongs--perhaps invented in Southeast Asia by Bronze
Age metalsmiths--vibrate at their center. The so-called steel drum or piano pan is a modern Trinidadian gong that produces more than one pitch from its segmented
surface. See Bell; Gong.

Traditional Timbila of Mozambique
Among the Chopi, who have lived for centuries along the coast of Mozambique, there is a highly developed tradition of
songwriting and composing for timbila (xylophone) orchestras. Elaborate migodo (dance suites), interspersed with poetic
songs pertaining to village life, are often performed to these compositions. Timbila music is now recognized as the national
music of Mozambique.
"Eduardo Durao Mauaia" from Eduardo Durao and Orquestra Durao: Timbila (Cat.# Globestyle CDORBD 065) (p)1991 Globestyle ACE Records, Ltd. All Rights Reserved./Roger
Armstrong/ACE Records

These examples are known as percussion idiophones because they are all struck with beaters. Such instruments are often played in sets. The xylophone is a set of
tuned hardwood bars. In Indonesian music, the saron is a metallophone, made up of bronze bars; the bonang, a set of small tuned gongs. The celesta is a metallophone
with a pianolike keyboard. A piano hammer action also strikes the glass bars of the glasschord, a 19th-century English crystallophone. The oldest existing sets of tunedbar idiophones, excavated in East Asia, are lithophones, made of stone; lithophones were also made in 19th-century England.

Traditional Gamelan of Bali
The Island of Bali has a long and rich tradition of gamelan music. The gamelan is a large ensemble, consisting of up to 40
musicians playing varying sizes of gongs, xylophones, and drums. It performs for traditional occasions and ceremonies.
This recording of Tabuh Pisan is performed by the Gamelan Orchestra of Batur Temple.
"Tabuh Pisan" from Bali: Music for the Gong Gede (Cat.# Ocora C 559002) (p)1987 Ocora/Radio France. All rights reserved./George Holton/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Concussion idiophones are struck together, usually in pairs. Turkish-style brass cymbals and Spanish wooden castanets (see Cymbals; Castanets) are the most familiar
types, but ivory and bone clappers were common in ancient Egypt. Egyptian worshipers also used the sistrum, a rattle with metal rings fitted loosely on rods. Rattles
are normally shaken rather than struck. They include vessel types, with loose rattling objects enclosed in a container; strung rattles, with small, hard objects tied
together or to a handle; and frame rattles, such as the sistrum and the Javanese angklung (tuned bamboo tubes sliding within a framework). The jingle, or pellet, bell is
a metal vessel rattle, not a true bell.

Thumb Piano

This sansa, a type of thumb piano from South America, is related to the mbira of Africa. It is played by plucking the metal
tongues with the thumbs or forefingers. The different lengths of the tongues produce different notes. Many mbiras are
elaborately carved, and some are placed inside a hollowed-out gourd to create greater resonance.
Dorling Kindersley

Other idiophones may be scraped, as is the washboard played in old-time jug bands; or they can be rubbed with a bow (as in a nail violin) or with the fingers.
Moistened fingers rub the rims of musical glasses, tuned by partial filling with water (See also Harmonica: Glass Harmonica). Plucked idiophones include the rotating
ratchet used as a holiday noisemaker; the African mbira or thumb piano, the many metal or cane tongues which can be individually tuned; and the music box, with its
"comb" of flexible steel teeth that are plucked by pins which are on a rotating cylinder.

V

MEMBRANOPHONES

Tabor
The tabor was a popular medieval European drum. It was used as an accompaniment to dancing and also as an
instrument in military bands. The tabor was supported by a strap worn over the shoulder. The drummer then beat the
drum with a stick held in one hand and played a pipe with the other hand. The tabor is still used occasionally as a folk
instrument.
Dorling Kindersley

