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List of musical instruments

Musical instruments in focus: Our comprehensive list of musical instruments

Our list of musical instruments presents a wide range of musical instruments that have either been specially developed for the production of musical sounds or are regularly used as accompanying instruments when making music. It does not include specific parts of instruments or the various categories by which musical instruments are classified. The Hornbostel-Sachs classification systemwhich was first published in 1914, is the basic classification used as a generic term in this list. There are also numerous alternative classification systems for musical instruments.

As a rule, instruments are only included in this list if they are widely used in various tunings and designs. In addition, instrument genres are included if they are important in a regional or cultural context. This extensive list offers an insight into the fascinating world of musical instruments and serves as a comprehensive reference work for music lovers, music makers and music nerds.

Well-known musical instruments

  • Adiaphone, keyboard instrument with tuning forks
  • Adungu, bow harp in northern Uganda
  • Aelodicon, forerunner of the harmonium
  • Aeoline, mouth-blown aerophone with perforated tongue
  • Aeolian harp, stringed instrument whose strings are made to vibrate by a current of air
  • Aetherophone → Theremin. Electronic, contactless instrument
  • Agogô, pair of beaten bells, Brazil
  • Aida trumpet, historical valve trumpet
  • Aizai, regionally widespread Chinese double-reed instrument, similar to a suona
  • Ajaeng, seven-string Korean zither
  • Akadinda, spar xylophone in Uganda
  • Accordion, hand-pulled instrument with reed
  • Chord zither, fingerboardless zither
  • Acoustic bass guitar, a deep sounding guitar
  • Acoustic guitara guitar in which the sounds are produced without electronics
  • Albisiphon, historical Italian bass transverse flute
  • Albogue, group of hornpipes in Spain to which the alboka also belongs
  • Alboka, Basque reed instrument with wind capsule
  • Algaita, double-reed instrument in Niger, wooden cone oboe, similar to shawm
  • Alghoza, a double flute, folk music instrument in the Indian states of Punjab and Sindh
  • Alfaia, cylinder drum played with mallets in Brazilian music
  • Almpfeiferl, Austrian recorder
  • Alphorn, upholstered whistle, Swiss wind instrument made of wood
  • Alto recorder → Recorder
  • Alto horn → French horn, brass instrument
  • Alto clarinet → Clarinet
  • Alto trombone → Trombone
  • Alto saxophone, saxophone, woodwind instrument
  • Alto zither → Zither
  • Amadinda, wooden xylophone in Uganda
  • Amakondera, ensemble of five to eight cross-blown natural trumpets in Uganda and Rwanda
  • Anvil, percussion idiophone
  • Amyrga, brass instrument, a hunting horn in Tuwa
  • Anemochord, historical keyboard instrument, the strings were excited by wind, similar to the aeolian harp
  • Angelica, baroque plucked string instrument
  • Angklung, a shaking idiophone made of bamboo, origin West Java, widespread in Southeast Asia
  • Singing drum → Mirliton, membranophone. Membrane is made to vibrate by singing. A small mirliton is the kazoo
  • Antoniophone, valve horn used in the second half of the 19th century
  • Anzad, also Anzhad, → Imzad. One-stringed string instrument of the Tuareg
    Apito, Brazilian whistle that marks the rhythm in samba as a signal instrument
  • Apollonicon, a barrel organ
  • Arbajo, four-stringed long-necked lute of the Gaine musical caste in Nepal
  • Archicembalo, historical keyboard instrument
  • Archiorgano, historical keyboard instrument similar to the archicembalo
  • Arcicistre, historical stringed instrument, developed in France in the 18th century, a cittern bowed with a bow
  • Ardin, bow harp played by women in Mauritania and Western Sahara
  • Arghul, Arabic wind instrument with single reed
  • Arm violin, a viola
  • Arpeggione, also known as string guitar. String instrument invented in 1823, similar to a cello, with the tuning of a guitar
  • Ashiko, single-headed conical tubular drum in West Africa
  • Askobantoura, also Askomantoura. Rare bagpipe in Crete
  • Atabaque, barrel drum beaten by hand in Brazilian music
  • Atenteben, a bamboo flute from Ghana
  • Atumpan, a goblet-shaped standing drum of the Akan in Ghana
  • Impact tubes, percussion idiophone
  • Aulos, antique reed instrument
  • Autbòi, historical wind instrument with double reed from the south of France
  • Autoharp, zither-like stringed instrument with keyboard or button mechanism
  • Car horn, car horn organ → Horn, noise instruments
  • Automatophone, a mechanical musical instrument with a rotating cylinder
  • Axatse, calabash rattle in West Africa, similar to the Latin American shékere
  • Bağlama → Saz, group of Turkish long-necked lutes
  • Baglamas, Greek long-necked lute, small bouzouki
  • Bayan, a chromatic button accordion
  • Bajo Sexto, bass guitar from Mexico
  • Bakllama, three-stringed long-necked lute in southern Albania, related to the Turkish bağlama
  • Balaban, short oboe in Azerbaijan, similar to the Turkish mey
  • Balafon, West African xylophone with calabash resonators, similar to the marimba
  • Balalaika, three-stringed Russian lute instrument
  • Ballast string, combined musical instrument. A metal sound body hanging from a string is struck and the sound is amplified by a drum
  • Balo → Balafon, a xylophone with calabash resonators in West Africa
  • “Bamboo Sax”, usually in quotation marks, is a paraphrase for a bamboo xaphoon, a single-reed instrument developed in 1976
  • Bamboo saxophone → saxophone assembled from bamboo segments of different thicknesses
  • Bana, three-stringed bowl lute used to accompany epic songs in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh
  • Banam, also banom, one-stringed fiddle in North Indian folk music
  • Bandola, South American plucked string instrument
  • Bandoneon, hand-pulled instrument
  • Bandonika, hand pull instrument
  • Bandonion, other spelling of bandoneon
  • Bando-Piano, a bandoneon developed by Friedrich Töpel in 1930, follows the recommendations of piano teacher Tobias Matthey
  • Bandura, Ukrainian zither
  • Bandurria, Spanish plucked instrument, short-necked lute
  • Bangwe, board zither in Malawi and central Mozambique
  • Banhu, two-stringed northern Chinese violin
  • Banjo, American plucked string instrument
  • Bansuri, Indian bamboo transverse flute
  • Barbat, Persian forerunner of the Arabic short-necked lute oud
  • Barbitos, ancient Greek plucked string instrument
  • Baritone horn, brass instrument
  • Baritone saxophone, a medium low saxophone
  • Baroque oboe, an instrument developed from the shawm in the 17th century oboe
  • Baroque trombone, historical trombone type
  • Baroque trumpet, a natural trumpet at the time of baroque music
  • Baryton, string instrument with frets and resonance strings, similar to arpeggione and viola da gamba
  • Basilica, church organ based on the portable electronic organ called Tuttivox
  • Basing, wind instruments of the Bugis on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi: flute → suling, single reed instruments → puwi-puwi
  • Bass balalaika, a deep-sounding balalaika, three-stringed Russian lute instrument
  • Bass recorder, low tuned recorder
  • Bass drum, percussion drum, English for bass drum
  • Bassett → Basset horn
  • basset horn, one clarinet
  • Basset clarinet, low-sounding clarinet
  • Bass viol, low-sounding viola da gamba
  • Bass violin, → double bassthe lowest sounding string instrument
  • Bass guitar, refers to the electric bass or the acoustic bass guitar
  • Bass horn, historical brass instrument in low tuning
  • Bass clarinet, a clarinet in the bass register
  • Bass lute → archlute, a low-sounding lute instrument, often the name for a theorbo
  • Bass mandolin, plucked instrument, a deep sounding mandolin
  • Bass flute, woodwind instrument, a deep-sounding panpipe
  • Bass trombone, brass instrument, a low-sounding trombone trombone
  • Bass saxophone, woodwind instrument, a deep sounding saxophone
  • Bass drum → bass drum
  • Bass trumpet, brass instrument, enlarged form of the trumpet trumpet
  • Bass tuba, the lowest brass instrument, see tuba
  • Bass viola da gamba, historical string instruments, see viola da gamba
  • Bass zither, deep-sounding zither
  • Batá drum, dubious hourglass drum of the Yoruba in Nigeria
  • Peasant lyre, string instrument with crank mechanism, see hurdy-gurdy
  • Bawu, Chinese wind instrument with a piercing tongue that looks similar to a flute
  • Bayan, deeper sounding hand timpani made of metal of the two-part Indian tabla
  • Bazuna, wooden natural trumpet in the Polish region of Kashubia, shorter than the Ukrainian trembita
  • Cymbal, percussion idiophone, part of a percussion
  • Beganna, a plucked instrument played in Ethiopian religious music that belongs to the lyre family
  • Bekiviro, rare, ritually used ancestral drum in Madagascar
  • Bena, a wind instrument with a single reed. Three connected benas correspond to the launedda
  • Bendir, also bendair, Arabic tambourine without jingles
  • Bera, several tubular drums of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka
  • Berda, Eastern European plucked folk music instrument in the shape of a double bass
  • Berimbau, also known as berimbao, a Brazilian musical bow
  • Bersaglieri horn, also Tromba per fanfare, historical trumpet
  • Beggar’s violin → Devil’s violin
  • Beggar’s lyre, string instrument with crank mechanism, see hurdy-gurdy
  • Bhankora, long straight natural trumpet made of metal in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand
  • Bianqing → sound stone play in Chinese music. Rows of sound stones suspended in a rack
  • Bianzhong, Chinese chimes. Rows of Zhong bells suspended in a frame
  • Bilûr, also known as blur, end-blown wooden flute in Kurdish folk music, similar to the Turkish shepherd’s flute kaval
  • Bin-baja, also known as Gogia bana, a rare bowed harp in the central Indian district of Mandla
  • Binioù, a bagpipe played in Breton music
  • Birch leaf, free mirliton made from birch bark, used to be played by shepherds
  • Bisernica, Croatian plucked folk music instrument
  • Biwa, four-stringed Japanese plucked lute
  • Brass piano, another name for a melodica
  • Wind transducer, electronic wind instrument
  • Recorder, woodwind instrument, flute
  • Log organ, medieval organ
  • Blues Harp → Harmonica
  • Blul, also sring, Armenian longitudinal flute
  • Blur → Bilûr, longitudinal flute in Kurdish folk music
  • Bock, a form of bagpipe mainly in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany
  • Bodhrán, Irish frame drum
  • Bowed guitar, historical guitar bowed with a bow
  • Bowed lute → Pluriarc, a multi-stringed musical bow with a string support rod for each string
  • Boha, a bagpipe in the Landes region of France
  • Bolon, a bridge harp in West Africa with three or four strings
  • Bombarde, woodwind instrument in Brittany
  • Bombo, a membranophone
  • Bonang, a row of humpback gongs in Javanese gamelan lying on strings on a wooden frame
  • bongosCuban single skin drums
  • Boomwhacker, variable tubular percussion instrument made of plastic
  • Boru, medieval harp named after Brian Boru
  • Bougarabou, goblet-shaped West African drum
  • Bouteillophone, whipping idiophone made from a series of glass bottles
  • Bouzouki, Greek long-necked lute
  • Bow chimes, idiophone made of bars bowed with a bow, cf. chimes
  • Brač, Croatian plucked long-necked lute with three strings
  • Braguinha, small, four-string guitar from Madeira
  • Viola, string instrument, larger and deeper sounding than a violin
  • Board violin, historical simple violin without sound box
  • Board zither, the most widespread form of zither
  • Brummeisen → Jew’s harp, small instrument with a piercing tongue
  • Hum pot, historical, folk noise instrument, resonance of a string through a drum membrane
  • Jacks, a frame drum in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine
  • Buccin, a historical trombone in French military music
  • Büchel, an upholstered pipe. Swiss folk music instrument, similar to but smaller than an alphorn
  • Bush trumpet → Baroque trumpet
  • Bucina, also Buccina, Bucium, natural trumpet in the Roman Empire
  • Bugarabu → Bougarabou, goblet-shaped, West African drum
  • Bugarija, guitar-like stringed instrument in Croatian folk music with three to four strings
  • Bugle, brass instrument related to the horn
  • Buk, Korean barrel drum
  • Buki, historical metal trumpet in Georgia
  • Bulbultarang, also known as Indian banjo or benjo. A box zither in India and Pakistan derived from the Japanese taishōgoto, whose strings are shortened with keys
  • Bumbass, historical bowed musical bow, in its present form as the devil’s violin in carnival processions
  • Bumbung, also known as serbung, Indonesian wind instrument made of two bamboo tubes
  • Bush drum → Message drum
  • Busuki → bouzouki, Greek long-necked lute
  • Buzuq, oriental long-necked lute, related to the bouzouki
  • Byauk, idiophone made from a small block of wood in Burmese music
  • Byrgy, a sucked trumpet in Siberia, an aerophone whose sounds are produced by sucking in air
  • Byzaanchy, four-stringed spiked violin in Tuva
  • Caccavella → Putipù, Puttiputi, southern Italian rubbing drum, a noise instrument made of a wooden cylinder, membrane and bamboo stick
  • Cabasa, South American vascular rattle
  • Cabrette, a bagpipe in the French region of Auvergne
  • Caixa, two-stick frame drum in popular Brazilian music, corresponds to the snare drum
  • Caja, Afro-Caribbean hand drum, similar to a tambora
  • Cajón, South American box drum made from wooden boards
  • Calichon, French name for the Italian colascione, a historical long-necked lute. To be distinguished from the shorter mandora
  • Calung, West Javanese xylophone made of bamboo tubes which, unlike the angklung, is not shaken but beaten.
