Scribd
Upload
9 views33 pages

Types of Musical Instruments Explained

Musical instruments are categorized into four main families: winds, strings, percussion, and electric, with a classification system developed by Erich Hornbostel and Curt Sachs. Each family includes various types, such as idiophones, membranophones, and chordophones, which produce sound through different methods like vibration, striking, or plucking. Additionally, modern electrophones generate sound through electrical means, further diversifying the range of musical instruments available.

Translated by

ScribdTranslations
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
9 views33 pages

Types of Musical Instruments Explained

Musical instruments are categorized into four main families: winds, strings, percussion, and electric, with a classification system developed by Erich Hornbostel and Curt Sachs. Each family includes various types, such as idiophones, membranophones, and chordophones, which produce sound through different methods like vibration, striking, or plucking. Additionally, modern electrophones generate sound through electrical means, further diversifying the range of musical instruments available.

Translated by

ScribdTranslations
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Instruments

Musicals
Musical Instruments

A musical instrument is an object made of


a system that allows it to vibrate and likewise
amplify the sound generated to produce music,
leaving its interpretation in the hands of the
called musicians who through hard work
study achieve the necessary technical level to
interpret those instruments.
Musical Instruments

Musical instruments are often


classified into four types of families: winds,
strings, percussion, and recently electric. Erich
Hornbostel and Curt Sachs designed in 1914 a
classification system based on qualities
physical properties of each instrument.
Musical Instruments
Idiophones

Idiophones are instruments in which the sound


generated comes from a solid body. The
Idiophones are classified according to the way they
they produce vibrations: clashing,
struck, shaken, scraped, rubbed and
dotted.
Musical Instruments
Idiophones
a) Colliding: They are the instruments that are
made up of two similar parts that
collide with each other. Such as the Keys, Dishes,
Castanets among others.

Keys Dishes Castanets


Musical Instruments
Idiophones
b) Struck: They are the instruments that produce
its sound through the use of a striker
(drumsticks) over the body of it, existing
tempered and untempered. Such as the
triangle, the xylophone, Chinese box, among others.

Triangle Xylophone Chinese Box


Musical Instruments
Idiophones
c) Shaken: They are the instruments that need to
shake to produce sound. Such as, the
maracas, the jingler, the tambourine, among others.

Maracas Rattlesnake Tambourine


Musical Instruments
Idiophones
d) Scrapers: They are the instruments that possess some
notches that produce their sound when being
shavings with a pitchfork made of wood and/or
wires, like the güiro or the guacharaca.

Guiro Guacharaca
Musical Instruments
Idiophones
e) Rubbed: They are the instruments which are
frotan to produce sounds. Such as the
water glasses, crystal harmonica, the saw
among others.

Water glasses Saw Glass Harmonica


Musical Instruments
Idiophones
f) Dotted: They are the instruments that produce
its sound through the pulsation of a
tongue with the fingers, like the mouth harp.

The Jaw Harp


Musical Instruments
2. Membranophones

Membranophones produce their sound by


medium of the vibration of a tense membrane
(patch) that can be made of leather or material
synthetic. This vibration is generated by the use
by hand, with sticks (wooden chopsticks) or
metal brushes.
Musical Instruments
2. Membranophones
The membranophones can have a
membranes like the tambourine, the congas or the
bongos, and two membranes at its ends like the
tambora, the bass drum, the snare drum, among others.

Congas Bongos Bomb Snare drum


Musical Instruments
3. Bowed String Instruments

They are the instruments that have a series of


tensed strings and obtain their sound through
from the rubbing of them when using a rod
called an arch. This arch is generally
built of wood, although they are now made with
synthetic materials and in all their extent has
a ribbon with horsehair.
Musical Instruments
3. Bowed String Instruments

The bowed chordophones


they have the particularity
to be touched as well
en forma percutida
(hit with the bow the
strings) or in the form
pressed (to touch the)
strings with the fingers).
Musical Instruments
3. Bowed String Instruments

Violin Viola Hello Double bass


Musical Instruments
4. Plucked Chordophones

They are the instruments that have a series of


tensioned strings that produce their sound through the
pulsation of said strings by means of the
fingers, nails, straws or systems with spines,
whose amplification occurs through a box of
resonance.
Musical Instruments
4. Plucked Chordophones
Plucked chordophones can be classified into:
a) Without mast or keyboard.