All true drums belong to the membranophones. A drum has one or two heads of skin or plastic stretched over a resonator or over a narrow frame. Kettledrums, having
a single head over a bowl-shaped resonator, are produced in all sizes. Orchestral kettledrums are tuned by means of hand screws or pedals, whereas some nonWestern types are tuned with paste or heat applied to the head, or by manipulating the lacing which attaches to the head or heads. Hard and soft beaters offer tonal
variety. In India the technique of playing small kettledrums (the baya in the pair called tabla) with the hands is a subtle art.
Cylindrical drums, usually unpitched, vary in size from huge basses drawn on wagons in parades, to shallow, waist-slung drums equipped with snares that intensify the
sound. In parts of Africa and the Pacific Islands sacred drums are taboo to the uninitiated; their wood bodies are elaborately carved and decorated, and revered drums
occupy huts to which votive offerings are brought. Slender, elongated drums with reptile-skin heads glued on with human blood accompany male ritual dances in New
Guinea.
Some Native Americans accompany tribal dances and chants on broad, shallow drums beaten by several players at once. A light hand-held frame drum is played by
Eskimo shamans; it resembles Asian shamans' drums. The tambourine is a frame drum that usually has rattles attached to the frame; it is both struck and shaken and
is sometimes rubbed.
The rommelpot is a Flemish friction drum played as a toy; rubbing a stick or string protruding through its head causes the head to vibrate. A more important
membranophone is the mirliton. Not actually an instrument in its own right, but rather a tone modifier, the mirliton is a thin membrane attached over a hole in a
resonator, adding a buzzing quality to the sound. One popular mirliton, the kazoo, disguises the voice. Other mirlitons enrich the tone of instruments as diverse as
African xylophones, drums, and Chinese flutes.

VI

AEROPHONES

Parts of a Pipe Organ
The traditional pipe organ is divided into several different sections, including the great organ, the swell organ, and the
choir organ. Each produces a different type of sound. The organist plays a set of keyboards, or manuals, that control the
sound by regulating the amount of air that passes through the pipes. Large pipe organs can have thousands of different
pipes, producing a huge range of sound.
© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Among aerophones, several different methods are used to set the air in vibration.

A

Flutes

Concert Flute
This concert flute is a Western orchestral instrument. It is held horizontally and played by blowing across the hole, rather
then directly into it. The earliest flutes were made of wood, but 19th-century German flute maker Theobald Boehm
introduced a number of changes in the design of the instrument, developing it into the all-metal flute still used today.
Dorling Kindersley

In flutes a wind stream impinges on an edge, setting up eddies in an enclosed body of air. The wind may come from the player's lungs, a bellows or squeezed windbag,
or a mechanical fan. If the resonator enclosing the air is a tube, its length determines the pitch; usually, tone holes in the tube wall are opened or closed to change the
sounding length and, hence, the pitch.

Panpipe Music of Bolivia
Largely inhabited by Quechua- and Aymara-speaking peoples, the highland region of the Andes is primarily centered in
Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Home to some of the oldest musical forms in the Americas, the region features ensembles that
accompany dancers in religious and secular ceremonies dating from the Inca period. Instrumentation in these ensembles
includes panpipes made of cane or bone, trumpets made of conch shell, flutes, and drums. This example, called
"Sicuriada," is a traditional melody from Bolivia.
Kevin Healy/"Sicuriada" from Music of the Andes and Argentina (Cat.# Music of the World T-112) (p)1988 Music of the World, Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the orchestral flute the lips direct breath against the edge of a mouth hole in the tube wall; such flutes are called transverse, or side blown (see Flute). The Japanese
shakuhachi is blown against the sharpened rim of one end. A panpipe is also end blown; each of its pipes gives a different note, according to its length. Some end-blown
flutes are blown through one nostril; such "nose flutes" are often considered magical.
In whistles and recorders an internal duct aims the breath against the edge of a hole in the wall; the flue pipes on an organ thus operate like one-note whistles. Some
Native American flutes have a duct on the outside of the tube, a system unknown otherwise. The ocarina, a popular ducted flute invented in Italy (about 1860), has a
globular resonator rather than a tubular one, giving it a hollow, dark tone. In general, the shape of an aerophone's resonator has a more critical effect on timbre than
does its material, because the resonator walls vibrate little, compared to the air within.

B

Single and Double Reeds

Tenor Saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a member of the aerophone family of musical instruments. It shares characteristics with other
woodwinds, including a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of a clarinet and a conical tube and flared bell close to that
of an oboe. The saxophone plays an important melodic role in various types of music, especially in jazz and rock music.
Different types of saxophone include (from lowest to highest range of pitch) the baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano.
S.R.H. Spicer/The Shrine to Music Museum/University of South Dakota

Among reed-vibrated aerophones, the clarinet, saxophone, and their relatives employ a single broad reed of springy cane fastened at one end over a hole in a
mouthpiece. The reed responds to breath pressure by beating against the hole many times per second, allowing puffs of wind into the tube to vibrate the enclosed air.
The brass-reed pipes of an organ are of this type.