  • Campane tubolari → tubular bells
  • Canun, another spelling of the oriental trapeze zither Kanun
  • Carillon, tower carillon
  • Carnyx, long natural trumpet made of bronze from the Iron Age Celts with an animal head as a bell
  • Cartar, historical Persian lute instrument with four strings
  • Castanets, other spelling for castanets, hand rattles
  • Cavaco, another name for the cavaquinho, small Portuguese guitar
  • Cavaquinho, small Portuguese guitar, also found in Brazil
  • Caxixi, raffia vessel rattle in Brazil
  • Celempung, zither with 26 double-course metal strings in Javanese gamelan
  • Celesta, sound plates are struck via a keyboard, in the form of a harmonium
  • Cello, short form of violoncellostring instrument larger than a violin
  • Harpsichord, historical keyboard instrument, the strings are plucked
  • Çeng → Tschang, historical Turkish angle harp
  • Chalil, wind instrument, possibly a single-reed or double-reed instrument in the Bible
  • Chalumeau, historical woodwind instrument with a single reed
    Chalung, other spelling Calung. West Javanese xylophone made of bamboo tubes which, unlike the angklung, is not shaken but beaten
  • Chande, dubious cylinder drum in the Yakshagana dance theater in the southern Indian state of Karnataka
  • Chang → Tschang, historical Persian-Turkish angle harp
  • Changi → Changi, angular harp in the Svaneti region in northwest Georgia
  • Chanot violin, historical violin, by François Chanot (1788-1825). The strings are attached to the soundboard in a similar way to a guitar
  • Chanter → Practice Chanter. Woodwind instrument with double reed. Simple practice instrument for bagpipe players
  • Chanzy, three-stringed lute from Tuwa
  • Chapey dang veng, two- or four-stringed Cambodian long-necked lute with a broad body, in Thailand krajappi
  • Chapman Stick, electric stringed instrument with frets but without resonator
  • Charango, small South American guitar
  • Chazozra, historical brass instrument of the Israelites
  • Chelys → Lyre. Ancient lyre
  • Chenda, dubious cylinder drum at temple festivals in the south Indian state of Kerala
  • Cheng, another spelling for Sheng. Chinese mouth organ
  • Chianuri → chuniri, two-stringed bowed long-necked lute in Georgia
  • Chigring, bamboo tube zither played percussively with sticks in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya
  • Chimes, a kind of glockenspiel made from hanging bars
  • Chimta, Pakistani idiophone made of metal reeds
  • Ch’in, another spelling for Qin. Classical Chinese fingerboard zither
  • Ching, also Chhing, hand cymbals in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos
  • Chipendani, a Shona musical bow in southern Africa with a split string. A single-stringed instrument that produces two-part tones
  • Chitarra battente, southern Italian lute instrument (arched guitar)
  • Chitarra con arco → Arpeggione, string instrument invented in 1823 in the tuning of a guitar
  • Chitarrone → Theorbo. Baroque lute instrument
  • Chitravina → Gottuvadyam, a long-necked lute in South Indian music, rare form of a vina
  • Chivoti, a short bamboo transverse flute of the Digo on the coast in southern Kenya
  • Chocalho, group of Brazilian vessel rattles (shakers) or stick rattles
  • Chocolo, set of jar rattles in a wooden frame, Brazilian music
  • Chonguri → Chonguri, plucked four-stringed long-necked lute with a pear-shaped body in Georgia
  • Chroma-Concertina → Concertina. Hand-pulled instrument
  • Chromatiphon, hand-pulled instrument, a kind of bandoneon
  • Chrotta → Crwth. Historic Welsh string instrument
  • Chuniri → Chuniri, three-stringed bowed long-necked lute in the Georgian mountain region of Svaneti
  • Çiftelia, two-stringed Albanian long-necked lute
  • Çifte, Turkish reed pipe with double sound tube, cf. arghul
  • Cilimba, a lamellophone played in Malawi lamellophone
  • Cimbalom, Iraqi name for an oriental dulcimer, similar to the Arabic kanun or Persian santur
  • Cimbasso, double bass valve trombone
  • Cister, medieval European long-necked lute
  • Citera, also Citara, a group of zithers in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia
  • Cistre, another name for cittern
  • Cithara anglica, from the 9th century in Western Europe a triangular harp with twelve strings
  • Cither, other spelling for zither
  • Citole, medieval, mostly four-stringed plucked bowl-necked lute
  • Cláirseach, Irish name for the → Celtic harp, documented since the 15th century
  • clapstick, idiophone, drumstick
  • Clarineau, modern form of the chalumeau.
  • Clarin, also clarino, clarino trumpet, other name for baroque trumpet
  • Clarin (shawm), traditional shawm instrument in the Pyrenees
  • Clàrsach, Scottish Gaelic name for the → Celtic harp
  • Clavecin → Harpsichord. Historical keyboard instrument
  • Clavecin électrique, electric “harpsichord” invented by Jean-Baptiste Delaborde (1730-1777)
  • Claves, tonewoods, counter-percussion idiophones
  • Clavicembalo, another name for harpsichord
  • Clavichord, old keyboard instrument with strings that are struck
  • Clavicimbalum, another name for harpsichord
  • Clavicylinder, a little-used historical idiophone. Bars are made to vibrate by a rotating cylinder
  • Clavi-lame, steel plate piano, mid 19th century
  • Clavimusicum omnitonum, historical keyboard instrument
  • Clavinet, electro-mechanical keyboard instrument, developed in the 1970s
  • Clavioline, an electric piano and forerunner of the synthesizer
  • Cobză → Koboz, kink-necked lute in Romania and Moldova
  • Codophone, keyboard instrument with which sound tubes are struck
  • Colascione, historical Italian long-necked lute
  • Cölestine, a little-used organ harmonica with three manuals, invented around 1800
  • Combichord, an electronic organderived from the Tuttivox
  • Concertina, another spelling of Konzertina. Hand-pulled instrument
  • Conga, African hand drum
  • Conn-O-Sax, wind instrument invented in 1928 as a mixture of saxophone and oboe
  • Contralto, developed around 1855 by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume viola with an oversized body and the same range
  • Contraviolino, a string instrument created by Valentino de Zorzi in 1908, similar to the viola and the violoncello in terms of playing position
  • Cornamuse, historical woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Cornet, brass instrument that belongs to the horns
  • Cornetto Curvo → Zinc. Historical brass instrument
  • Corno, another name for French horn
  • Corno da caccia, brass instrument belonging to the horns
  • Cornon, large cornett. Historic brass instrument
  • Cornopean, English French horn, mid 19th century
  • Cornophone, a bugle invented around 1890
  • Cornu, Roman brass instrument
  • Cowbell, cowbell without clapper
  • Crash basin → Cymbal. Impact plates
  • Crembalum, obsolete name for jew’s harp
  • Crotala → Crotales
  • Crotales, ancient Greek rattles or metal impact plates
  • Crwth, historical Welsh string instrument
  • Csakan → cane flute, historical recorder from Austria-Hungary built into a walking stick
  • Cuatro (instrument), small South American guitar with four strings
  • Cuica, Brazilian rubbing drum made from a fur-covered metal cylinder
  • Cümbüş, Turkish long-necked lute, developed at the beginning of the 20th century
  • Cupa cupa, grating drum in southern Italy
  • Cura, the smallest form of the Turkish long-necked lute saz
  • Cymbala → Cymbalum, Cymbalum
  • Cymbales Antiques → Crotales
  • Cymbalum, antique and modern impact plate instrument. Small cymbals
  • Cymbal → Cymbal
  • Da-Daiko → Taiko, traditional Japanese percussion instrument
  • Dabakan, large Filipino wooden cup drum
  • Daghumma, calabash rattle mostly used by women in Mauritania
  • Daira, also Daire, Dayreh, frame drum widely used from the Balkans to Central Asia
  • Đàn bầu, one-stringed Vietnamese stick zither
  • Đàn tranh, small Vietnamese arched board zither
  • Dama, a tubular drum of the Garo, a people in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya
  • Dammam, dubious cylinder drum played during Shiite processions in Iran and Iraq
  • Damaru, hourglass-shaped hand drum in Tibetan and Indian cult music
  • Damau, small flat kettle drum in the Garhwal region, northern India
  • Dambura, two-stringed fretless long-necked lute in northern Afghanistan
  • Damburag, two- to four-stringed plucked long-necked lute in the Pakistani province of Balochistan
  • Danda, wooden or bamboo countersticks used in folk dances in northern India and Pakistan
  • Darbuka, goblet-shaped hand drum from the Arab world
  • Thumb piano, obsolete name for a lamellophone widely used in Africa lamellophones
  • Daunr, small hourglass drum similar to the hurka in the Garhwal region of northern India
  • Davul, large drum in the oriental region
  • Daxophone, a wooden idiophone invented by Hans Reichel, whose inlaid wooden bars are bowed with the bow. Used in jazz and experimental music
  • Dende, calabash music bow with tuning loop of the Venda in South Africa
  • Dessus de viole, a string instrument
  • Dhadd, small dubious hourglass drum in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab
  • Dhamsa, very large kettle drum in the Chhau dance theater in the Indian state of West Bengal, similar to the Nagara
  • Dhanki, pair-played kettle drum with wooden body in South India
  • Dhankul, musical bow in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, which consists of a broomstick and a clay pot
  • Dhimay, also known as dhime, a cylinder drum used by the Newar people in the Kathmandu Valley
  • Dhol, double-headed bass drum beaten with sticks in northwest India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Especially in bhangra music
  • Dholak, smaller dhol. Same distribution area, beaten with hands
  • Dhung → Dung, natural trumpets played in Tibetan Buddhist ritual music
  • Dhyangro, a two-string drum used by shamans in eastern Nepal for spiritual healing and divination
  • Dichord, antique musical instrument with one fingerboard
  • Didgeridoo, traditional wind instrument of the North Australian Aborigines
  • Digital piano → Electronic piano. Electro-acoustic keyboard instrument
  • Dilli tüýdük, a Turkmen single-reed instrument in Central Asia
  • Dilruba, North Indian string instrument similar to the sarangi
  • Diple, double clarinet or bagpipe in Croatia
  • Diplipito, a pair of clay drums belonging to the Naqqara family in Georgia
  • Disklavier, electro-acoustic piano from the Yamaha Corporation, comparable to the player piano
  • Dizi, transverse flute of traditional Chinese music
  • Djembéa goblet-shaped drum from West Africa, usually covered with shorn goatskin
  • Dobachi, Japanese temple bell, struck with a wooden stick
  • Dobro, wooden resonator guitar
  • Doli, dubious cylinder drum in Georgian dance music
  • Dolzflöte, 1) a recorder used in the 17th century that was blown from the side. 2) Rare organ stop with a soft tone
  • Dombora, regional name for dotar and dombra, Central Asian long-necked lute
  • Dombra, long-necked lute of folk music in Central Asia
  • Domra, long-necked lute, Russian plucked instrument with a round body
  • Doneli, also Dunali, double-billed flute in southern Pakistan
  • Thunder drum, an effect and children’s instrument that consists of a membrane, a metal spring and a tube and belongs to the plucked drum family
  • Donso ngoni → Ngoni, six-string bridge harp with calabash body in Mali
  • Double bass → double bass. Two bass drums or double bass machine when playing drums
  • Double recorder → Baroque double recorder, with two separate playing tubes
  • Double horn, brass instrument, one horn with valves
  • Double pedal harp, concert harp in use today
  • Double zither, historical zither with two adjacent fingerboards
  • Doshpuluur, long-necked lute from Tuwa with rectangular resonating body
  • Dōtaku, historical bronze bell that was used ritually in Japan around the turn of the century
  • Dotar, long-necked lute in eastern Iran with originally two strings. A modern dutār in Afghanistan has up to 14 strings
  • Doucemelle, historical keyboard instrument, in use in the 15th century
  • Dran-nye, plucked instrument in the Himalayan countries of Bhutan and Tibet
  • Drček, single-reed instrument in Slovak folk music
  • Hurdy-gurdy, string instrument with crank mechanism
  • barrel organ, organ grinder. Mechanical musical instrument
  • Drymba, a Jew’s harp in the Ukraine
  • Duda, Dudy, several types of bagpipes in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Croatia
  • Bagpipe, another name for sackbut. Reed instrument with air sac
  • Dudka, nuclear fission flute in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine
  • Duduk, cylindrical woodwind instrument with double reed, mainly played in Armenia
  • Duggi, small kettle drum often played in pairs in North Indian folk music
  • Dulce melos, in the 15. and 16th century dulcimer with a keyboard, the approximate shape of which is only known from illustrations
  • Dulcimer, American drone zither, comparable to the European Scheitholt
  • Dulcitone, keyboard instrument, sound production by tuning forks, developed in Glasgow at the end of the 19th century
  • Dulcian, also dulcian, old woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Dundubhi, oldest name for a drum in India, which occurs in the Vedic scriptures
  • Dundun, dubious hourglass drum of the Yoruba in Nigeria
  • Dung, various natural trumpets played in Tibetan Buddhist ritual music. These include the snail horn Dung Kar and the long metal trumpet Dung Chen
  • Dunun, two-cylinder drum in West Africa, often played together with the cup drum djembé
  • Dvojačka, wooden double flute made of two parallel core-split flutes in Slovak folk music
  • Dwojanka, wooden double flute made of two parallel core-split flutes in Bulgarian folk music
  • Dzoura, Bulgarian long-necked lute, similar to the Greek bouzouki
  • Electric bass, electric bass guitar
  • E-Bow, auxiliary device for electric guitars
  • Electric guitar, electric guitar
  • Electric double bass, electric double bass
  • Single-tone flute, type of flute that produces only one tone. Example Hindewhu
  • Eggshaker, percussion instrument, egg-shaped vessel rattle filled with rice or the like
  • Ektara (lute instrument), one- or two-stringed long-necked lute in North Indian folk music
  • Ektara (plucked drum), also known as gopi yantra, gopichand or Bengali plucked drum, a single-stringed plucked drum in northern India with a forked neck made of bamboo. A main instrument of the Bauls of Bengal
  • Elegy zither, also alto zither, see zither. A plucked instrument tuned a fourth lower than the treble zither
  • Electra harp, electro-acoustic plucked string instrument. The strings run across a resonance box like a zither. It is played horizontally. Manufactured by the Gibson company.