Barley Lira Cithara


Musical Instruments
4. Plucked Chordophones
b) Without a mast but with a keyboard.

harpsichord Espineta Virginal


Musical Instruments
4. Plucked Chordophones
c) With mast perosin frets.

Arabic lute kora


Musical Instruments
4. Strummed Chordophones
d) With mast and frets.

Acoustic guitar Banjo Ukulele


Musical Instruments
5. Struck Chordophones

They are the instruments whose sound is generated


by means of a felt-covered mallet that
strikes on some tensioned strings or in the case
from the family of stringed instruments played with a bow
of the arch.
Musical Instruments
5. Struck Chordophones
There are various instruments in this family that
they are interpreted manually as the
cymbal or the dulcimer, as well as by a system
of levers such as the piano.

Cymbal Dulcémele Piano


Musical Instruments
6. Mouthpieces Aerophones
They are the instruments that are
they build with a tube of
metal that can be bent or
curved, and that have a
mouthpiece based on a
nozzle shaped like a cup
(funnel) that generates the
sound through vibration
from the lips against the mouthpiece.
Musical Instruments
6. Mouthpiece Aerophones
The brass instruments that have a mouthpiece
son:

Trumpet French Horn Trombone Baritone Tuba


Musical Instruments
7. Reed Aerophones

They are the musical instruments that produce


sound through the vibration of the contained air
inside a tube by means of one or two
tongues made of a sheet of fine cane and
flexible.
Musical Instruments
7. Reed Aerophones
a) Single reed aerophones: they have a
tongue that is located in the lateral opening of the
nozzle, adjusting by means of a ring
metallic, like the clarinet and the saxophone.

Partes Embocadura Tongues Clarinet Saxophone Mouthpiece


Musical Instruments
7. Reed Instruments
b) Reed aerophones
double: they have a tube
metallic called tudel that
is fitted to a base of
cork, in that tube it
between two very thin sheets Tongues
of cane and it is fixed Doubles
firmly in the part
superior of the instrument. Oboe Contrabassoon
Musical Instruments
8. Reed Aerophones
They are the instruments that
they produce the sound
when the air collides in
an oblique cut located
at the mouth of the
instrument like the
recorder, the flute
cross, the pan flute, the
quena, among others. Transverse Flute Quena
Musical Instruments
9. Mixed Aerophones
They are the instruments of
wind that have a
combination of systems
for the generation of
sound, like the keyboard and
the pipes for the organ
or the keyboard and the
Accordion
tongues for the
accordion Organ
Musical Instruments
10. Electrophones

They are the most modern musical instruments and


that generate their sound through electricity,
it being necessary to use components
electric to generate, amplify and emit the
sound. Electrophones can be divided
electromechanical and electronic.
Musical Instruments
10. Electrophones
a) Electromechanical: These are the instruments whose
vibration is produced and controlled by physical means,
like the plucking of the strings with the hand
metal parts of an electric guitar. A pickup
(colloquially called a pill) is responsible for
convert mechanical vibration into an impulse
electrical, amplifying it through electronic means and
emitting it through an electroacoustic transducer
(loudspeaker.)
Musical Instruments
10. Electrophones
a) Electromechanical:

Electric Guitar

Electric Bass Electric Violin


Musical Instruments
10. Electrophonic devices
a) Electronics: They are the instruments that in their great
most are controlled by a keyboard and that
they generate their sound using only mediums
electronics. These instruments use oscillators
to generate acoustic signals which when
combining them allows for the generation of different timbres.

You might also like