Mozart's Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, K. 314
The oboe descended from the shawm, an ancient Middle Eastern folk instrument. This example of an orchestral oboe is
made of wood and has fifteen keys. Written in 1777, Mozart's Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major was performed
several times by the famed German oboist Friedrich Ramm.
"Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C Major, K.314" from Mozart: Oboe Concerto - Bassoon Concerto - Clarinet Concerto (Cat.# Naxos 8.550345) (p)1989 HNH International, Ltd. All
rights reserved./Dorling Kindersley

The oboe, bassoon, shawm, and other double-reed instruments produce sound when two slender blades of cane pinch together rapidly, thus interrupting the wind
stream passing between them into the resonator. Whereas clarinets have a more-or-less cylindrical tube, oboes have a conical pipe; the different internal shapes foster
distinctive patterns of harmonics that give these instruments their characteristic timbres.

C

Free Reeds and Other Instruments

Sh?
The sh? , a Japanese mouth organ, is a member of the family of musical instruments known as free reeds. Its ancestor is
the 3000-year-old Chinese sheng. The sho consists of 17 bamboo pipes and a wooden wind chamber. It is played by
blowing air into the wind chamber while fingering holes in the pipes.
The New York Public Library

In free-reed aerophones such as the mouth organ, or harmonica, the accordion, and reed organs (harmonium, melodeon), many brass reeds of graduated size produce
the sounds. Under wind pressure each reed vibrates back and forth through a close-fitting aperture. Because the length and shape of each free reed determines its
pitch and timbre, no resonator is required; the reed vibrates air in the atmosphere. All Western free-reed instruments evolved from the Oriental mouth organ with
multiple pipes (such as the Chinese sheng and the Japanese sho), introduced into Europe in the 18th century.

Playing the Sheng
The sheng, an ancient Chinese mouth organ, was introduced into Europe in 1777. All Western free-reed instruments have
evolved from multiple-piped Oriental mouth organs like this one.
Brian Kemp/Globe Photos, Inc.

The bull-roarer, a tapered wood blade whirled around on a string, also vibrates the atmosphere directly without benefit of a resonator. Its unpitched rumble sounds
powerful and mysterious. The jew's harp has a twangy tone that arises when the stiff metal or cane reed is plucked in front of the mouth and vibrates the air within.

D

Lip-Vibrated Instruments

French Horn
The French horn, used in hunting in the 17th century, was developed into an orchestral instrument in Germany during the
18th century. The horn pictured here is a double horn, in F and B-flat, and can be switched from one to the other by the
depression of a thumb valve. A musician can adjust intonation and tone color by changing the position of the right hand
inserted in the bell of the instrument.
Dorling Kindersley

In the orchestral brasses and other lip-vibrated aerophones, the player's lips buzz against a cup- or funnel-shaped mouthpiece inserted in a conical or cylindrical tube.
Broadly speaking, conical, wide-bore tubes characterize horns, whereas relatively cylindrical, narrow-bore tubes define trumpets (see Horn; Trumpet). The sounding
length of the tube can be altered by means of fingered or keyed tone holes; by valves that open and close sections of tubing; or by a sliding telescopic section of
tubing, as on the trombone. The cornetto and serpent, for example, have finger holes much like those of a recorder. The keyed trumpet and keyed bugle (see Bugle)
became obsolete only when valves were widely adopted for brasses in the 19th century. See also Tuba.

Trumpet, as Played by Miles Davis
The modern B-flat trumpet is used in orchestras, as well as jazz, dance, and marching bands. The trumpet has been made
popular by several American jazz musicians, notably Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Davis is renowned for changing the
sound, color, and overall traditional approach to contemporary jazz in the late 1940s. A student of bebop, Davis
introduced a cool jazz style that placed more focus on extended phrasing and the interaction of instrumentalists. His
dreamy, lyrical style was also warm and sophisticated. It blended a highly schooled, contrapuntal approach with
personality, feeling, and emotion.
Dorling Kindersley/"Airegin" (Sonny Rollins) from The Miles Davis Quintet on The Prestige Sampler (Cat.# OJCCD-1203-2) (c) Prestige Music (BMI) (p)1988 Fantasy, Inc. All rights
reserved.