  • Elektravox, electro-acoustic accordion. Manufactured by the Hohner company
  • Electronic organkeyboard instrument with electronic sound generation
  • Ivory trumpet, a natural trumpet made from an elephant tusk
  • Embilta, longitudinal flute without finger holes in the highlands of Ethiopia
  • Cor anglais, woodwind instrument with double reed, from the oboe family
  • Endingidi, one-stringed tubular violin in Uganda
  • Endongo, bowl lyre in Uganda
  • English tremolo → cittern, historical long-necked lute
  • English Guitar → Cister. Historic long-necked lute
  • Ennanga, bow harp in the south of Uganda
  • Entenga, series of 15 tuned drums in Uganda, which used to be part of the ceremonial drums of the King of Buganda
  • Electric piano, electric piano
  • Epigonion, ancient stringed instrument, a bowed harp
  • Épinette des Vosges, a drone zither played in the Vosges mountains in France
  • Earth bow, a simple stringed instrument belonging to the harp family, the string of which is stretched between a bent rod and a membrane on a hole in the ground
  • Earth drum, the most original form of membranophone, in which an animal skin is stretched over a hole in the ground and beaten with sticks
  • Earth zither, a simple stringed instrument belonging to the zither family, the string of which is stretched horizontally over a hole in the ground as a resonating body
  • Erhu, two-stringed string instrument, widely used in Chinese music
  • Erke, natural trumpet made from three to seven meter long reeds in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina and Bolivia
  • Erkencho, single reed instrument made from a cow horn in northern Argentina
  • Erxian, two-stringed Chinese string instrument, especially in Cantonese opera
  • Archlutes, bass lutes, European lute instruments with a second pegbox on an extended neck
  • Erzcister, also known as Cistertheorbe, historical lute instrument. Similar to cittern and theorbo
  • Donkey jaw → Vibraslap, Latin American percussion instrument
  • Esraj, North Indian string instrument played especially in Bengal, similar to dilruba and sarangi
  • Euphon, sound bar instrument in which glass tubes are made to sound by rubbing
  • Euphonia, a machine for simulating human speech
  • Euphoniumbrass instrument from the bugle family, slightly higher than a tuba
  • Fadno, the only traditional blowing instrument of the seeds, cut from the green stem of the medicinal angelica
  • Bassoon, woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Fanfare trumpet, natural trumpet
  • Fakürt, wooden natural trumpet in Hungary
  • Fangufangu, bamboo nose flute from the Polynesian island of Tonga
  • Fangxiang, a rarely played metallophone in Chinese music
  • Field whistle → drum whistle, transverse flute without keys
  • Fiddle, Germanized term for the fiddle or the violin. violin
  • Fidel or fiddle, medieval stringed stringed instrument
  • Finger piano, similar to thumb piano, an outdated name for the lamellophones used in Africa under various names. lamellophones
  • Flageolet, a beaked flute. Medieval woodwind instrument similar to the recorder
  • Bottle, blown → Blown bottle
  • Bottle game → Bouteillophone, whipping idiophone made from a series of glass bottles
  • Flautino, old name for recorder and flute stop on the organ
  • Flexaton, shaking idiophone with two clappers
  • Floor-cymbal, cymbal on a stand
  • Flabiol, a one-handed flute. Longitudinal flute played with one hand
  • Floßzither, several single-stringed stick zithers, whose strings are stretched along a tube, are connected to each other at the sides and are played with both hands in central Africa
  • Floyera, collective term for traditional Greek shepherd’s flutes
  • Fluier, collective term for Romanian flutes
  • Grand piano, upright piano with horizontally arranged strings
  • Winged harp, also called pointed harp. A form of upright harp
  • Flugelhorn, brass instrument
  • Flutina → French accordion. Hand-pulled instrument
  • Fortepiano → Hammerklavier. Keyboard instruments in which the strings are struck by a hammer mechanism
  • Fourth Flute → Soprano recorder in b2
  • Frigideira, Brazilian percussion instrument
  • Frottoir, washboard used in zydeco music
  • Fue, Japanese word for longitudinal and transverse flutes. These include the shakuhachi and the hichiriki
  • Fujara, Slovakian shepherd’s flute
  • Furulya, wooden notch flute in Hungary
  • Fyell, short shepherd’s flute in Albania
  • Forked cymbal, special form of cymbal, part of the modern drum kit
  • Forked piano → Adiaphone, a keyboard instrument whose notes are produced by tuning forks instead of strings
  • Gachi, brass instrument in West Africa. A natural trumpet
  • Gadulka, Bulgarian string instrument with pear-shaped body, short neck without fingerboard
  • Gaita → Galician gaita, Spanish bagpipe
  • Gakpavi→ Gankogui, West African double bell
  • Gambang, more precisely gambang kayu Indonesian trough xylophone with normally wooden plates (“kayu”). A melody instrument in gamelan, played with two mallets
  • Viola da gamba → Viola da gamba, also known as knee violin, collective term for historical string instruments
  • Gambus, lute plucked by Muslims in Malaysia (especially in Borneo) and Indonesia (mainly Sulawesi) to accompany songs. There are two types: 1) a deep-bellied kink-necked lute, which is derived from the Arabic oud, and 2) a narrow pear-shaped lute with a straight, short neck. The model was the Yemeni qanbus
  • Gandi, a portable beating beam in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries
  • Gangsa (gong), a flat gong in the ceremonial music of the hill tribes on the northern Philippine island of Luzon
  • Gangsa (metallophone), a group of metallophones in Balinese gamelan
  • Gankogui, also gakpavi, double bell with handle among the Ewe and Fon in Ghana and Togo
  • Garamut, a slit drum that has a ritual function in the music of New Guinea and especially in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea
  • Garmon, button accordion in Russia
  • Gasba, wooden flute of the Arabs and Berbers in North Africa with five finger holes
  • Gato drum, slit drum in the shape of a wooden box developed by Hy Kloc in the mid-20th century, tongue drum, often used in music education
  • Gayageum, also spelled Kayagûm according to McCune-Reischauer, twelve-stringed Korean arched-board zither, similar to the Chinese guzheng
  • Blown bottle, a bottle whose opening is blown over
  • Vessel flute, also ball flute, a flute with an arbitrarily shaped, usually round resonator
  • Vascular rattle, a rattle. Percussion instrument in which rattle bodies are shaken in a cavity
  • Violin → Violin, string instrument
  • Gendèr, a metallophone with resonance tubes under the metal bars in a wooden frame, similar to a marimba, in Javanese and Balinese gamelan
  • Gemshorn, historical beak flute
  • Geomungo, 150 centimeter long Korean board zither with frets and six strings
  • Geophone → ocean drum, a rattle drum inspired by the French composer Olivier Messiaen (1974)
  • Ghatam, clay pot played as a percussion instrument in South India
  • Ghichak, collective name for Indo-Iranian string instruments
  • Ghoema, also goema, ghomma, single-headed hand drum of the Cape Malays in South Africa
  • Ghol, a pair of small bells or jingles held in the hand in the folk music of Maharashtra in India
  • Ghumat, a kettle drum consisting of a clay pot in the Indian state of Goa
  • Ghungru, percussive foot cuffs used in Indian dances
  • Gimbri, long-necked lute played in the Maghreb, especially by the Gnawa in Morocco
  • Gingiru, bridge harp used by the Dogon in Mali. In their mythology, an image of the cosmos and the primal man Nommo
  • Gintang, two-stringed bamboo tube zither in the north-east Indian state of Assam
  • Giraffe piano, a harp piano with vertically arranged strings
  • Gitalele, a type of six-string guitar, related to the ukulele
  • Guitar, a plucked box-neck lute
  • Guitar mandolin, small six-stringed plucked instrument
  • Guitar synthesizer, electronic sound generator in which the sounds are played by a guitar
  • Gitarron → Guitarrón.
  • Gitgit, small three-stringed fiddle in the southern Philippines, played by the Tagbanuwa, among others. Descends from the Muslim spiked fiddle rebab
  • Lattices, medieval Spanish lute
  • Glass harp, water-filled glasses are made to sound with the finger
  • Glass harmonica, historical idiophonic instrument, principle of a mechanical glass harp
  • Glass rod game, a row of glass rods that are struck with hammers. In the shape of a xylophone
  • Bell, metal idiophone
  • Bell piano, historical keyboard instrument with four keys
  • Glockenspiel, mallet instrument from the metallophone group
  • Glong Gantruem → Klong Kantruem, Thai drum
  • Gobophone, singing into a beer glass through a kazoo. Experimental music
  • Goema, → Ghoema, single-headed hand drum of the Cape Malays in South Africa
  • Goge, one-stringed shell skewer violin in West Africa, body made from a skin-covered calabash half-shell
  • Gong, metal idiophone played with mallets
  • Gong ageng, large humpback gongs in Javanese and Balinese gamelan hanging from a wooden frame
  • Goofus → Couesnophone; instrument related to the saxophone
  • Gopiyantra → Ektara, also known as Bengali plucked drum. Single-stringed Bengali plucked instrument with a cylinder drum as a resonator
  • Gothic harp, historical form of a concert harp
  • Gottuvadyam, also known as chitravina, a long-necked lute in South Indian music, rare form of a vina
  • Gralla, a double-reed instrument in Spanish folk music
  • Gravikord, electric harp with steel frame, developed in New York in 1986
  • Great Highland Bagpipe, Scottish bagpipe
  • Fingerhole horn, historical upholstered pipes with fingerholes similar to a recorder
  • Great bass recorder, deep sounding recorder
  • Grooveboxprogrammable synthesizer
  • Great bass violin, old name for double bass
  • Concert flute → Transverse flute
  • Bass drum, deep-sounding percussion instrument
  • Gshang, bowl-shaped hand bell used by priests of the Bon religion in spirit conjuring rituals in Tibet
  • Guan, small Chinese wind instrument with double reed
  • Gudastviri, also known as Stviri, a bagpipe similar to the Turkish Tulum in Georgia
  • Guinbri → Gimbri, long-necked lute played in the Maghreb, especially by the Gnawa in Morocco
  • Güiro, a wooden shrapidiophone used in Afro-Caribbean music. A wooden stick is used to stroke the grooved surface
  • Guitarrón, fretless, low-sounding guitar
  • Guit-steel, a type of guitar used in American country music
  • Gumbass, new development from bass guitar and Moroccan gumbri
  • Gumbe, also known as gumbay, rectangular frame drum in West Africa and the Caribbean
  • Gumbeng, a bamboo tube zither beaten with a stick on the Indonesian island of Java, → Guntang
  • Guntang, a bamboo cane zither beaten with a stick on the Indonesian island of Bali
  • Guqin → Qin, Chinese fingerboard zither
  • Gusle, bowed lute in the Balkans
  • Gusli, Russian zither instruments
  • Guzheng, Chinese arched board zither
  • Gyaling, double-reed instrument in Tibetan Buddhist ritual music
  • Dulcimer, Stringed instrumentplayed with small mallets
  • Haegeum, Korean fiddle with two silk strings
  • Hook harp, design of a harp
  • Semi-psaltery, further development of the psaltery in the 14th century, preliminary form of the grand piano
  • Half-tube zither → arched zither, a zither whose body is arched, e.g. the Japanese koto or the Chinese guzheng
  • Halil → Chalil, wind instrumentpossibly a single-reed or double-reed instrument in the Bible
  • Fortepiano, the most common type of grand piano today
  • Fortepiano, today the usual design for pianos
  • Hammond organ electromechanical organ
  • Hand aeoline, a precursor of the accordion, developed in the 19th century
  • Hand harmonica → Accordion
  • Handpan, a brass instrument similar to the Hang
  • Hand timpani, a tambourine; percussion instrument
  • Hang, metal idiophone
  • Hardanger fiddle, stringed instrument from Norway
  • Harpa plucked instrumentin which the strings run vertically from the soundboard (in contrast to zithers, where the strings run parallel)
  • Harpett, pointed harp, one harp
  • Harmonetta, reedsAerophone
  • Harmonichord, a piano developed at the beginning of the 19th century whose strings are set in vibration indirectly via a wooden roller
  • Harmonicon, keyboard instrument developed at the end of the 18th century keyboard instrumentwhich was mechanically combined with various wind instruments
  • Harmonium, reedsaerophone, keyboard instrument
  • Harp → Blues Harp (harmonica)
  • Harpolyre, a guitar-like lute instrument developed around 1825 lute instrument with three necks
  • Harpsichord → Harpsichord, keyboard instrumentin which the strings are plucked
  • Harz zither → Zither
  • Hasapi, boat-shaped two-stringed lute of the Batak on Sumatra
  • Hasoserah → Chazozra, ritual brass instrument brass instrument of the Israelites
  • Hasosrah → Chazozra, ritual brass instrument of the Israelites
  • Hawaiian guitar, guitar with steel strings
  • Heckelphone, woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Home organ, an electronic organ
  • Heligonka, Czech diatonic accordion accordion
  • Helicon, Central European brass instrument
  • Herald trumpet → Trumpet
  • Hichiriki, Japanese double-reed woodwind instrument
  • Hi-hat mounted pair of cymbals in the drum kit
  • Hillebille, a beater bar as a signaling instrument
  • Hindewhu, a single-note flute played by pygmies in the Central African Republic
  • Hne, double reedwoodwind instrument from Myanmar. Belongs to the Asian surnai family
  • Holm xylophone → Xylophone whose bars are lined up on two longitudinal beams
  • Wooden block, idiophone made of wood
  • Wooden laughter, wooden fiddle, wooden harmonica, obsolete for xylophone
  • Wooden fish, idiophone played in Buddhist rituals in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam in the shape of a fish or a ball, which belongs to the slit drums
  • Wooden saxophone, rare type of saxophone saxophone made of wood
  • Wooden trumpet, special form of trumpet used for a short time in the 19th century. trumpet made of wood
  • Horanewa, short conical double-reed instrument in Sri Lanka
  • Horn, Brass instrument
  • Hsaing-waing, also known as pat waing. In Burmese music, a circle of 21 tuned drums
  • Hu-ch’ing → Qin, Chinese fingerboard zither
  • Hümmelchen, historical bagpipe played during the Renaissance
  • Hurka, small hourglass drum in northern India on the southern edge of the Himalayas
  • Hulusi, a mouth organ with a gourd resonator in Chinese music
  • Humanatone → nasal flute, colloquial for a free aerophone that is blown by air from the nose
  • Hummel (instrument), plucked string instrument with melody and drone strings which are bowed with a small plate or quill pen
  • Hun, bamboo jew’s harp in the Isan region of north-eastern Thailand and in Laos
  • Husle, Slavic name for various bowed lutes in Eastern Europe, related to gusli and gusle. The fiddle of the Sorbs → Sorbian fiddle
  • Hyang-p’iri → P’iri, Korean wind instrument wind instrument with double reed
  • Hybrid piano, acoustic piano with electric pickups, similar to a silent piano
  • Hydraulophone, group of acoustic musical instruments in which the sounds are produced by water. Some versions function like woodwind instruments, with a flow of water replacing the moving air.
