| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melodica |  | Jamaica | The melodica is a free-reed instrument similar to the accordion and harmonica. It has a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. Pressing a key opens a hole, allowing air to flow through a reed. The keyboard is usually two or three octaves long. |
| Membranophone |  | West Africa | A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. Most membranophones are drums. Hornbostel-Sachs divides drums into three main types: struck drums, where the skin is hit with a stick, the hand, or something else; string drums, where a knotted string attached to the skin is pulled, passing its vibrations onto the skin; and friction drums, where some sort of rubbing motion causes the skin to vibrate. In addition to drums, there is another kind of membranophone, called the singing membranophone, of which the best known type is the kazoo. These instruments modify a sound produced by something else, commonly the human voice, by having a skin vibrate in sympathy with it. |
| Metallophone |  | Bali | A metallophone is any musical instrument consisting of tuned metal bars which are struck to make sound, usually with a mallet. Metallophones have been used in music for hundreds of years. There are several different types used in Balinese and Javanese gamelan ensembles, including the gendér, gangsa and saron. |
| Mexican Vihuela |  | Mexico | Vihuela is the name of two different guitar-like string instruments: the historical vihuela (proper) of 16th century Spain, usually with 12 paired strings, and the modern Mexican vihuela from 20th century Mexico with five strings and typically played in Mariachi groups. While the Mexican vihuela shares the same name as an ancient Spanish plucked string instrument, the two have little to do with each other, and they are not related. The Mexican vihuela has more in common with the Timple Canario due to both having five strings and both having vaulted (convex) backs. The Mexican vihuela is a small, deep-bodied rhythm guitar built along the same lines as the guitarrón. Its five nylon strings are tuned like the first five of a guitar, but with the fourth and fifth tuned up an octave, ukulele-style. |
| Mezzo-soprano Saxophone |  | United States | The mezzo-soprano saxophone, also sometimes called the F alto saxophone, is an instrument in the saxophone family. It is in the key of F, pitched a whole step above the alto saxophone. It can be easily confused with the alto because of its similar size and sound in the low register. In the upper register, however, it is sweeter, more like a soprano. Very few of them exist today, and were only produced by one company (C. G. Conn) during two years (1928 and 1929). It is the only saxophone pitched in F, besides a few prototypes of an F baritone saxophone that was never actually manufactured. The image shows a mezzo-soprano (left) and an alto (right) saxophones. |
| Mihbaj |  | Syria | A mihbaj (Arabic: مهباج) is a traditional Bedouin implement, made of a wooden foot-tall base with a two-foot pestle, that serves both as a coffee grinder and as a percussion instrument. It is one of the few instruments used in Bedouin music. |
| Mijwiz |  | Syria | The mijwiz (Arabic: مجوز) is a traditional musical instrument of ancient Egypt and the Levant. It is a double-pipe, single-reed woodwind instrument. The mijwiz consists of two pipes of equal length, between 6 and 8 centimeters; each pipe has around five or six small holes for fingering. It requires a special technique of playing known as "circular breathing." |
| Mina |  | Venezuela | The Mina drum (Tambor Mina) is the largest of the drums that have origins in the Barlovento, Miranda region of Venezuela. They are used during the celebrations of St. John the Baptist and the Midsummer. It is a specialized form of the Cumaco drum. Its origins have been traced to the Mina civilization, which occupied what is now Benin in Africa. |
| Mišnice |  | Hungary | The mišnice (also mjeršnice) is an instrument like a bagpipe, made from goatskin. Its date of invention is unknown but it is known to have existed in Europe by the 9th century. Different forms of the instrument were found in North Africa and Eastern Europe, especially Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine. It is played by blowing into one pipe while using the fingers to cover or uncover holes in another pipe. It sounds similar to modern bagpipes, but not identical. The chanter, on which the melody is played, is actually a double pipe, with six holes on each side; one set of holes is used as the drone, while the other plays the tune in almost the same register. |
| Mizhavu |  | India | A mizhav or mizhavu is a big copper drum played as an accompanying percussion instrument in the Koodiyattam and Koothu, performing arts of Kerala (a state on the tropical Malabar Coast of southwestern India.) The drum’s mouth is covered with animal skin, and played only with hands. |
| Mizmar |  | Egypt | In Arabic music, a mizmar (Arabic: مزمار) is any single or double reed wind instrument. In Egypt mizmar usually refers to a surnay. |
| Mohan Veena |  | India | The Mohan veena is a stringed musical instrument used in Indian classical music. It is actually a modified Archtop guitar with 20 strings: three melody strings, five drone strings strung to the peghead, and twelve sympathetic strings strung to the tuners mounted on the side of the neck. A tumba or gourd is screwed into the backside of the neck for improved sound quality and vibration. It is played by placing it in one's lap like a slide guitar. |