In many aerophones, overblowing (drastically increasing the wind pressure) forces higher harmonics to supersede the fundamental pitch. A bugler, whose instrument is
a tube of constant length, can thus play tunes by overblowing to produce various harmonics. Brasses of unvariable sounding length are called natural; they are limited
to the notes of the harmonic series. As composers since the 1500s gradually made greater demands on trumpets and horns (which were originally outdoor signal
instruments), instrument makers invented the key and valve mechanisms that enable the instruments to produce fully chromatic scales. Woodwinds, similarly, were
fitted with complex key mechanisms. Such structural changes, however, necessarily affected the timbre; modern brasses, as well as keyed woodwinds, sound noticeably
different from those of the early 19th century and before.

VII

CHORDOPHONES

Traditional Krar Music of Ethiopia
The Ethiopian krar is a five- or six-string lyre that is either plucked with the fingers or strummed with a plectrum and is
tuned in the pentatonic (five-tone) scale. It is one of the oldest stringed instruments in the world and is the principal
instrument of the Azmari people, who believe it has bewitching powers. The krar is played solo, as accompaniment to
singing or storytelling, or as part of ensembles featuring flutes and drums. Historically, the krar was played by wandering
poet/musicians who performed at births and weddings or composed praise songs about women.
"Gerf" (Seleshe Damessae) Owl's Head Pulishing Co. (BMI) from Seleshe Damessae: Tesfaye: A Future Hope (Cat.# Music of the World T-107) (p)1990 Music of the World, Ltd. All
rights reserved./Dr.
Abiyi Ford/© 1990
Music of the World Ltd.

Being of more recent origin than idiophones, drums, and winds, the chordophones are not universally distributed; they were virtually unknown in pre-Columbian

America (before the 16th century). Chordophones differ widely in structure, but are all thought to have evolved from the archaic musical bow, which resembles a
hunting bow and is played like a jew's harp. Because the sound of a vibrating string alone is extremely quiet, strings are almost always coupled to a resonator.

A

Zithers

Qin
The qin (also known as ch'in) is a Chinese zither. This qin was made in the 19th century and consists of seven strings and
a lacquered sound board with inlaid mother-of-pearl disks to indicate where the fingers are used to stop the strings and
produce harmonics. The qin is an ancient instrument that probably originated during the Shang dynasty about 1400 bc.
Dorling Kindersley

Traditional Valiha of Madagascar
Although music featuring the 22-string valiha (tube zither) is performed today in Madagascar discos along with electric
guitars and drums, the traditional instrument is also heard in social and religious events. The valiha is the instrument
heard at circumcision parties, religious exhumations, and trance and possession ceremonies. Today it is the national
instrument of Madagascar and is often made from a wooden oblong box and bicycle-brake cable.
"Feam Baliha" from Madagasikara 1: Current Traditional Music of Madagascar (Cat.# Globestyle CDORB 012) (p)1986 Globestyle-ACE Records, Ltd. All rights reserved./Roger
Armstrong/ACE Records

In the zither group, the strings stretch side by side over a soundboard or sound box, and, with the exception of the Chinese qin (ch'in), communicate their vibrations to
either by means of one or more bridges. The Japanese koto has movable bridges, one for each string. This revered zither, like the bridgeless qin, has an extensive
classical repertoire. The Appalachian dulcimer (not the same as the hammered dulcimer) evolved in the late 19th century from northern European fretted zithers
brought to America by immigrants. These folk zithers have melody strings passing over a fretted fingerboard, in addition to unfretted accompaniment strings.

B

Keyboard Chordophones

Harpsichord
The harpsichord is a member of the family of musical instruments known as keyboard chordophones. There are several
types of harpsichords, including the virginal and the spinet, pictured here. The harpsichord was developed in the 15th
century. It was a popular solo instrument and was used by composers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today the
harpsichord is played in performances of baroque works and pieces written specifically for the instrument.
The New York Public Library

Two zither-family instruments, the hammered dulcimer (see Dulcimer) and the medieval psaltery, are ancestors of keyboard chordophones such as the piano,
clavichord, and harpsichord. The last two instruments were invented in the late Middle Ages (the late 14th and early 15th centuries) in conjunction with the emergence
of multipart music. The piano, with its wider dynamic range, appeared about 1700. It largely replaced the hammered dulcimer in urban domestic use, and by 1800 it
had superseded the quieter clavichord and harpsichord. The hurdy-gurdy, which is a fiddle with a keyboard of limited compass, has both melody and drone strings,
sounded by a rotating circular "bow" of wood. It resembles the Swedish nyckelharpa, a keyed fiddle played with a conventional bow.