  • Ibirongwe, rare transverse flute in three sizes from the Kuria in Kenya
  • Ichigenkin, also known as sumagoto, one-stringed board zither in Japan
  • Idakka, hourglass-shaped drum in Kerala, slightly larger than the Tibetan ritual drum Damaru
  • Igemfe, end-blown notch flute of the Zulu in southern Africa
  • Igil, two-stringed string instrument in Tuwa, horse-head violin
  • Ilimba, a lamellophone in Tanzania
  • Ilú, various Brazilian hand drums
  • Imzad, also Anzad, Anzhad, one-stringed string instrument of the Tuareg
  • Inanga, trough zither. Fingerboardless zither with a boat-shaped wooden body in Burundi and Rwanda
  • Indian harmonium → Harmonium. A portable harmonium in Indian music with a bellows that is operated with the left hand
  • Ingungu, a rubbing drum used by Zulu girls in South Africa for puberty rites
  • Intonarumori, group of noise instruments developed by Luigi Russolo. Cf. russolophone
  • Invention horn, a type of French horn
  • Irish bouzouki, a cittern, developed from the Greek bouzouki at the end of the 1960s
  • Irish flute, a simple wooden transverse flute used in Irish music
  • Isankuni, a one-stringed trough zither bowed with a tin can resonator in South Africa
  • Hunting horn, brass instrument
  • Hunting oboe → oboe da caccia, a woodwind woodwind instrument similar to the baroque oboe
  • Jaltarang, vessels filled with water are beaten with sticks. Rare melody instrument in North Indian music
  • Janggu, dubious Korean hourglass drum
  • Jantar, stick zither with two calabash resonators during the Mughal period and in today’s folk music of the Indian state of Rajasthan
  • Jarana Jarocha, small guitar from Mexico
  • Jegog, xylophone made from long bamboo tubes in West Bali. Gives name to own music style
  • Jetigen, rectangular box zither in Kazakhstan with 7 to 23 strings
  • Jiegu, historical hourglass drum from the Chinese Tang Dynasty
  • Yoke lute → lyre, Plucked instrumentswhose strings run parallel to the soundboard up to a distant crossbar (yoke)
  • Jouhikko, two-stringed stringed lyre in Finnish folk music similar to the talharpa
  • Jewish harp, colloquial for Jew’s harp
  • Jug, wind instrument from a jug
  • Jurupari, ritual wind instrument used by Indians in the Amazon region of Brazil, made from palm leaves, clay and plant roots
  • Kaba Gajda, a bagpipe in northern Greece and Bulgaria
  • Kaba zurna, deep-sounding zurna. Turkish cone oboe
  • Kabak-Kemane, Turkish and Central Asian spiked violin
  • Kacapi (also called Kecapi)
    • boat-shaped box zither in West Java, own musical style together with the flute Suling
    • → Hasapi, narrow boat-shaped lute in North Sumatra, played by Batak
    • Elaborately decorated lute carved from a block of wood on Sulawesi
  • Kagurabue, Japanese bamboo flute
  • Imperial fanfare, forerunner of the Martin trumpet
  • Kakaki, long metal signal trumpet used by the Hausa in West Africa
  • Kakko, barrel drum in Japanese courtly gagaku music
  • Kakles → Kantele, Finnish box zither
  • Kalangu, dubious hourglass drum of the Hausa in West Africa
  • Kalimba, a lamellophone common in Malawi and Zambia lamellophone
  • Kamaica, also kamaicha. Bowl-necked lute similar to the sarangi, which is played in a folk music style in the Indian state of Rajasthan
  • Kamale ngoni, also Kamalen ngoni, → Ngoni. Six-string bridge harp from Mali
  • Kamantsche, also Kamanga, Persian spiked violin, long-necked lute
  • Kantele, also Kannel, Finnish box zither
  • Kanun, oriental trapeze zither
  • Karakeb → Qarqaba, large hand clappers made of iron in the Maghreb, used especially in Moroccan Gnawa music
  • Karamouza, small high-pitched cone oboe in the Balkans, similar to the zurna, cf. also the collective term sornay
  • Karna, originally a Middle Eastern “horn”, historical Iranian-Central Asian long trumpet made of metal
  • Karna, long popular cone oboe in Iran
  • Karnyx → Carnyx, Celtic natural trumpet with animal head as bell
  • Kartal, a wooden rattle in Indian folk music
  • Kasik, Turkish percussion instrument, wooden hand rattle
  • Castanets, hand rattles
  • Box lyre → Hurdy-gurdy, medieval stringed instrument
  • Kaval, group of wooden shepherd’s flutes in the Balkans and Turkey
  • Kayamba, flat vessel rattle or raft rattle mostly made of reed in East Africa, Mauritius and Réunion
  • Kazoo, a membranophone, small singing drum
  • Keleli, two- or three-stringed inland spit lute in the north of Chad
  • Celtic harp, Celtic tradition of a harp
  • Keluri, bamboo mouth organ from Borneo, similar to the Chinese Sheng
    Keman, Turkish for violin
  • Kemanak, a percussion instrument similar to a spoon on the Indonesian island of Java
  • Kemençe, Turkish string instruments
  • Kempul, several vertically suspended humpback gongs in Javanese gamelan
  • Kena → Quena, Andean flute from Peru and Bolivia
  • Kendang, a wooden barrel or cylinder drum with two sides in Indonesia, Malaysia and parts of the Philippines
  • Kenkeny, small West African drum
  • Kenong, single horizontal kettle gong in a square wooden frame, played in Javanese gamelan
  • Keranteng, also known as keranting, simple bamboo tube zithers of the indigenous peoples (Orang Asli) in Malaysia
  • Kerantung, a wooden slit drum in Malaysia, signaling device for the call to prayer outside mosques
  • Kereb, two-stringed bamboo tube zither in Malaysia
  • Kettledrum → Timpani, in the broader sense kettle drum
  • Kete drum, single-headed barrel drum from West Africa (Ghana, Mali)
  • Kethuk, small humpback gong in a wooden frame. The sharp, high-pitched tone is used to set the beat in Javanese gamelan
  • Keyboard, keyboard instruments that produce sounds electrophonically
  • Keyed guitar, strings are not plucked but pressed down using the keyboard
  • Khaen, mouth organ of Laos and northeast Thailand (Isan)
  • Khanjari, single-headed frame drum in North Indian folk music, similar to the South Indian kanjira
  • Khattali, rare Indian percussion idiophone
  • Khlui, end-blown flute in Thai music, especially in the mahori orchestra, also Thai flutes in general
  • Khomus → Qopuz, Jew’s harps in Central and North Asia
  • Kielklavier, historical pianos whose strings were plucked by a raven quill. The keel action was widespread from the 16th to the 18th century
  • Children’s piano, toy piano
  • Kinnor, Hebrew name for an ancient lyre
  • Cinema organ, pipe organ used to accompany silent films at the beginning of the 20th century
  • Kiringi, wooden slit drum from Guinea
  • Kisir → Nubian name for tanbura, a five-stringed lyre in Sudan
  • Kitara, small four-stringed plucked lute in the Philippines, simple form of a guitar
  • Kithara, ancient Greek lyre similar to the lyre
  • Kkwaenggwari, traditional Korean gong
  • Singing bowl, metal percussion idiophone in the western esoteric scene
  • Tonewoods → claves, counter-percussion idiophone made from two wooden bars
  • Folding cello, also compact cello. Collapsible cello as a practice instrument when traveling
  • Keyed horn, brass instrument belonging to the horn family
  • Keyed trumpet, historical trumpet with valves
  • Rattling board → striking bar. Wooden board that is struck by the pendulum motion of a wooden mallet.
  • Rattles, counter-percussion idiophones such as castanets or claves
  • Clarinet, woodwind instrument with single reed
  • Keyboard xylophone, keyboard instrument with sound production by percussion plates
  • Keyboard zither, also manual zither, the strings of a zither are struck via a keyboard, 19th century
  • Piano, keyboard instrument
  • Clavichord, another name for harpsichord
  • Klong Aeo → Klong Tueng Nong, cylinder drum in northern Thailand
  • Klong Puja, double skin drum in northern Thailand
  • Klong Puje, long narrow drum in northern Thailand
  • Klong Tueng Nong, cylinder drum in northern Thailand
  • Ratchet → Ratchet, wooden ratchet wheel that is turned in a circle on a handle.
  • Knee violin, also known as knee viola → Viola da gamba, historical string instruments
  • Bone flute, wind instruments made from tubular bones
  • Button accordion, accordion that has no keys but only buttons
  • Koboz, kink-necked lute in Hungary. In Romania and Moldova Cobză
  • Kobsa, a lute instrument in the Ukraine
  • Kobys, Kazakh string instrument
  • Kokle → Kantele, Finnish box zither
  • Kolitong, multi-stringed, idiochoric bamboo tube zither from the Philippines
  • Komabue, Japanese flute
  • Kombu, semi-circular curved natural trumpet in South Indian religious music
  • Komungo → Geomungo, 150 centimeter long Korean board zither with frets and six strings
  • Komuz, fretless long-necked lute in Central Asia
  • Komuz → Qopuz, Jew’s harps in Central and North Asia
  • Koncovka, Slovakian core flute without finger holes
  • Konghou, harp in ancient China and modern Chinese harp
  • Kong Wong Lek, a gong used in Thai pi-phat music consisting of humpback gongs arranged in a circle
  • Double basset horn → Clarinet
  • Double bass, lowest string instrument
  • Contrabass trombone → Trombone, low-sounding special form
  • Double bass saxophone → Saxophone in low register
  • Contrabass tuba → Tuba, also imperial bass
  • Contrabassoon, woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Concert grand → Grand piano, type of upright piano
  • Concert harp → Harp, stringed instrument whose strings run perpendicular to the sound box
  • Concertina, small hand-pulled instrument
  • Kooauau, longitudinal flute of the New Zealand Maori
  • Kora, West African bridge harp, also harp lute
  • Basket rattle, a vessel rattle. Percussion instrument that is shaken. Hollow space, rattle body inside.
  • Cornet, brass instrument that is counted among the horns
  • Kortholt, historical woodwind instrument in the Renaissance
  • Kös, also known as Küs, Turkish and Persian metal barrel drum
  • Kotamo, stringed instrument, name combined from koto, tanpura and monochord
  • Koto, Japanese arched-board zither
  • Koza, a bagpipe in the south of Poland
  • Kpanlogo, single-headed barrel drum from Ghana
  • Krajappi → Chapey dang veng, Thai long-necked lute with a broad round body
  • Krar, lyre played in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the Nubian music of northern Sudan and in Egypt, a similar plucked instrument is called kisir, derived from the ancient Greek kithara
  • Kratzzither → Scherrzither, alpine rustic stringed instrument
  • Krembala, also known as kumbala, Greek hand cymbals made of metal
  • Krotala → Krotalon, antique wooden rattle
  • Kru harp, misnomer for frame zither, a rare group of stringed instruments found mainly among the Kru in West Africa
  • Crumhorn, woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Crystallophone, glass game
  • Ku Tang, Chinese blasidiophone
  • Kuan → Guan. Small Chinese wind instrument with double reed. Wooden tube with seven plus one finger holes
  • Kudu horn, curved horn from a species of antelope in southern Africa
  • Kudüm, also nakkare, small pair of kettle drums in Turkish art music and in the ritual music of the Mevlevi
  • Kudyapi, also kutiyapi, long, two-stringed boat lute in the Philippines. Occasional name for Philippine plucked lutes in general
  • Kugo, historical angle harp in Japan
  • Cowbell, either a trychel or (rarely) a bell, used as an instrument in Swiss folk music
  • Kuitra, also known as quwaytara, plucked bent-neck lute from Algeria,
  • Kulcapi → Hasapi, boat-shaped sounds of the Batak people on Sumatra
  • Kulintang, also Kolintang, percussion idiophone made from a series of humpback gongs, native to the southern Philippines (Mindanao), rarely played in the wider area in Southeast Asia
  • Kultrún, flat kettle drum, used by the South American Mapuche as a shaman drum
  • Kundi, bow harp in Congo and the Central African Republic
  • Kundu, hourglass-shaped wooden drum in the music of New Guinea. Can be seen on the coat of arms of Papua New Guinea
  • Art harmonium, high quality harmonium
  • Art piano, automatic piano that can be controlled manually
  • Kurai, long, rim-blown longitudinal flute in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan
  • Kuterevka → Bisernica, also known as Samica. Small plucking lull in Croatia
  • Kutiyapi → Kudyapi, long, two-stringed, boat-shaped lute in the Philippines
  • Kutiriba → Sabaro. One of the three drums in the Mandinka and Wolof drum ensemble in West Africa, which is led by the Sabaro standing drum.
