Musical instrument facts for kids

Baroque mounted Jacob Stainer violin from 1658

An Indonesian metallophone

Musical instruments are things used to make music. Anything that somehow produces sound can be considered a musical instrument, but the term generally means items that are specifically for making music.

Musical instruments can be divided by type into:

• strings (plucked or bowed)
• woodwind
• brass
• percussion
• keyboard instruments

An orchestra has instruments from four families:

• bowed string instruments (e.g. violin)
• woodwind (e.g. flute)
• brass (e.g. trumpet)
• percussion (e.g. drums)

Some people think that the voice is a "natural musical instrument" because singing is a way to make music without any instrument at all.

Construction

African music instrument made from a food can

The materials used in making musical instruments vary greatly by culture and application. Many of the materials have special significance owing to their source or rarity. Some cultures worked substances from the human body into their instruments. In ancient Mexico, for example, the material drums were made from might contain actual human body parts obtained from sacrificial offerings. In New Guinea, drum makers would mix human blood into the adhesive used to attach the membrane. Mulberry trees are held in high regard in China owing to their mythological significance—instrument makers would hence use them to make zithers. The Yakuts believe that making drums from trees struck by lightning gives them a special connection to nature.

Musical instrument construction is a specialized trade that requires years of training, practice, and sometimes an apprenticeship.

User interfaces

A Glockenspiel

Regardless of how the sound in an instrument is produced, many musical instruments have a keyboard as the user-interface. Keyboard instruments are any instruments that are played with a musical keyboard. Every key generates one or more sounds; most keyboard instruments have extra means (pedals for a piano, stops and a pedal keyboard for an organ) to manipulate these sounds.

They may produce sound by wind being fanned (organ) or pumped (accordion), vibrating strings either hammered (piano) or plucked (harpsichord), by electronic means (synthesizer), or in some other way.

Sometimes, instruments that do not usually have a keyboard, such as the glockenspiel, are fitted with one. Though they have no moving parts and are struck by mallets held in the player's hands, they have the same physical arrangement of keys and produce soundwaves in a similar manner. The theremin, an electrophone, is played without physical contact by the player.

Images for kids

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  Anne Vallayer-Coster, Attributes of Music, 1770. This still life painting depicts a variety of French Baroque musical instruments, such as a natural horn, transverse flute, musette, pardessus de viole, and lute.

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  Found in Slovenia, the Divje Babe Flute is sometimes considered the world's oldest known musical instrument

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  Guitar (molo)

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  Ancient Egyptian tomb painting depicting lute players, 18th Dynasty (c. 1350 BC)

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  The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei

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  Carnyx discovered in Tintignac

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  The Alboka has a double-reed that vibrates when blown on the small tube. The tubes regulates the melody and the big horn amplifies the sound.

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  The Duet, by Dutch painter Cornelis Saftleven, c. 1635. It shows a violinist and a cittern player.

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  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart plays the keyboard while his father, Leopold Mozart, plays violin.

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  Early Fender brand electric guitars

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  A 1975 Moog Modular 55 synthesizer

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  Two five string Finnish kanteles. Shape of the upper kantele is more traditional, while the one for kantele below is slightly modernised

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  The five-manual, 522-stop detached console at the United States Naval Academy Chapel crafted by R. A. Colby, Inc.

See also

In Spanish: Instrumento musical para niños