C

Harps and Lyres

Beganna
The beganna, an African instrument, is a descendant of the ancient Greek lyre. It is made of wood, with a leather-covered
soundbox. The beganna is played only by the aristocracy and priests of Ethiopia and nearby countries. The lyre, like the
harp, is a plucked instrument, but its shape is distinctly different.
Dorling Kindersley

Unlike zithers, which may be plucked, bowed, struck, or wind-sounded (the aeolian harp), true harps are almost exclusively plucked. Their many strings fasten directly
into the resonator; no bridge is necessary. The frame of European harps consists of a sound box, a neck (called the harmonic curve), and a forepillar, roughly forming a
triangle. Ancestral, non-Western harps such as the Myanmar saung lack the reinforcing forepillar; their angled or arched necks, therefore, cannot withstand extreme
string tension. The African pluriarc has a separate neck for each string.

Traditional Kora Music of The Gambia
Once part of the Malian empire, The Gambia is also the home of an ancient caste of itinerant poet/musicians known in the
Mandinka language as jalolu, or in French as griots. These musicians typically accompanied themselves with the kora, a
large 21-string harp-lute on which complex melodies are played with the thumbs and forefingers. Historically, jalolu
performed songs praising the jatigui, who were renowned kings and warriors. Today, a jatigui can be anyone who is able
to pay large sums of money or award lavish gifts to jalolu in exchange for personalized songs of praise.
"Jula Faso" from Amadu Bansang Jobarteh:Tabara (Cat.# Music of the World CDT-129) (p)1992 Rakumi Records-Music of the World, Ltd. All rights reserved./Claudia Helms/© 1993
Music of the World Ltd.

A modern concert harp has a pedal mechanism that alters the pitch of each string by one or two semitones, thereby producing a full chromatic compass although
having only seven strings per octave. Simpler pedal and manual devices offered chromatic notes in 18th-century harps, but earlier chromatic harps (notably the Welsh
telyn) had two or three rows of strings, each chromatic note having its own string. Although most European harps are strung with gut or synthetic cords, the massive
Irish harp traditionally is wire strung. Once favored to accompany bards, the Irish harp became a patriotic symbol when its use was outlawed by English authorities. See
Harp.
On lyres, the strings are anchored to a crossbar supported by two arms that extend from a box- or bowl-shaped resonator; they are coupled to the resonator by a
bridge. Lyres are rare today outside Ethiopia; however, the Greek ancestor of the Ethiopian lyre was a popular instrument. The kithara was a large, wood-bodied
concert lyre of ancient Greece; derivatives of its name were given to unrelated instruments such as the cittern and guitar. See Lyre.

D

Plucked and Bowed Lutes

Lute
Lutes are plucked chordophones, divided roughly into two types: long-necked and short-necked. The Moroccan longnecked lute, seen here, has elaborate inlay work and a fretted fingerboard. The lute was introduced to Europe in the 10th
century and became very popular during the Renaissance. Today lutes are usually used in folk music.
Dorling Kindersley

The European lute is the namesake of a group of bowed and plucked instruments (see Lute). Their strings pass along a neck that extends from the resonator, and a
bridge couples the strings to the resonator. The neck may be a short elongation of the body, as in the Chinese pipa; or it may be a separate element fastened to or
piercing the body. Frequently, the neck incorporates a fingerboard (which may be fretted), against which the strings can be pressed to alter their sounding length.

Classical Guitar
The six-string classical guitar is flat on both the front and back. The characteristics of this guitar have changed very little
since it was first introduced in the 16th century. The strings, once made of gut, are now usually nylon.
Dorling Kindersley/(p) 1992 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Plucked lutes include the banjo and guitar as well as the pear-shaped Arabic 'ud, from which the name of the European lute is derived. The technique of bowing is not
so old as that of plucking, and fiddles, or bowed lutes (such as the violin and viol) arrived in Europe from Asia only in the Middle Ages. Early European bowed lutes are
hardly distinguishable from plucked ones. Evidence of medieval types is limited to fragmentary remains, literary descriptions, and pictures--practically no complete
examples survive, due to the instruments' fragility. Comparison with similar-looking modern folk instruments suggests that the latter have changed little since the
Middle Ages.