  • Kuzhal, a double-reed instrument in the south Indian state of Kerala, usually used in the chenda drum orchestra
  • Kymbala → Cymbalum, ancient design of a cymbal
  • Lafta, small lute, old Turkish-Greek folk music instrument
  • Lambeg drum, large cylinder drum played during processions in Northern Ireland
  • Landsknecht drum, historical cylinder drum strung on both sides. Term for German foot soldiers from the 15. and 16th century
  • Langeleik, a Norwegian fretboard zither, similar to the Scheitholt
  • Long horn, natural trumpet with curved tube
  • Langspil, an Icelandic drone zither
  • Long trumpet, a straight natural trumpet, e.g. the alphorn
  • Long horn, blown horn
  • Laouto, short-necked lute in Greek folk music
  • La-Pa, historical, long, Chinese metal trumpet
  • Lap steel guitar → Hawaiian guitar, guitar with steel strings
  • Larchemi, also Soinari, panpipe with six tubes in Georgia
  • Noise tones, historical, mechanical noise instrument
  • Laud, lute instrument introduced in Spain by Arabs in the 13th century
  • Launedda, wind instrument from Sardinia, consisting of three sound tubes with a single reed. Similar to oriental double clarinets such as the Egyptian arghul
  • Launut → Lounuat, friction wood on the island of New Ireland, part of New Guinea
  • Lute, historical European plucked string instrument, also generic term for stringed instruments with a short neck attached to the body
  • Lute guitar, also known as Wandervogellaute. Historical plucked instrument similar to a guitar with six strings
  • Lyre, also known as yoke lute, plucked instruments whose strings run parallel to the soundboard up to a distant crossbar (yoke)
  • Organ grinder → barrel organ, mechanical musical instrument
  • Lekope, two types of mouth bows used by the Sotho in South Africa
  • Reading, a wooden trough for pounding rice in Indonesia, which women use as a musical instrument to produce rhythms of different pitches
  • Sound organ, electronic organ
  • Ligombo, six-stringed trough zither with calabash resonator in western Tanzania
  • Lijerica, Croatian string instrument with three strings similar to the gadulka
  • Likembe, a lamellophone played in the Congo and Angola lamellophone
  • Lilissu, oldest known kettle drum from Babylonian times from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
  • Linga, large slit drum of the Bandalinda in Central Africa made from a tree trunk lying on the ground
  • Limbe, a transverse flute in Mongolia with six finger holes
  • Lira, revolving lira in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia
  • Lira da Braccio, historical string instrument with many strings
  • Lira da Gamba, historical string instrument with many strings, larger than the Lira da Braccio
  • Lirone → Lira da Gamba
  • Lithokymbalon, historical stone fiddle
  • Lithophone, generic term for musical instruments with a sound box made of stone
  • Litungu, seven- or eight-stringed bowl lyre in Kenya
  • Lituus, Etruscan brass instrument
  • Livika → Lounuat, friction wood on the island of New Ireland, part of New Guinea
  • Spoons are used in pairs as rhythm instruments in folk music
  • Low-sock, a form of the basin in modern drumssee the further development hi-hat
  • Lokanga bara, three- to four-stringed bowed lute from Madagascar
  • Lokanga voatavo, also jejy, multi-stringed stick zither with calabash resonator in Madagascar, corresponding to the zeze
  • Lounuat, friction wood on the island of New Ireland, part of New Guinea, formerly used in funeral rituals
  • Low whistle, also known as penny whistle, Irish one-handed flute
  • Ludaya, a transverse flute of the Bagisu in eastern Uganda
  • Lure, war trumpet, Bronze Age wind instrument wind instrument in Northern Europe
  • Lusheng → Qeej, bamboo mouth organ of the Miao/Hmong in southwest China, Laos and northern Thailand
  • Lyra
    • Lyre (plucked instrument), ancient plucked instrument, a lyre
    • Lyre (glockenspiel), melody instrument for marching bands, also known as a baton xylophone
    • Cretan lyre, pear-shaped bowed short-necked lute in Greek folk music
    • Pontic lyre, slender bottle-shaped bowed box-necked lute in Greek folk music
  • Lyra guitar, a guitar developed around 1790-1800 with a body in the shape of a lyre
  • Lyricon → Wind transducer, electronic wind instrument
  • Mabu, ritual trumpet of the Solomon Islands made from a small hollowed-out tree trunk, similar to the didgeridoo
  • Machete → Brazilian form of the cavaquinho
  • Madar, also Madal, Mandal, two-tone drum in the folk music of eastern India
  • Maddale, dubious barrel drum in the Yakshagana dance theater in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, similar to the mridangam
  • Magrefa, a hand-operated instrument with pipes played in ancient Jewish temples, an organ mentioned in the Talmud
  • Malakat, a straight natural trumpet made of bamboo or metal in the highlands of Ethiopia
  • Malimba → Marimbula. Originally from Africa lamellophone in the Caribbean
  • Mandola, Tenor mandolin, Plucked string instrument
  • mandolin, plucked instrument from the lute family
  • Mandolute, plucked instrument, slightly larger than a mandola
  • Mandoloncello, a mandolin developed in the 19th century with the tuning of a cello
  • Mandora, also Mandore luthée, Mandürchen, Mandurinchen, Mandurina. Group of historical lutes
  • Mandriola, type of mandolin, particularly widespread in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century
  • Mantoura, single reed instrument made from pile cane in Crete
  • Manzello, design of a saxophone
  • Maracas, rattle, percussion instrument
  • Marian trumpet → Trumscheit
  • Marimba, xylophone with metallic resonance tubes
  • Marimbula, originally from Africa lamellophone in the Caribbean
  • Martin trumpet, signaling instrument, used as a horn
  • Mashak, North Indian bagpipe with one melody pipe and one drone pipe
  • Masinko, one-string box violin in Ethiopia
  • Masterkeyboard, electronic keyboard without own tone generator
  • Matouqin → Mongolian horsehead violin, two-stringed string instrument
  • Jew’s harp, instrument with a piercing tongue, played with the mouth
  • Mayuri vina, also known as taus, a bowed vina in India, the body of which is shaped like a peacock
  • Mazanki, three-stringed small violin in the folk music of the western Polish region of Greater Poland
  • Mazhar, an Arabic wooden frame drum
  • Mbila, common name in southern Africa for various xylophones xylophones and lamellophones
  • Mbira → Mbila, several lamellophones in southern Africa, including the mbira Dza Vadzimu played by the Shona in Zimbabwe
  • Mellophone, a bugle in military orchestras
  • Mellotron, also known as Novatron or Chamberlin. Electromechanical keyboard instrument
  • Melochord, developed in 1947 electronic musical instrumenta forerunner of the synthesizer
  • Melodica, a harmonica instrument made by Hohner
  • Melodion → clavicylinder, a little-used historical idiophone. Bars are set in vibration by a rotating cylinder
  • Melophone, a hand-pulled instrument with bellows in the body of a guitar
  • Membranopipe, Wind instrumentin which the sound is produced by a vibrating membrane
  • Mendzan, xylophones with calabash resonators in Cameroon
  • Mey, Woodwind instrument with double reed similar to the Armenian duduk
  • Meydan Sazi, largest form of the Turkish lute Saz
  • Mezwed, folk bagpipe from Tunisia
  • Middewinterhorn, wooden natural trumpet in northern Germany and the Netherlands, shorter than the alphorn
  • Midschwiz, Arabic single-reed instrument with double bell
  • Mí-gyaùng saung, an old crocodile zither played in Burmese music
  • Mih, a bagpipe similar to the diple in Istria
  • Mini maracas, small wooden or plastic vessel rattle, children’s toy
  • Minstrel’s harp, also bard’s harp, lap harp. Historical, Central European harp
  • Mirliton, also known as a singing drum. Membranophone. A small mirliton is the kazoo
  • Mixturtrautonium → Trautonium, an electronic electronic musical instrument
  • Mizmar, generally for wind instruments in Arabic folk music with single or double reed
  • Mohambi, a xylophone with nine bars used by the Tsonga in South Africa
  • Mohori, also known as mohuri, a double-reed instrument similar to the shehnai in North Indian folk music
  • Moon guitar → Yueqin, Chinese four-string plucked lute with circular body
  • Monochord, single or multi-stringed box zither for musicological experiments in ancient Greece and the European Middle Ages
  • Moodswinger, experimental, electronic board zither
  • Moonlander, experimental, electronic guitar with additional drone strings
  • Moog synthesizer, synthesizer from the Moog company
  • Moog-Bass, an electric bass from the Moog company
  • Morin Khuur → Mongolian horsehead fiddle
  • Morsing, Indian jew’s harp
  • Mridangam, South Indian double membrane drum
  • Mtyangala, a mouth bow played by Tumbuka women in Malawi
  • Mukhavina, cone oboe played in folk music in South India, smaller than the nadaswaram
  • Mouth aeoline, a wind instrument with reeds developed in the 19th century. Later equipped with an air bag and keyboard, it became the forerunner of the accordion
  • Mouth bow, a simple stringed instrument belonging to the musical bows, in which the mouth serves as a resonating body
  • Harmonica, mouth-blown reed instrument
  • Mouth organ, reed instruments in East and Southeast Asia, such as the Chinese Sheng, the Laotian Khaen or the Japanese Shō
  • conch shell trumpet → snail horn
  • Musette, 1) common name for a bagpipe in France from the 17th century. 2) Musette, at the same time an oboe-like instrument without windsock in F tuning, similar to a shawm
  • Musette de Cour, historical bagpipe
  • Music bow, a stick zither with a flexible and curved string carrier and a resonating body, used under various names, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. The mouth bow is a music bow reinforced with the mouth without a resonating body
  • Mvet, stick-shaped bridge harp of the Fang in Cameroon
  • Nabal, long straight natural trumpet made of metal in Korea
  • Nacaire, also Nakir, Nakaire, Nakers. Medieval European kettledrum
  • Message drum, functional name for any skin drum or slit drum used for transmitting messages
  • Nadaswaram, also Nagasvaram, a South Indian cone oboe
  • Nafa, a slit drum in Polynesia, also in the music of Tuvalu
  • Nafīr, historical oriental natural trumpet that is still used ritually in Morocco and Malaysia
  • Nail violin, historical string instrumentwhich uses nails instead of strings
  • Nail piano, a nail violin is combined with a keyboard over which a rotating band is guided to the nails
  • Naghāreh → Naqqara
  • Nagoya harp → Taishōgoto, Japanese box zither whose strings are shortened using a keyboard similar to a typewriter
  • Naqqara, a pair of kettle drums widely used in the Orient, Central Asia and South Asia
  • Nose flute, flutes blown with the nose, which are mainly played in Southeast Asia and Oceania
  • Nose whistle → Nose flute
  • Natural trumpet, valveless trumpet
  • Natural French horn, valveless French horn
  • Nay, also Nei, Ney, longitudinal flute of Persian, Arabic and Turkish music
  • Ndonga, a bowl lyre of the Baganda people in Uganda
  • Negarit, large barrel drum in Ethiopia that is no longer played. War drum of the rulers
  • Neku, buffalo horn used in Buddhist ritual music in Nepal
  • Ney-e anban, bagpipe in Iran
  • Ngoma, drumming in Central and East Africa
  • Ngoni, West African plucked inland lute with four or seven strings. Donso ngoni and camel ngoni are bridge harps similar to the kora
  • Nibelungen tuba, also known as Wagner tuba. Hybrid form of tuba and French horn
  • Nissan, flat kettle drum in the folk music of northern India (in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha)
  • Njarka, small bowed lute played in Mali
  • Nolkin, sucked trumpet played by the Mapuche in Chile: an aerophone whose sounds are produced by sucking in air
  • Nun’s violin, also nun’s trumpet → Trumscheit, historical string instrument string instrument
  • Nyatiti, eight-string plucked lute from Kenya
  • Nyckelharpa, also nychelfiol, nyckelgiga, keyed fiddle. A string instrument, slightly larger than a violin, in which the pitch is determined by pressing a key
  • Nzumari, conical double-reed instrument on the East African coast
  • Overtone flute, type of flute without finger holes, which only produces tones of the natural tone series
  • oboe, woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Oboe da caccia, literally hunting oboe, one of the baroque oboes
  • Oboe d’amore, soft-sounding oboe used in the Baroque period
  • Obokano, shell egg of the Kisii in Kenya
  • Ocean drum → ocean drum, a rattle drum inspired by the French composer Olivier Messiaen (1974)
  • Odaiko → bass drum, English bass drum
  • Oedephon, a glass harmonica in Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century
  • Ogung, humpback gongs among the Batak people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra
  • Oja, longitudinal flute of the Igbo in southern Nigeria
  • Ocarina, Italian clay vessel flute developed around 1860
  • Octavin, special form of the saxophone developed at the end of the 19th century. saxophone
  • Octave spinet, design of the spinet from the 16th century
  • Octobass, curious, oversized double bass
  • Oliphant, medieval European ivory trumpet, a signal horn
  • Onjembo erose, a natural trumpet of the Himba in southern Africa
  • Oncer, small bronze gong in the gamelan of the same name in the music of Lombok
  • Ondes Martenot, early electronic musical instrument from 1928
  • Ondioline, developed in 1938 electronic musical instrumenta forerunner of the synthesizer
  • Ophicleide, a keyed horn in the bass register, invented around 1817
  • Orchestrelle, a mechanized organ similar to a player piano
  • Orchestrion, a mechanical music machine that can imitate a full orchestra
  • Organette, small barrel organ made for domestic use
  • Organetto, diatonic accordion in Italy
  • Organistrum → Hurdy-gurdy
  • Organ, large keyboard instrumentwhose sounds are produced by pipes
  • Organ lyre, small organ with hurdy-gurdy keyboard
  • Orphica, portable small piano developed at the end of the 18th century
  • Orthotonophonium, special form of harmonium completed by Arthur von Oettingen in 1916 with cells in different temperaments
  • Otamatone, a Japanese synthesizer in the shape of a toy
  • Ottu, South Indian drone instrument. Cone oboe with double reed. A South Indian nadaswaram without finger holes
  • Oud, Middle Eastern lute
  • Ocean drum, a rattle drum inspired by the French composer Olivier Messiaen (1974). rattle drumwhich produces a sound reminiscent of ocean surf
  • Ozi, large cup drum in Myanmar
  • Paetzold flute, modern type of recorder, very large and square
  • Pahu, single-headed drums from Polynesia, the body of which consists of a hollowed-out tree trunk
  • Pahuu, wooden gongs of the Maori in New Zealand, hung flat in a row
  • Pai ban, also known as pai pan. Rattles used in Japanese and Chinese folk music and to accompany singing in Chinese opera, consisting of three wooden sticks
  • Pakhawaj, double-headed barrel drum of classical North Indian music, played with the hands
  • Palwei, lengthwise blown bamboo notch flute in Burmese music
  • Pambai, double drum consisting of two connected tubular drums in South Indian folk music
  • Panctar, historical Persian long-necked lute with “five strings” (name)
  • Pandeiro, Brazilian frame drum with bell rim
  • Pandora, historical box-necked lute belonging to the Cistern family
  • Panduri, three-stringed plucked long-necked lute with frets in Georgia
  • Pandurina, historical lute, forerunner of the mandolin
  • Pan flute, a longitudinal flute. Several adjacent pipes are connected to form one instrument
  • Panharmonicon, large mechanical instrument with a central wind supply and built-in wind instruments instruments via a central wind supply. 19th century
  • Panmelodikon, a friction idiophone with brass bars invented at the beginning of the 19th century
  • Pantaleon, a kind of oversized dulcimer, invented by Pantaleon Hebenstreit
  • Parai, single-headed round frame drum in the folk music of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu
  • Pardessus de viole, a viola da gamba developed around 1700
  • Parmak zili, Turkish for finger cymbals, → Zil
  • Pashchima, also known as Paschima, dubious large barrel drum in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal
  • Pate, wooden slit drum common in Polynesia
  • Pat waing → Hsaing-waing. In Burmese music, a circle of 21 tuned drums
  • timpani, kettle drum, low percussion percussion instrument
  • Pedabro, an acoustic Hawaiian guitar
  • Pedal harp → Harp
  • Pedal piano, upright piano with additional pedal keyboard
  • Pedal timpani, timpani played with the foot
  • Pedal steel guitar, slide guitar that can be retuned with pedals
  • Pedal zither, a zither invented at the end of the 19th century that could raise or dampen the strings by a semitone using a pedal
  • Whip: 1) an effect instrument that safely imitates the sound of a whip in the orchestra, 2) a real whip used in Bavarian folk music for Goaßlschnalzen (whip cracking)
  • Pena, one-stringed bowed lute in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur
  • Penny Whistle → Tin Whistle, simple Irish flute
  • Pepa, a hornpipe with a buffalo horn as a bell in the north-east Indian state of Assam
  • Whistle: 1) general flute, 2) a shrill, high-pitched flute, 3) whistle, a signaling instrument
  • Horsehead violin → Mongolian horsehead violin, two-stringed string instrument
  • Phagotum, an unusual form of bagpipe at the beginning of the 16th century
  • Phin, slender Thai plucked lute with metal strings
  • Phonofiedel, → straw violin. Experimental violin developed around 1900 that has a metal bell instead of a resonating body
  • Phorminx, ancient Greek semicircular or sickle-shaped lyre from the era of Homer, similar to the lyre.