| Moodswinger |  | Germany | The Moodswinger is a custom made string instrument. Although it closely resembles an electric guitar, it is actually a zither, as it has neither frets nor a proper neck. The pickup and electronics are built into the neck instead of in the body like usual electric guitars. In March 2006 the noiseband Liars contacted Yuri Landman to make an instrument for them. After 6 months he finished 2 copies of The Moodswinger, an electric 12-string 3rd bridge overtone zither, one for guitarist/drummer Aaron Hemphill and one for himself. |
| Moonlander |  | United States | The Moonlander is a biheaded electric guitar with 18 strings: 6 normal strings and 12 sympathetic strings. The guitar is a custom-made instrument, built in 2007 by Yuri Landman for Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth ( an American alternative rock band formed in New York City in 1981.) Although it closely resembles an electric version of a harp guitar it is actually an electric sympathetic string guitar, because the droning strings are not meant to be plucked, but resonate on the played tones from the six normal strings. |
| Morsing |  | India | A morsing (also mourching or morching) is a percussion instrument, mainly used in the Carnatic music of South India. It can be categorized under lamellophones, which is in the category of plucked idiophones. It consists of a metal ring in the shape of a horseshoe with two parallel forks which form the frame. There is a metal tongue between the forks. It is fixed to the ring at one end and free to vibrate at the other. The metal tongue is bent at the free end in a plane perpendicular to the circular ring so that it can be struck and is made to vibrate. This bent part is called the trigger. |
| Mridangam |  | India | The mridangam is a percussion instrument from South India. It is the primary rhythmic accompaniment in a Carnatic music ensemble. The mridangam is a double-sided drum whose body is usually made using a hollowed piece of jackfruit wood about an inch thick. The two mouths or apertures of the drum are covered with a goat skin leather and laced to each other with leather straps around the circumference of drum. These straps are put into a state of high tension to stretch out the circular membranes on either side of the hull, allowing them to resonate when struck. These two membranes are dissimilar in width to allow for the production of both bass and treble sounds from the same drum. |
| Musette De Cour |  | France | The musette de cour or baroque musette is a musical instrument of the bagpipe family. Visually, the musette is characterised by the short, cylindrical shuttle-drone and the two chalumeaux. Both the chanters and the drones have a cylindrical bore and use a double reed, giving a quiet tone similar to the oboe. The instrument is always bellows-blown. The image shows a portrait by Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century. |
| Musical Bow |  | Nigeria | The musical bow is a simple string musical instrument consisting of a string supported by a flexible string bearer, usually made out of wood. Often, it is a normal archery bow used for music rather than as a weapon. The usual way to make the bow sound is to pluck the string, although sometimes a subsidiary bow is used to scrape the string, much as on a violin. Musical bows are still used in a number of cultures today, almost all over the world. The berimbau, a musical bow from Brazil, is quickly gaining players worldwide as a result of its association with the game of capoeira. |
| Musical Box |  | Switzerland | A musical box (or music box) is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to strike the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique. Some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and small bells, in addition to the metal comb. The image shows a musical box with dancing ballerina. |
| Musical Saw |  | United States | A musical saw is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The saw is generally played seated with the handle squeezed between the legs, and the far end held with one hand. It is generally played with the teeth facing the body, though some more timid players opt to face them away. To make a note, a sawyer first bends the blade into an S-curve. The parts of the blade which are curved are dampened from vibration, and do not sound. At the center of the S-curve a section of the blade remains relatively flat: this "sweet spot" can vibrate across the width of the blade, producing a distinct pitch (the wider the section of blade, the lower the sound). Sound can be created by drawing a bow across the back edge of the saw at the sweet spot, or by striking the sweet spot with a mallet. |
| Musical Stones |  | England | The Musical Stones of Skiddaw (see image) is a lithophone made of a type of slate found in Cumbria, England. Constructed at the end of the eighteenth century, the instrument has entertained royalty; it is now housed at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria. In January 2006 the Musical Stones reached a large national audience when they were heavily featured as part of a BBC BBC Radio 4 documentary on Cumbrian musical stones presented by the top classical percussionist Evelyn Glennie. |
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