| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accordion |  | North America | The accordion is played by compressing and expanding the bellows, while pressing buttons or keys to allow air to flow across reeds, thereby producing tones and chords. The accordion's basic form was invented in Berlin in 1822 by Friedrich Buschmann. Various types include piano and button keyboards, and chromatic and diatonic tunings. Accordions are played worldwide, being especially popular in North America. |
| Acoustic Bass Guitar |  | United States | The acoustic bass guitar (also called ABG or acoustic bass) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. The first modern acoustic bass guitar was developed in the early 1960s by Ernie Ball of San Luis Obispo, California. Ball's aim was to provide bass guitarists with a more acoustic-sounding instrument that would match better with the sound of acoustic guitars. |
| Adungu |  | Uganda | The adungu is a 9-string or 10-string arched harp of the Alur people of northwestern Uganda. The adungu may be played alone (in which case the soloist often sings as they play the adungu) or in an ensemble. The adungu is one of many arched harps found in sub-Saharan Africa. The adungu may be played for diverse purposes including personal pleasure, nightclub and concert music, therapy of the mentally ill, and Christian worship. |
| Agogo |  | Nigeria | An agogô (meaning gong or bell in Yoruba) is a single or multiple bell now used throughout the world but with origins in traditional Yoruba music and also in the samba baterias (percussion ensembles). The agogô may be the oldest samba instrument and was based on West African Yoruba single or double bells. The agogô has the highest pitch of any of the batería instruments. |
| Agung |  | Philippines | The agung is a Philippine set of two, wide-rimmed, vertically-suspended gongs used by the Maguindanao, Maranao and Tausug as a supportive instrument in their kulintang ensemble. The agung is also ubiquitous among other groups found in Mindanao, Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan as an integral part of their agung orchestra. |
| Agung a Tamlang |  | Philippines | The Agung a Tamlang is a type of Philippine slit drum made of hollowed out bamboo in imitation of the real agung. Pitch is determined by the length and depth of the slit. The agung a tamlang is used as practice for the real agung: players either use either one agung a tamlang (hold it with one hand and using the other to strike it with a beater) or using two agung a tamlangs where the other agung is held with one’s feet. |
| Ajaeng |  | Korea | The ajaeng is a Korean string instrument. It is a long zither with seven silk strings, played by means of a long, thin stick made of forsythia wood, which is scraped against the strings in the manner of a bow. It is generally played while seated on the floor. It has a deep tone similar to that of a cello, but more raspy. |
| Akonting |  | Gambia | The akonting is the folk lute of the Jola people, found in Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. It is a banjo-like instrument with a skin-headed gourd body, two long melody strings, and one short drone string, akin to the short fifth "thumb string" on the 5-string banjo. |
| Alboka |  | Basque Country | The alboka is a double hornpipe or clarinet native to the Basque Country. It’s built out of cane, wood or animal horn. One end contains a mouthpiece made of horn with a holder for the two reeds. The other end is made of a larger horn, which acts as a resonator. |
| Alphorn |  | Switzerland | The alphorn or alpenhorn is a wind instrument, consisting of a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere. Similar wooden horns were used in most mountainous regions of Europe, from Sweden to the Romanian Carpathians. |
| Amadinda |  | Uganda | Amadinda is a log xylophone from the Ugandan kingdom of Buganda. It consists of 12 wooden bars placed on two fresh banana stems. Sticks are inserted into the stems as separators between the bars. The bars are normally made from the wood of the Lusamba tree (Markhamia plarycalyx). The amadinda (or madinda) is played by three musicians called omunazi, omwawuzi and omukoonezi, respectively. One of these sits on one side of the xylophone, the other two on the other. Different seating arrangements are possible. Amadinda is used in the courtly music of the Kabaka, the king of Buganda. |
| Angélique |  | Europe | The angélique (French, from Italian angelica) is a plucked string instrument of the lute family of the baroque era. It combines features of the lute, the harp and the theorbo. It shares the form of its pear shaped body as well as its vibrating string length of 54 to 70 cm with the lute. Differing from the lute, the 15-17 string angelica was single-strung like a theorbo, with which it shares its extended neck with a second peg box, bearing eight to ten bass strings. |