  • Pi, group of one-piece cylindrical or two-piece conical wind instruments wind instruments with double reed in Thailand and Laos
  • Pi, group of reed wind instruments in Thailand and Laos
  • Pianino, alternative name for a wall-mounted piano commonly used today
  • Piano → Piano
  • Pibgorn, a reed instrument from Wales
  • Piccolo flute, small version of the transverse flute
  • Piccolo trumpet, a valve trumpet in higher tuning
  • Pi Chanai, a cone oboe belonging to the Pi. Woodwind instrument with double reed in Thai music
  • Piffero, also piffaro, double-reed instrument in northern Italian folk music
  • Pilili, rare single-reed instrument played in the Georgian Republic of Adjara
  • Pi nai, Thai double-reed instrument with a slightly bulbous wooden tube, without bell. Belongs to the pi group and is similar to the Cambodian sralai
  • Pi Or, Thai woodwind instrument
  • Pipa, pear-shaped Chinese short-necked lute
  • Piri, double reed instrument made of bamboo in Korean music
  • Piston → cornet, a horn instrument
  • Piwang, one-stringed Tibetan string instrument
  • Pi Yen, Thai woodwind instrument
  • Pku, Armenian hornpipe with single reed
  • Plagiaulos, transverse flute played in the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece
  • Platerpiel, simple medieval bagpipe
  • Player Piano, automatic piano from the American Piano Company
  • Pluriarc, a multi-stringed musical bow with a string support bar for each string, mainly used in Africa
  • Pochette → Dancing master violin, historical, narrow violin
  • Polychord → Monochord, simple stringed instrument with several strings of equal length
  • Pommer, historical woodwind instrument with double reed similar to the shawm
  • Pondur, three-stringed long-necked lute with a paddle-shaped body in Chechnya
  • Ponglang, Thai spar xylophone
  • Pontic lyre, a form of lyre, Greek string instrument
  • Portative, small pipe organ
  • Trombone, low brass instrument
  • Positive, one-manual organ
  • Post horn, high brass instrument without valves, therefore only plays natural tones. Mainly used for signaling
  • Preret, double-reed instrument from the Indonesian island of Lombok. Rarely heard in the music of Lombok
  • Primzither, Hungarian zither with two fingerboards
  • Pritsche, also Schlagrute, → Klapper, a plate rattle. Several plates connected to a wooden handle are struck against each other. Noise instrument
  • Psaltery, medieval lyre or zither. Resonance box with trapezoidal bars as string support
  • Pung, slender two-headed barrel drum similar to the mridangam, which is played in the folk music of the north-east Indian state of Manipur
  • Pungi, Indian wind instrument of the snake charmers with single reed
  • Puniu, small Polynesian drum with a coconut shell as body
  • Putoto, northern Argentinian wind instrument, a cow horn with an idioglott reed (made of the same material)
  • Puutoorino, historical wind instrument of the Maori in New Zealand
  • Puwi-puwi, several single and double reed instruments on the Indonesian islands of Java, Sulawesi and Alor
  • Pyramid piano, design of a piano
  • Pyrophone, keyboard instrument with glass pipes in which flames burn
  • Qanbus, almost disappeared pear-shaped plucked lute with fur covering in Yemen. Replaced by the Arabic oud. Was the model for one of the two forms of the Indonesian gambus
  • Qanun → Kanun, Turkish trapeze zither
  • Qarqaba, also known as Krakeb, iron hand clappers played in the Maghreb
  • Qasaba, Arabic flute without mouthpiece
  • Qeej, Chinese Lusheng, bamboo mouth organ of the Miao/Hmong in southwest China, Laos and northern Thailand
  • Qopuz, → komuz, also gopuz, kopuz, pear-shaped Central Asian long-necked lute
  • Qopuz, also Qobiz, Kobus, Chomus, Komuz, Jew’s harps in Central and North Asia
  • Quena, flute of the Andes region
  • Transverse flute, flute with side blowing hole
  • Transverse horn, trumpet with lateral blowing opening, mainly used as a signaling instrument in Africa
  • Transverse whistle → Drum whistle, short keyless transverse flute
  • Quijada, idiophone in South America. Traditionally the jawbone of a donkey as a rattle, modern → Vibraslap spring steel and wooden parts that are struck against each other
  • Quintbass, guitar developed by Heinrich Albert at the beginning of the 20th century, tuned a fifth lower
  • Quinterna by Michael Praetorius, a five-course guitar.
  • Quinterne or quinterna, pear-shaped plucked instrument related to the mandora from the 14th to the 17th century, smaller than the lute
  • Quint bassoon, small bassoon, tuned in lower or upper fifth to the bassoon
  • Quintzither, zither tuned a fifth above the treble zither
  • Rabāb, instruments bowed with the bow lute instrumentsoften bowed violins in the Near and Middle East to Central Asia
  • Rababa 1) → Rabāb; 2) → Name of the shell lyre Tanbura in Sudan
  • Hurdy-gurdy → Hurdy-gurdy. String instrument with crank mechanism
  • Raffele → Scherrzither. Alpine further development of the Scheitholt and precursor of the zither
  • Frame harp, historical harp type in the shape of a triangle and a front bar
  • Frame zither, known as the “Kru harp”, a rare group of stringed instruments found mainly among the Kru people of West Africa
  • Rainmaker → Rainmaker, vessel rattle from Chile
  • Ramkie, self-built guitar with tin can resonator in southern Africa
  • Ranat, trough xylophones in Thai classical music
  • Rankett, woodwind instrument with double reed in the Renaissance and Baroque periods
  • Rasem, bagpipe-like wind instrument with a calabash and seven bamboo pipes in the north-east Indian state of Tripura
  • Ratchet, also known as ratchet wheel. Old noise instrument in folk music
  • Rauschpfeife, woodwind instrument with double reed in the Renaissance
  • Ravanahattha, spit fiddle with two melody strings and up to a dozen resonance strings in North Indian folk music
  • Reactable, a digital synthesizer with a figurative user interface in the shape of a table
  • Rebab 1) two- to three-stringed bowed violin in Indonesia and Malaysia, played especially in Javanese gamelan; 2) → Rabāb, bowed lute instruments, often bowed violins in the Near and Middle East to Central Asia
  • Rebana, a mixture of tambourine and kettle drum in the Islamic music of Indonesia
  • Rebec, medieval forerunner of the violin
  • Reco-reco, Brazilian rhythm instrument, wooden or metal cylinders in a frame are rubbed with a stick, similar to the güiro
  • Reform flute, a flute with valve flaps developed around 1900
  • Shelf, keyboard instrument, a portable small organ
  • Rainmaker, vessel rattle from Chile
  • Friction wood → Lounuat, a wooden friction idiophone on the island of New Ireland, formerly used in funeral rituals
  • Friction drum, popular noise instrument. A drum membrane is made to vibrate by friction with a stick, a string or the hand. Example of a humming drum
  • Repinique, small Brazilian drum
  • Resonator guitar, a type of guitar in which a loudspeaker membrane in the body is made to vibrate
  • Requinto, small Spanish guitar
  • Rawap, long-necked lute of Uyghur folk music
  • Rhythmicon, electronic keyboard instrument, by Leon Theremin (1896-1993)
  • Ride cymbal → Cymbal. A percussion idiophone
  • Ribab, one-stringed bowed box lute of the Schlöh-Berber in southern Morocco
  • Bovine trumpet, simple Northern European and North Asian wind instrument made from a strip of bark that is rolled up and then pulled into a spiral shape. Used as a bugle and for festive music
  • Riq, Arabic frame drum
  • Rnga, also Nga, stem drum in Tibetan Buddhist ritual music
  • Tubular bells, also known as campane tubolari or tubular bells. Tuned idiophonic metal tubes
  • Tube-string violin, simple string instrument with a tube as a resonator. These include the two-stringed Chinese erhu, which was probably the model for one- or two-stringed instruments in East Africa, such as the Ugandan endingidi
  • Tubular zither, plucked simple stringed instrument. The neck is also the resonating body. This includes the Malagasy valiha
  • Rol-mo, also Rölmo, horizontally struck pair cymbal in Tibetan Buddhist ritual music
  • Romanesque harp, oldest European form of harp
  • Romanesque theorbo, also Roman theorbo or chitarrone → theorbo. Medieval lute instrument
  • Roman tuba, a natural trumpet. Brass instrument in the Roman Empire
  • Roneat, trough xylophone in classical Cambodian music
  • Rototome, drum without bowl
  • Rotta → Crwth. Historic Welsh string instrument
  • Royal Kent Bugle, a Bugle → Clairon. Signal trumpet with six valves, developed in England in the 19th century
  • Rubab, plucked lute, national instrument of Afghanistan
  • Rubeba → Rebec. Medieval forerunner of the violin
  • Rudra Vina, also Bin. A vina. Ancient North Indian lute instrument made from a bamboo tube and two gourd calabashes as resonators
  • Stirring drum, also snare drum → Snare drum
  • Rumba ball → maracas. South American vessel rattle made from a gourd
  • Rumba sticks → Claves. Counter-attack idiophone
  • Rummelpott → humming pot, historical rod friction drum in Western Europe
  • Russian horns, natural horn, brass instrument
  • Rod, drumstick and idiophone
  • Ryūteki, Japanese bamboo transverse flute
  • Sabaro, also Sabar, largest of three single-headed drums in the Mandinka and Wolof drum orchestra in West Africa
  • Bagpipe, also bagpipes. Reed instrument with wind capsule and air sac
  • Säckpipa → Swedish bagpipe
  • Saeng, also Saeng Hwang. Mouth organ played in Korea, which corresponds to the Chinese Sheng
  • Sahfa, stick drum in the coastal region of Tihama in Yemen
  • Sahn Nuhasi, old, rarely played copper gong in Yemen
  • Stringed tambourine, also called tambourine de Béarn, altobasso. Simple psaltery, three-stringed instrument that is struck with mallets
  • String drum, a tambourine with strings stretched on the underside that produce overtones when struck
  • Salamuri, end-blown wooden shepherd’s flute from eastern Georgia, also used in classical music
  • Salor, string instrument in Northern Thailand
  • Salterio → hammered dulcimer, a stringed instrumentplayed with small mallets
  • Saluang, a longitudinal bamboo flute played in West Sumatra, especially by the Minangkabau people
  • Sambhor, drum in Cambodia
  • Samel, small, vertically played tubular drum in the Indian state of Goa
  • Sanaeng Gaen, Thai woodwind instrument
  • Sangan, West African drum
  • Sansula, an instrument newly developed in Germany consisting of a lamellophone mounted on a tambourine
  • Satara → Alghoza, double-billed flute in Rajasthan (northern India) and Pakistan
  • Santir → Gimbri. West African long-necked lute of the Moroccan Gnawa
  • Santoor, Persian and Indian dulcimer
  • Sanxian, Chinese fretless long-necked lute
  • Sanza or Sansa, erroneously introduced name for lamellophones, taken from the lamellophone Sansi in Mozambique
  • Sape, boat-shaped fretless lute in the interior of Borneo
  • Sapo, a long shrapidiophone made of bamboo, as Sapo Cubano or Güiro a long oval hollow form made of wood in Afro-Caribbean music. A wooden stick is used to stroke the grooved surface
  • Sarangi, string instrument in North India and Pakistan
  • Sarasvati Vina, a South Indian vina
  • Sarinda, popular bowed lute from northern India to Afghanistan
  • Sarod, North Indian plucked lute with skin covering, further development of the Afghan rubab
  • Saron, a metallophone made from bronze plates in Indonesian gamelan
  • Sarrusophone, wind instrument with double reed, developed in the 19th century for French military music
  • Sarune, among the Batak of Sumatra a conical double-reed instrument with a bell similar to the West Javanese tarompet
  • Sasando, bamboo zither on the Indonesian island of Roti
  • Saung gauk, a bowed harp. National instrument of Myanmar
  • Saw sam sai, three-stringed spike fiddle in Thai music with coconut shell resonance body
  • Saxello, Bb soprano saxophone
  • Saxhorn → Bugle horn, general horn instruments
  • Saxophonewoodwind instrument developed by Adolphe Sax woodwind instrument
  • Saxtromba, woodwind instrument developed by Adolphe Sax, to saxhorns
    Saz, Bağlama. Turkish long-necked lutes
  • Scabellum, antique foot rattle
  • Shabbaba, longitudinal flute played by shepherds in Arab countries
  • Shepherd’s whistle, a form of the German bagpipe
  • Shawm, medieval European woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Scheitholt, a drone zither. Historical stringed instrumentnarrow forerunner of the zither
  • Bells, a clapper bell. Percussion idiophone in the shape of a bell
  • Bell tree, former symbol of regimental musicians. A standard with bells
  • Bell ring, also called bell hoop. A frame rattle or row rattle in the shape of a tambourine without a skin covering. Bells are arranged on a ring
  • Bell drum → tambourine. Hand timpani with bell rim
  • Scheneb, ancient Egyptian brass instrument
  • Scherrzither, also known as Kratzzither. Earlier form of zither in alpine folk music
  • Beater bar, a striking idiophone. Wooden board that is usually struck by hitting it with wooden mallets
  • Pickguard → Pickguard bar
  • drum setdrum set. Compilation of percussion instruments
  • Percussion zither, a type of zither developed around 1900 and still in use today.