Viola
The viola is a bowed instrument similar to the violin but two to three inches longer and a fifth lower in range. It is the alto
voice in the violin family. The viola was not used by composers as a separate, distinctive part of a musical piece until the
18th century, when Haydn, Gluck, and Mozart began to incorporate it into their work.
Dorling Kindersley

The viola, which evolved from unstandardized medieval fiddles, is first depicted in early 16th-century pictures. Like most other instruments of the Renaissance, it was
built in a range of sizes that, together, made up a consort. Small violas (violins), large ones held between the knees (violoncellos; see Cello), and even larger ones
played standing up (violones) were the specialty of Italian artisans such as the Amati family and Antonio Stradivari. The pochette or kit, a miniature violin-type
instrument played by dancing masters, often had a one-piece body and neck carved from a block of wood; it thus resembled the medieval rebec, the name and shape
of which were in turn derived from the Middle Eastern rabab.

Classical Sitar of North India
The Indian sitar is probably the best-known instrument from that country. It is a large, long-necked, fretted lute
prominent in Indian classical music. Most classical pieces featuring the sitar are called ragas, which refers to an
established mode, or melodic scale, on which the performer improvises. Each raga is associated with a particular mood
and time of day or year. This example is performed by sitar master Ravi Shankar, who first introduced the instrument to
the world of popular music at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
Rex Features, Ltd./"Raga Palas Kafi" from Ravi Shankar/Ali Akbar Khan: Ragas (Cat.# Fantasy FCD-24714-2) (p)1973 Fantasy, Inc. All rights reserved.

The violin and its relatives--at first associated with country dance music and considered inferior to the quieter, more sedate viola da gamba (viol)--became supreme
during the 18th century (and earlier in Italy) because viols were less well suited to the highly dramatic style of late baroque and classical music. When the intimate idiom
of the classical era gave way to the 19th-century romantic style, violins and most other orchestral instruments were modified to increase their compass and dynamic
range. Loudness and brilliance became necessary because of the introduction of large concert halls and the virtuosic demands of romantic composers and performers.
Among the interesting hybrid chordophones are the baryton, a viol equipped with additional thumb-plucked wire strings; and the arpeggione, a cello-sized bowed guitar
briefly popular in the 1830s. The viola d'amore, still called for by a few 20th-century composers, has unfingered strings that vibrate sympathetically beneath the bowed
ones, giving an especially warm tone. Sympathetic strings are found also in many Asian chordophones, particularly in India, where the gourd-bodied sitar is a favorite
vehicle for classical improvisation. West African plucked instruments such as the kora (harp-lute) and the muet (harp-zither) combine features of harps, lutes, and
zithers.

VIII

ELECTROPHONES

Electronic Keyboard-Style Synthesizer
The electronic synthesizer is capable of mimicking the sounds produced by most traditional musical instruments. It can
combine two or more of these sounds. It is popular with rock-and-roll and jazz musicians and is also used by composers
and students of music. The synthesizer pictured here is a portable model, but these instruments come in varying sizes and
can be very large.
Dorling Kindersley

Just as mechanical invention served European music when the fully developed keyboard (a device uniquely associated with Western technology) arose in the late Middle
Ages, so electrical engineers have offered 20th-century musicians an innovative means of producing and controlling sounds. The telharmonium, an electrophone created
by the American inventor Thaddeus Cahill at the turn of the century, produced novel tones with a collection of equipment that included rotary generators and telephone
receivers. The theremin, a compact apparatus invented by the Russian physicist Leon Theremin, was fashionable in the late 1920s and 1930s, although it could play
only a single melodic line. Electronic organs have mainly influenced popular music, but since the mid-1950s synthesizers have become important tools of composers in
many idioms (see Electronic Music). Since the 1930s electronic amplification has tremendously increased the impact and altered the technique of popular singers and
instrumentalists. In the electric guitar such amplification replaced the sound box and stimulated new musical effects. Except in the distortions and manipulations of
sound used in rock music, however, amplification, like broadcasting and recording, serves chiefly to disseminate music rather than to create it. The long-term
implications of electronic sound production cannot yet be predicted.

Contributed By:
Laurence Libin
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