| Angklung |  | Indonesia | Angklung is a musical instrument made out of two bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved so that they have a resonant pitch when struck. The two tubes are tuned to octaves. The base of the frame is held with one hand while the other hand shakes the instrument rapidly from side to side. This causes a rapidly repeating note to sound. Thus each of three or more angklung performers in an ensemble will play just one note and together complete melodies are produced. |
| Antique Singing Bowls |  | Tibet | Traditionally, antique singing bowls were made of Panchaloga (literally meaning "five metals" in Sanskrit): an alloy of bronze, copper, tin, zinc and other metals. Antiques often include silver, gold, iron and nickel. Antique singing bowls produce multiphonic and polyharmonic overtones which are unique to the antique instruments. The subtle yet complex multiple harmonic frequencies are a special quality of the high quality bronze alloy. The art of making singing bowls in the traditional way is considered a lost art. Antique singing bowls are highly prized and collected worldwide. Their popularity is due to their fine craftsmanship and remarkable sound. |
| Appalachian Dulcimer |  | United States | The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, although contemporary versions of the instrument can have as many as twelve strings and six courses. The body extends the length of the fingerboard and traditionally has an hourglass, teardrop, triangular, or elliptical shape (also called the galax). As a folk instrument, wide variation exists in Appalachian dulcimers. A traditional way to play the instrument is to lay it flat on the lap and pluck or strum the strings with one hand, while fretting with the other. |
| Archlute |  | Europe | The archlute (Italian arciliuto, German Erzlaute, Russian Архилютня) is a European plucked string instrument developed around 1600 as a compromise between the very large theorbo, the size and re-entrant tuning of which made for difficuties in the performance of solo music, and the Renaissance tenor lute, which lacked the bass range of the theorbo. |
| Ashiko |  | Africa | An ashiko is a kind of drum shaped like a truncated cone and meant to be played with bare hands. It produces a resonant bass tone when struck in the middle, and a high tone when struck on the rim. The ashiko drum is played throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In eastern Cuba, it is known as boku and is played during carnivals and street parades called Comparsas. |
| Aslato |  | Ghana | The aslato (also known as Kashaka) is a set of two small gourds (stones inside) tying together with a string. One gourd is held in the palm and the other is swung from side to side around the hand to hit the other gourd hard. It is an incredibly versatile instrument that creates an infinite number of beats and polyrhythms. A handful of musicians are able to play two sets of aslato at the same time. |
| Atabaque |  | Brazil | The atabaque is a tall, wooden, Afro-Brazilian hand drum. The shell is made traditionally of Jacaranda wood from Brazil. The head is traditionally made from calfskin. A system of ropes are intertwined around the body, connecting a metal ring near the base to the head. Wooden wedges are jammed between this ring and the the body and one uses a hammer to tighten or loosen the ropes, raising or lowering the pitch of the drum. |
| Atenteben |  | Ghana | The atenteben is a bamboo flute from Ghana. It is played vertically, like the European recorder, and, like the recorder, can be played diatonically as well as chromatically. Although originally used as a traditional instrument (most often in funeral processions), beginning in the 20th century it has also been used in contemporary and classical music. Several players have attained high levels of virtuosity and are able to play Western as well as African music on the instrument. The instrument originated with the Akan ethnic group of south-central Ghana, particularly in the region of the Kwahu Plateau. |
| Aulochrome |  | Belgium | The aulochrome is a new woodwind instrument invented by Belgian François Louis in 2001. It consists of two soprano saxophones that can be played either separately or together. The name comes from Greek aulos (name of the most important ancient Greek instrument) and chrome (for chromatic and colored.) |
| Aulos |  | Greece | The aulos (Greek αυλός, plural αυλόι, auloi) or tibia (Latin) was an ancient Greek musical instrument. Different kinds of instruments bore the name, including a single pipe without a reed called the monaulos (μόναυλος, from μόνος "single"),and a single pipe held horizontally, as the modern flute, called the plagiaulos (πλαγίαυλος, from πλᾰγιος "sideways"), but the most common variety must have been a reed instrument. Archeological finds and other evidence indicate that it was usually double-reeded, like an oboe, although simple variants with a single clarinet reed cannot be ruled out. |
| Autoharp |  | United States | The Autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a zither. The generic term for the instrument is chorded zither. Autoharps have been used in the United States as bluegrass and folk instruments, perhaps most famously by Maybelle Carter and Sara Carter of The Carter Family. |
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