  • Snake flute → Pungi. Single reed instrument used by snake charmers in India
  • Slit drum, widespread idiophonic percussion instrument usually made from a partially hollowed-out block of wood or bamboo, played in ritual music or as a message drum
  • Key fiddle → Nyckelharpa. A string instrumentsomewhat larger than a violinwhere the pitch is determined by pressing a key
  • Schnarre → ratchet. Noise instrument that belongs to the ratchet wheels
  • Snare drum → snare drum
  • Snail trumpet → snail horn, a snail as a natural trumpet
  • Shofar, simple wind instrument made from an animal horn wind instrumentwhich has its origins in Judaism
  • Lap violin → viola da gamba, a violin with frets that is held between the lap and the edge of the table away from the body
  • Lap harp, small form of the harp that is held on the knees
  • Scraper, a scraping instrument
  • Schryari, also known as Schreierpfeife, Renaissance woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Shaking tube, a vessel rattle
  • Schwegel, also Schweitzerpfeiff, medieval simple flute
  • Schwirrholz → Schwirrgerät, Flügelratsche
    Schwungzither, a fingerboardless box zither played in England in the 18th and 19th centuries
  • Schwyzerörgeli, small diatonic accordion played in Swiss folk music
  • Sixteenth-note piano, a piano that plays microtones
  • Segankuru, also Serankure, Segaba, a one-stringed trough zither in South African Botswana
  • Seljefløyte, also Seljeflöyt, “willow flute”, a Norwegian overtone flute without finger holes, originally a shepherd’s flute
  • Selompret → Tarompet, a conical double-reed instrument with bell in Central and East Java
  • Semanterion → semantron, hour drum. Wooden striking board that replaces bells in the Orthodox church
  • Seperewa, a West African bridge harp in Ghana with traditionally 6 and today up to 14 strings
  • Se piri, a slender, soft-sounding piri. Korean woodwind woodwind instrument with double reed
  • Serbung → Bumbung, Indonesian wind instrument made from two bamboo tubes
  • Serankure → Segankuru, a one-stringed trough zither in South African Botswana
  • Serpent, deep sounding cornett. European historical wind instrument
  • Sese → Zeze, single or multi-stringed flat zither in East Africa
  • Setar, Persian four-stringed (originally three-stringed) long-necked lute
  • Shabbaba, an Arabic woodwind instrumentpredecessor of the Arabic longitudinal flute Nay
  • Sharati, bamboo flute played by the Khasi people in the north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya at funerals
  • Shehnai, North Indian cone oboe with double reed
  • Shaker, vessel rattle
  • Shakuhachi, Japanese bamboo flute
  • Shamisen, three-stringed Japanese plucked lute
  • Shékere, Latin American vascular rattle, regional name Afoxé, related to the Ghanaian axatse
  • Sheng, a Chinese mouth organ
  • Shō, a Japanese mouth organ
  • Shringa, also Srnga → Kombu, S-shaped curved natural trumpet in Indian processional music
  • Shrutibox, Indian drone instrument based on the principle of an Indian harmonium
  • Siku, a form of the South American panpipe
  • Silent piano, acoustic piano that can be muted to hear the sounds through headphones
  • Simandra → semantron, hour drum. Wooden striking board that replaces bells in the Orthodox church
  • Simbi, bridge harp with calabash body and seven strings of the Malinke in West Africa
  • Simsimiyya, also Semsemiya, Arabic lyre in Egypt on the Suez Canal and along the Red Sea
  • Singing saw, saw bowed with a violin bow
  • Sintir, long-necked lute of the Moroccan Gnawa
  • Sister → Cister, medieval European long-necked lute
  • Sistrum, ancient Egyptian hand rattle
  • Sitar, plucked, North Indian long-necked lute
  • Sixth Flute, soprano recorder in d2
  • Snare drum → snare drum
  • Sompotan, bamboo mouth organ, of the Malaysian state of Sabah
  • Sopilka, a flute in the Ukraine
  • Sopranino → Sopranino saxophone, the highest sounding saxophone
  • Soprano trombone → high-sounding trombone
  • Soprano saxophone, a saxophone in the high Bb register
  • Sorbian violin, also husle, fiddle of the Sorbs
  • Sor Gantruem, Thai string instrument string instrument
  • Sor Gradong Tao, Thai string instrument
  • Sor Khao Khwai, Thai string instrument
  • Sor U, two-string tube violin with coconut resonator in central Thailand
  • Sordun, historical double-reed instrument with bent, cylindrical sound tube
  • Sornay, Asian cone oxen
  • Sousaphonedeveloped in the 19th century tuba
  • Souzabone, electronic trombone developed by Raul de Souza in the 1970s
  • Toy piano → children’s piano, sometimes also used in modern and experimental music
  • Straddle violin, also known as lap violin. A bowed lute with a long neck, mainly found in Asia, which is inserted through the sound box. A spike reaching to the bottom (spiked violin) is independent of this. Examples: the Persian kamanche, the Chinese erhu
  • Spinet, a type of harpsichord
  • Spirafina, percussion idiophone made of glass bodies developed by Heinrich Spira around 1950
  • Pointed harp, a form of upright harp harp
  • Talking drum. A drum with which speech can be reproduced, particularly common in West Africa
  • Sralai, double-reed instrument in Cambodian music with a slightly bulbous wooden tube without bell
  • Sruti upanga → Mashak, South Indian bagpipe with only one drone pipe
  • Rod rattle, percussion instrument. Rattle body attached to a stick. These include the ancient Egyptian sistrum and the tsanatsel used in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
  • Steel chimes, a carillon in which steel bars are used instead of bells
  • Stamping tube, a percussion idiophone. Tuned tubes that are struck on the floor
  • Stand tom → Tomtom. Cylinder drum as part of a drum set
  • Steel guitar → pedal steel guitar, two horizontally arranged guitar fingerboards are partly controlled via pedals. Mainly played in country music
  • Steel pan, also known as steel drum, a percussion idiophone from Trinidad. Tuned tin pots
  • Bridge harp, also harp lute, especially common in West Africa stringed instruments. Example: Kora
  • Stone flute, prehistoric flutes, made from stones
  • Stone clarinet, clarinet developed by Friedrich Stein in the 1930s
  • Steinklinger → Lithophone. Idiophone made of stone. Example: the Chinese sound stone game made from tuned ringing stones
  • Cane flute, also csakan, recorder built into a walking stick in the 19th century
  • Stick violin, a fun instrument at the end of the 18th century. The violin bow is hidden in the hollow of a walking stick and was taken out to bow the strings in nature. A somewhat more similar instrument to the violin was the traveling violin
  • Stössel lute, a plucked instrumentwhich is played over the edge of the forehead
  • Stop trumpet, forerunner of today’s valve trumpet. Bow-shaped, only in use from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century
  • String guitar → Arpeggione. Invented in 1823 string instrument in the tuning of a guitar
  • String glockenspiel, a glockenspiel whose metal plates are struck with a bow
  • String piano, a keyboard instrument whose strings are bowed via a mechanism
  • bowed psaltery, a psaltery whose strings are bowed
  • String reed, a simple practice instrument made from a bamboo/wood reed with four strings that can be bowed
  • String zither, zither developed in the 19th century with a reduced number of strings that could be bowed
  • Strohfiedel, a glockenspiel used in alpine folk music with wooden sticks that are struck with clappers
  • Straw violin, an experimental violin developed around 1900, which has a metal bell instead of a resonating body
  • Mute violin, electrically amplified violin without sound box
  • Subharchord, electronic musical instrument developed in Germany in the 1950s
  • Subcontrabass, rare, very low tuning of a saxophone, clarinet, tuba, bassoon or recorder
  • Sueng, plucked box lute in northern Thai folk music
  • Suka, string lute in Polish folk music
  • Suling, bamboo flutes used in various musical styles in Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines
  • Sumagoto → Ichigenkin, one-stringed board zither in Japan
  • Sumpotan, simple mouth organ made from a calabash with bamboo pipes in North Borneo
  • Sun harp → Bandura, a Bulgarian zither
  • Suona, Chinese woodwind instrument with double reed and wide bell
  • Surbahar, North Indian lower tuned sitar
  • Surdo, Brazilian snare drum, bigger and deeper sounding than the Caixa
  • Šurle, wooden double clarinet from Istria
  • Surna → Zurna, Turkish cone oboe
  • Surpava, vertically held transverse flute blown in the middle. Rarely played in the folk music of the Indian state of Maharashtra
  • Sursingar, Indian lute instrument in the 19th century, mixture of rubab, rudravina and sarod
  • Susap, bamboo frame jew’s harp in Melanesia
  • Swae, Thai basin
  • Swarmandal, also known as surmandal, zither-like drone instrument for vocal accompaniment in North Indian music
  • Svirka, Bulgarian shepherd’s flute
  • Sybyzgy, a shepherd’s flute in Kazakhstan
  • Symphonetta, type of chromatic bandoneon developed in Hamburg at the end of the 19th century
  • Synclavier, electronic sound generator developed in the mid-1970s on the basis of a synthesizer
  • Synthesizer, instrument for electronic sound generation
  • Synthophone, an alto saxophone with electronic sound modification
  • Syrinx → panpipes, a group of interconnected longitudinal flutes
  • Tabl, also known as tabil, generally a dubious barrel drum in Arabic music. In Egyptian folk music tabl baladi, instead of sticks played with leather strips tabl migri. Turkish davul
  • Tabla, set of two hand timpani played in North Indian music
  • Tabla tarang, tuned tablas set up in a circle. Rare melody instrument in North Indian music
  • Tabor, historical cylinder drum in Western Europe, which was played by a musician together with a one-handed flute
  • Taegŭm, also Daegeum or Tae Keum, long bamboo transverse flute in Korean music
  • Taepyeongso, Korean woodwind instrument with double reed of the surnai type. Played outdoors
  • Table piano, a form of fortepiano with horizontal strings that was widespread in the 19th century
  • Taganing, series of five tuned drums in the ritual music of the Batak people on the island of Sumatra
  • Tahardent, also Teharden, three-stringed plucked lute among the Tuareg
  • Taiko, large Japanese barrel drum with nailed-on heads
  • Taille de violon, “tenor violin”. Historical European string instrument string instrument
  • Taille d’hautbois → Baroque oboe. Oboe developed in the 17th century
  • Taishōgoto, Japanese box zither whose strings are shortened using a keyboard similar to a typewriter
  • Takhe, the “crocodile” zither played in Thai and Cambodian music
  • Talempong, row of Minangkabau humpback gongs in Sumatra
  • Talerbecken, a noise instrument played in eastern Switzerland. A bowl is set in motion so that a five-franc coin rolls in a circle without falling to the bottom of the bowl.
  • Talharpa, lyre bowed with a bow in Estonia
  • Talotpot, Thai drum
  • Tamborim, small Brazilian frame drum used in samba music
  • Tambura, plucked long-necked lute played in the Balkans
  • Tambura → Tanbura a lyre played in Sudan, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula
  • Tamburica, long-necked lute played in Croatia, similar to the tambura
  • Tambourine, also known as tamborí or tamburi. Single-headed frame drum with and without a bell rim
  • Tamtam, Southeast Asian, plate-shaped metal gong that is struck with a clapper
  • Tamur, two-stringed long-necked lute with a narrow, trapezoidal body in Dagestan
  • Tanbur, three-stringed Persian long-necked lute
  • Tanbura, also known as kisir in Sudan, a lyre played in Sudan, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula
  • Tanburo, five-stringed long-necked lute in the Pakistani province of Sindh
  • Tandura, long-necked lute with four to five strings in the north Indian state of Rajasthan
  • Tangent piano, a historical grand piano. An intermediate form of fortepiano and harpsichord
  • Tangmuri, woodwind instrument with double reed and conical bell of the Khasi people in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya
  • Tang-p’iri → Piri. Double-reed woodwind instrument used to play Chinese music in Korea
  • Tanpura, Indian long-necked lute used as a drone instrument
  • Dancing bear, self-playing accordion
  • Dancing master violin, also known as a pochette. Historic, narrow and thin-sounding violin
  • Tapan, also tupan, dubious frame drum beaten with sticks in the Balkans, related to the Turkish davul
  • Taphon, also tapone, Thai, two-barrel drum that is beaten with the hands
  • Tárogató, single-reed instrument in Hungary, developed at the end of the 19th century from the double-reed instrument Töröksíp, also called Tárogató
  • Tar, a Central Asian long-necked lute with a double resonating body covered with parchment, specializing in Persian classical music
  • Tar, Arabic and Turkish frame drum. A tambourine without jingles
  • Tarawangsa, a popular West Javanese (Sundanese) bowed lute, which is usually played together with the seven-stringed zither Jentreng. Two to three strings with a wooden top, musical style of the same name
  • Tarol → Caixa. Two-fingered frame drum beaten with sticks in popular Brazilian music, corresponds to the snare drum
  • Tarompet, West Javanese (Sundanese) double-reed instrument, corresponds to the East Javanese selompret
  • Tarpu, single reed instrument made from calabashes and bamboo tubes in rural areas of the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra
  • Tartölt, a tendril in the shape of a dragon
  • Pocket trumpet, compact design trumpet
  • Keyboard harmonica, a glass harmonica with a keyboard, developed at the end of the 18th century
  • Keyboard cittern, cittern (box-necked lute) built in London at the end of the 18th century, whose strings were not plucked but struck with a hammer mechanism “to protect ladies’ hands”.
  • Keyboard guitar, imitation of the keyboard cittern
  • Keyboard xylophone, a xylophone whose wooden plates were struck via a keyboard. First appeared in 1650
  • Taus → Mayuri vina, a bow-painted vina in India whose body is shaped like a peacock
  • Tautirut, historical string instrument of the Inuit (Eskimo) in northeastern Canada
  • Tavil, South Indian double skin drum
  • Tayaw, violin in the music of Myanmar
  • Tayuc, no longer in use North Indian string instrument string instrument. Similar to an esraj, but played horizontally and with a peacock figure on one side
  • T’bol, also T’bal, various cylinder drums in the Maghreb and a kettle drum in Mauritania and among the Saharawis
  • Tekerőlant, a hurdy-gurdy in Hungary
  • Tendé, mortar drum among the Tuareg
  • Tenora, Catalan woodwind instrument with double reed, similar to a shawm
  • Tenori-on, electronic musical instrument that is tapped via LED buttons
  • Tenor horn, a bugle. Brass instrument with three or four valves
  • Tenor trombone, the most common type of trombone
  • Tenor saxophone, a saxophone in the medium-low register
  • Tenor viola, violin played in the Baroque period, tuned a fifth lower
  • Tenor zinc, a certain tuning of the zinc in a slightly curved form
  • Teponaztli, was a slit drum that was beaten by the Aztecs during rituals
  • Terpodion, keyboard instrument based on the principle of the glass harmonica
  • Terza di chitarra a battente → Chitarra battente, which is tuned a third higher. Southern Italian lute instrument
  • Terzzither, a percussion zither. Rare zither tuned a third higher
  • Devil’s violin, also known as bumbass or beggar’s violin, a percussion and noise instrument used in carnival processions and similar events
  • Thali, flat gong, round tin plate beaten with sticks with a bent edge in Indian folk music
  • Theorbo, lute with extended neck and second pegbox for long bass strings
  • Theremina contactless electronic musical instrument, electronic musical instrument, 1919 by Leon Theremin invented
  • Thiambioli → Mantoura, reed pipe on Crete
  • Timila, dubious hourglass drum in South Indian Hindu temple music
  • Tingtelia → Pena, one-stringed bowed lute of the Nagas in northeast India
  • Third bridge guitar, guitar or zither with additional electronically generated overtones
  • Thunder drum, effect or noise instrument that produces thunder rolls when shaken
  • Thunderbodhran → bodhrán, Irish frame drum
  • Thuringian zither → regional variant of the zither
  • Tiba, also known as shepherd’s horn, Swiss natural trumpet made of wood, shorter than the alphorn
  • Tibetan cymbal → Tingsha, Tibetan hand cymbal
  • Tibetan long horn → Dung Chen. A long Tibetan wind instrumentwhich belongs to the Tibetan Buddhist ritual instruments called Dung
  • Tible, Catalan woodwind instrument with double reed, similar to a tenora
  • Tidinit, long-necked lute in Mauritania and Western Sahara
  • Tiebel violin → straw violin. Experimental violin developed around 1900 that has a metal bell instead of a resonating body
  • Tifa, single-headed, mostly cup-shaped wooden drum on the Moluccas, which belong to Indonesia
    Kundu, single-headed hourglass-shaped wooden drum on New Guinea
  • Tiktiri → rare name for pungi. Single reed instrument of the Indian snake charmers
  • Tilincă, end-blown overtone flute without finger holes in Romania and Moldavia
  • Timba, Brazilian hand drum
  • Timbales, pair of timpani in popular Caribbean music
  • Timbrh, a lamellophone with lamellae made from palm leaf ribs in Cameroon
  • Timpani → kettledrum
  • Tin whistle, also known as penny whistle. Simple Irish flute
  • Tingsha, Tibetan hand cymbal
  • Table drum, circular table frame covered with a membrane, practice percussion instrument
  • Table xylophone, xylophone with large wooden plates for practicing purposes
  • Titti → Mashak, South Indian bagpipe with only one drone pipe
  • Tobă, also Dubă, dubious cylinder drum in Romania
  • Tof, general term for a drum in the ancient Near East, especially in the Old Testament for a frame drum
  • Toka, also Tokka, fork-shaped bamboo rattles in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam
  • Tom, shell egg of the Shilluk in South Sudan
  • Tombak, also Zarb. Persian goblet-shaped hand drum
  • Tomtom, cylinder drum in the drum kit
  • Tonkori, five-stringed slender zither made from a block of Ainu wood on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō. Held vertically while playing
  • Torban, special form of an archlute in the Ukraine
  • Töröksíp, historical double-reed instrument (cone oboe) in Hungary
  • Tournebout, old French name for crumhorn, a curved woodwind instrument with a double reed
  • Toy piano → Children’s piano, toy piano
  • Trautonium, forerunner of the synthesizer, developed in 1930
  • Transverse flute → Transverse flute
  • Trembita, about three meters long wooden natural trumpet of the Hutsuls in the Carpathians
  • Tres, Cuban plucked string instrument similar to a guitar plucked instrument
  • Treshchotka, counterblow rattle in Russia
  • Triangle, high-sounding percussion idiophone
  • Tricca-balacca, a rattle with three wooden hammers from Italy
  • Funnel violin → straw violin. Experimental violin developed around 1900 that has a metal bell instead of a resonating body
  • Trikitixa, a diatonic accordion in the Basque Country
  • Whistle, signaling instrument with shrill sound
  • Trikitixa, Basque diatonic accordion
  • Trough xylophone → a xylophone with resonance box
  • Tromba → natural trumpet, a trumpet without valves, in its simplest form a snail horn
  • Trombino, around 1600 Italian name for the alto trombone
  • Trombola → Jew’s harp. Also doromb, tromba, crembalum
  • trumpet, high brass instrument with and without valves
  • Trumpel → Jew’s harp
  • Trumscheit, also nun’s violin, Marian trumpet. Historical stringed instrument with one string
  • Trutruca, two to three meter long, straight natural trumpet of the Mapuche in Chile, with a cow horn as bell
  • Tsambouna, Greek bagpipe without drone pipe
  • Tsanatsel, Ethiopian hand rattle, similar to a sistrum
  • Tschang, also Chang, historical Persian angular harp
  • Tschangi, angular harp in the Svaneti region in northwest Georgia
  • Tschianuri → Tschuniri, two-stringed bowed long-necked lute in Georgia
  • Chiboni, also Chiboni, sack arrows in the Georgian Republic of Adjara
  • Tschinellen → paired basins, two small basins that are knocked together
  • Tsimbl → cymbal, large Hungarian dulcimer with damper pedal
  • Chonguri, plucked four-string long-necked lute with pear-shaped body in Georgia
  • Chuniri, three-stringed bowed long-necked lute in the Georgian mountain region of Svaneti
  • Tsouras, Greek long-necked lute, similar to the bouzouki
  • Tsuur, end-blown flute with three finger holes in western Mongolia
  • Tsuzumi, Japanese hourglass drum, played with hands
  • Ttun-ttun, Basque name for:
  • Drum Danbolin, also known as Tabor
  • Tambourin de Béarn, also known as a string tambourine, a box zither
  • Tubatuba for short, the lowest sounding brass brass instrument
  • Tubaphone, a glockenspiel with metal tubes instead of metal plates
  • Tubular bells → tubular bells, also known as campane tubolari. Tuned idiophonic metal tubes in a row
  • Tüidük, also tüydük, end-blown flute of the Turkmen in Central Asia
  • Tuila, a music stick with a calabash in the Indian state of Orissa, similar to the pike lute ektara
  • Tulak, also known as tula, transverse flutes or recorders in Central Asia and Afghanistan
  • Tulum, Turkish and Greek bagpipe
  • Tumbadora, Cuban name for the conga, a standing hand drum from Africa
  • Tumbi, North Indian one-stringed plucked string instrumentused in bhangra music
  • Tumbura → Tambura, a lyre played in Sudan and in Arab countries in the Persian Gulf
  • Tumpong, longitudinal bamboo flute on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao
  • Tupan → Tapan, dubious frame drum in the Balkans, related to the Turkish davul
  • Turburi, small clay drum of the Muria (Adivasi) in the central Indian district of Bastar
  • Turi, also Tutari, Turiya, Nagpheni → Kombu, semi-circular curved or S-shaped metal trumpet in North Indian processional music
  • Türmerhorn, historical signaling instrument, blown from the town tower trumpet made of metal
  • Tutek → Tulak, beak flute in Azerbaijan
  • Tuttivox, an electronic organ developed by Harald Bode in the 1950s
  • Tympani → kettledrum
  • Tympanum, ancient Greek frame drum
  • Typophone, an idiophone developed in the middle of the 19th century with a keyboard similar to a celesta
  • Txalaparta played in Basque music, a percussion idiophone made from bar-shaped tonewoods
  • Ud → Oud, Arabic short-necked lute
  • Udu, African vessel drum made from a clay vase
  • Uilleann Pipes, Irish bagpipes
  • ʻŪkēkē, music stick amplified with the mouth in Hawaii
  • Ukulele, small, four-string guitar from Hawaii
  • Ulimba → Valimba, xylophone the Sena in the south of Malawi
  • Umqangala, a Zulu mouth bow in South Africa
  • Umrubhe, mouth bow struck with a stick by the Xhosa in South Africa
  • Umuduri, a music bow with calabash resonator in Rwanda
  • Union Pipe → Uilleann Pipes, Irish bagpipes
  • Vaji → Waji, rare bow harp in the north-eastern Afghan province of Nuristan
  • Valiha, Malagasy tube zither made of bamboo, the strings are idioglott, i.e. cut out of the bamboo tube
  • Valimba, Sena xylophone in the south of Malawi
  • Valve trombone → Trombone
  • Verillon, the simplest glass game. Drinking glasses are filled with water to different heights and sticks are used to hit them
  • Verrophone, the simplest form of a glass harmonica. Glasses/glass tubes filled with water are touched with a wet finger
  • Vibraphone, a xylophone with metal plates and tuned resonance tubes suspended underneath
  • Vibraslap, indirectly struck idiophone with wooden resonating body and movable (rattling) steel pins, modern form of the → quijada
  • Cattle bell → cowbell, trychel; a forged clapper bell
  • Vielle à Roue → French for hurdy-gurdy. String instrument with crank mechanism
  • Vihuela, soft-sounding Spanish precursor to the guitar from the 16th century
  • Vina, group of the oldest Indian stringed instruments as bowed harps and lute instruments. Today mainly in South India the Saraswati Vina, rarely in North India the Rudra Vina
  • Viola → Viola, low-pitched form of the violin
  • Viol de Braz → Violino piccolo. Historic violin sounding a third or fourth higher
  • Viola bastarda, historical bass string instrument
  • Viola d’amore, historical string instrument similar to a viola
  • Viola bassa, a historical string instrument, slightly larger than a violoncello
  • Viola da braccio, family of string instruments in violin form, specifically also a name for the viola
  • Viola da gamba, also viole, knee violin, family of historical string instruments from treble to bass, all held between the legs
  • Viola da spala, also known as shoulder viola, a historical bass violin that was hung horizontally from a shoulder strap while playing
  • Violetta marina, string instrument invented in England at the beginning of the 18th century, identical or similar to a viola d’amore
  • Viola pomposa, a viola with five strings used in the 18th century
  • Violetta piccola, the highest sounding viola da gamba
  • violinviolin, string instrument
  • Violino harmonica, rare nail violin played at the end of the 18th century
  • Violino piccolo, variant of a violin tuned a third or fourth higher
  • Violino pomposo → Viola pomposa, a viola with five strings used in the 18th century
  • Violinophone → straw violin. Experimental violin developed around 1900, which has a metal bell instead of a resonating body
  • Violin zither, string instrument in which each note has its own string
  • Violoncellolarger violin instrument, played sitting down and held between the knees
  • Violoncello piccolo, rare violin instrument in the 18th century
  • Violoncello guitar → Arpeggione, combination of cello and guitar invented in Vienna in 1823
  • Violone, historical string instrument from the viola da gamba group
  • Violophone, Violinophone → Straw violin
  • Violotta, a tenor viola, a string instrument that disappeared in the 18th century
  • Virginal, type of harpsichord, with strings running parallel to the keyboard
  • Voice Flute → recorder in D developed by Peter Bressan (around 1658-1731)
  • Vuvuzela, an African wind wind instrument especially for soccer supporters and demonstrators
  • Wadaiko → Taiko. Large, standing, Japanese barrel drum
  • Wagner tuba, Brass instrument from the French horn family
  • Wagon, six-string Japanese arched board zither with movable bridges
  • Waji, also known as vaji, rare bowed harp in the north-eastern Afghan province of Nuristan, similar to the Burmese saung gauk
  • French horn, brass instrument with narrow bore
  • French horn tuba → Tuba
  • Wood devil → Growler
  • Forest zither, a cittern, belongs to the box-necked lute family
  • Roller piano, self-playing piano manufactured from the middle of the 19th century with a wooden pin roller
  • Wasamba, wooden hand rattle from West Africa, similar to the sistrum
  • Washboard, actually a tool for hand washing, used as a rhythm instrument
  • Washint, end-blown bamboo flute in Ethiopia
  • Water flute, whistle at the spout of the tea kettle. As a musical instrument: a pipe filled with water with an inner tube into which you blow
  • Water Jew’s harp → Jew’s harp, small instrument with a piercing tongue that is played with the mouth
  • Water drum, 1) hollow bodies floating on the water surface, 2) tubes rammed on the water surface, 3) drums partially filled with water
  • Waterphone, atonal friction idiophone, invented in 1967. Mixture of lamellophone and nail violin
  • Waza, a natural trumpet made from calabashes by the Berta people on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia
  • Acoustic guitar → Acoustic guitar – Folk and acoustic guitar
  • Wimmer organ, a barrel organ (hurdy-gurdy) that produces an interrupted sound, i.e. a tremolo
  • Wind harp, harp-like instrument played with air stringed instrument
  • Angle harp → Harp, a plucked instrumentin which the strings extend vertically from the soundboard
  • Arched-board zither, Asian family of zithers with a curved sound box, e.g. the Chinese guzheng, the Japanese koto or the Korean gayageum
  • Wonder flute → nose flute, flutes blown with the nose
  • Xalam, five-stringed inland spit lute of the Wolof in Senegal
  • Xaphoon, an easy-to-play single reed instrument made of bamboo or plastic, developed in 1976
  • Xarana, also Jarana. Small Mexican guitar
  • Xeremia, 1) doubled pipe in Ibiza
  • Xeremia, 2) Bagpipe on the Balearic Islands
  • Xindi, Chinese bamboo transverse flute similar to the dizi
  • Xun, ancient Chinese vessel flute
  • Xylharmonicon, a bowed-string instrument developed at the beginning of the 19th century with wooden bars and a bowed roller
  • Xylomarimba, concert xylophone with extended lower range
  • Xylophone, mallet instrument with sounding wooden plates (percussion instrument)
  • Xylorimba → Xylomarimba
  • Yal → Yazh, historical South Indian bow harp
  • Yangqin, Chinese trapezoidal dulcimer
  • Yatga, Mongolian arched board zither
  • Yaybahar, an effect instrument developed by Görkem Şen consisting of oscillating springs and resonating heads
  • Yayli tanbur, bowed Turkish long-necked lute
  • Yazh, historical bowed harp in South India, which was played by Tamils in the 1st millennium AD. Chr. was played by Tamils
  • Yidaki → Didgeridoo, Australian woodwind instrument
  • Yongzhong, also Zhong, historical Chinese bell type made of bronze
  • Yua, also known as Wia, small fission flute in northern Ghana
  • Yueqin, moon guitar, plucked lute in classical Chinese music
  • Zabumba, flat Brazilian bass drum
  • Zambomba → humming pot, medieval drum that is played by rubbing
  • Zampogna, a large Italian bagpipe
  • Zampoña, South American panpipe
  • Zamr → Midschwiz, woodwind instrument with a double reed from the Middle East
  • Żaqq, a Maltese bagpipe
  • Zarb → Tombak, Persian hand drum
  • Zerbaghali, goblet-shaped hand drum in Afghanistan
  • Zeze (lute instrument), bowl lute in Tanzania
  • Zeze (zither), also sese, single or multi-stringed flat zither in East Africa
  • Zheng → Guzheng, Chinese arched-board zither in the classical tradition
  • Accordion, hand-pulled instrument with a piercing reed
  • Zil, a pair cymbal, also known as a cymbal, in the military music of the Ottoman Empire and today’s Turkish popular music
  • Zilli Maşa, a special, forked form of the Turkish zil, a cymbal that belongs to the forked cymbals
  • Cymbal, 1) hand cymbals or finger cymbals: small paired cymbals. 2) an organ stop
  • Tingsha, a Tibetan hand cymbal
    Crotales, row of flat cymbals on stands
  • Zimbelstern, a mechanical mechanism with bells on organs
  • Zinc, historical brass instrumentmostly made of wood
  • Tin whistle, Irish flute
  • Cistern, plucked instrument
  • Zither, traditional multi-stringed plucked instrument of the Alpine countries
  • Złóbcoki, three- to four-stringed narrow fiddle in the folk music of the Podhale region of southern Poland
  • Slide trombone, Brass instrument with an extendable tube instead of valves
  • Slide trumpet, historical trumpet with chromatic tuning
  • Tongue piano, music box
  • Plucked drum, especially the one-stringed ektara (gopi yantra) in North Indian folk music
  • Zurna, Turkish cone oboe, belongs to the Asian surnais
  • Dwarf whistle, drum whistle, valveless transverse flute
  • Zwitscherharfe, also called pointed harp. A form of upright harp
  • Zumari → Nzumari, conical double-reed instrument on the East African coast
  • Cymbal, an Eastern European dulcimer