| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rabeca |  | Brazil | The rabeca is a traditional Brazilian fiddle. It is one of the instruments used in the street theaters of Pernambuco that unites music, dance, and poetry. |
| Rag-dung |  | Tibet | The rag-dung is a long (12-20 feet) copper trumpet used in Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies. It is the most widely used instrument in Tibetan Buddhist culture. It is often played in pairs or multiples, and the sound is compared to the singing of elephants. |
| Rainstick |  | Chile | A rainstick is a long, hollow tube which is filled with small baubles such as beads or beans and has small pins arranged helically on its inside surface. When the stick is upended, the beads fall to the other end of the tube, making a sound reminiscent of a rainstorm as they bounce off the pins. The rainstick is generally used to create atmospheric sound effects or as a percussion instrument. The rainstick is generally considered to have been invented by Chilean natives in South America, and was played in the belief that it could bring about rainstorms. |
| Ratchet |  | Israel | A ratchet, also called a noisemaker (or, when used in Judaism, a Purim gragger or ra'ashan), is an orchestral musical instrument played by percussionists. Operating on the principle of the ratchet device, a gearwheel and a stiff board is mounted on a handle, which can be freely rotated. The handle is held and the whole mechanism is swung around, the momentum causing the board to click against the gearwheel, making a clicking and rattling noise. Alternatively, smaller ratchets are sometimes held still or mounted and the handle turned rapidly by the player. |
| Rauschpfeife |  | Europe | The rauschpfeife is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, originally popular in Europe in the mid-16th Century. In common with the crumhorn and cornamuse, it is a wooden double-reed instrument with the reed enclosed in a windcap. The player blows into a slot in the top of the windcap to produce the sound. Rauschpfeifes differ from crumhorns mainly in the shape of the body, which, like the shawm, is conical. This design has the consequence that the instrument is exceedingly loud, which made it an appropriate tool for striking fear in the enemy during battle. |
| Ravanastron |  | India | Ravanastron or ravanhatha is an Indian stringed instrument played with a bow, used by wandering pilgrims, particularly in Gujarat and Rajasthan. A Hindu tradition affirms that the musical bow was invented before 3000 BC by Ravanon, king of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and that the instrument for which he invented it was named after him Ravanastron. Judging from precedent, it is probable that the ravanastron of the present day has changed little, if at all, for many centuries. |
| Rawap |  | Uzbekistan | The rawap is one of the traditional musical instruments of Uzbekistan. It is a long-necked lute similar to the rubab, but without sympathetic strings. The rawap, tanbur and dutar are three very important instruments in Central Asian classical music called shashmaqam (closely related to Azeri mugam and Uyghur muqam). They are all strings and are respectively high-, middle- and low-pitched. The image shows a 1989 Soviet postage stamp depicting musical instruments of Uzbekistan. The rawap is the long-necked lute in the center of the stamp. |
| Rebab |  | Turkey | The rebab (also rebap, rabab, rebeb, rababah, al-rababa) is a string instrument which originated in what is now known as Afghanistan, no later than the 8th century, and was spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East. The bowed variety often has a spike at the bottom to rest on the ground, and is thus called a spike fiddle in certain areas. The rebab is a key instrument of Arabo-Andalusian music. It is used in a wide variety of musical ensembles and genres. Its body is covered with stretched skin, usually stoutly glued to the body. The neck is very thick, and the fretboard is often intricately inlaid. The pegbox is often topped with intricate carving. The image shows two rebabs from Konya, Turkey. |
| Rebec |  | Europe | The rebec (or rebeck) is a bowed string musical instrument with a pear-shaped body. The number of strings on the rebec varies from one to five, although three is the most common number. The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. The instrument is European, but probably developed from the arabo-islamic instrument, the rebab. The image shows a rebec player in Cantabria, northern Spain. |
| Recorder |  | Germany | The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It is distinguished from other members of the family by having holes for seven fingers and one for the thumb of the uppermost hand. Purcell, Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi used the recorder to suggest shepherds and birds, and the pattern continued into the 20th century. The sound of the recorder is remarkably clear and sweet, partly because of the lack of upper harmonics and predominance of odd harmonics in the sound. There are recorder orchestras in Germany, Holland, Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK and several other countries. |
| Reed |  | Europe | A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. The reeds of woodwind instruments are made from Arundo donax or synthetic material; tuned reeds (as in harmonicas and accordions) are made of metal or synthetics. Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets and saxophones. They have a flat (back) side which fits against the mouthpiece and a top side which tapers to a thin tip. Double reeds are used on the oboe, oboe d'amore, english horn, bassoon, contrabassoon, and bagpipes. The image shows an alto and tenor saxophone reeds. |
| Reed Organ |  | France | A reed organ, also called parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds. Smaller, cheaper and more portable than pipe organs, reed organs were widely used in smaller churches and in private homes in the 19th century, but their volume and tonal range is limited, and they were generally confined to one or two manuals, pedalboards being extremely rare. A reed organ is usually positioned on the floor in a wooden casing. It is operated either with pressure or with suction bellows. The reed organ was the other main type of organ before the development of electronic organs. |
| Repinique |  | Brazil | A repinique is a two-headed Brazilian drum used in samba baterias (percussion ensembles). It is used in the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo Carnival baterias and in the baterias of Bahia, where it is known as repique. It is equivalent to the tom-tom in the Western drum kit. Typically its body is made of metal. The instrument is about the same width as the Brazilian caixa (snare drum) but several inches longer in height and lacking a snare. It is held using a shoulder strap attached to one of the tuning rods. In Rio-style samba it is played with one wooden stick and one hand. In Bahia it is played with two wooden sticks usually. |
| Requinto Guitar |  | Mexico | The term requinto is used in both Spanish and Portuguese to mean a smaller, higher-pitched version of another instrument. The requinto guitar is a six-string nylon guitar with a scale length of 530 to 540 mm, which is about 18% smaller than a standard guitar scale. Requintos made in Mexico have a deeper body than a standard classical guitar (110 mm as opposed to 105 mm). Requintos made in Spain tend to be of the same depth as the standard classical. Requinto guitars are also used throughout Latin America. |
| Rhaita |  | Morocco | The rhaita or ghaita (Arabic: غيطه) is a double reed instrument from Northern Africa. It is one of the primary instruments used by the Master Musicians of Jajouka and Master Musicians of Joujouka, two traditional music ensembles from Morocco. The rhaita was also featured in the three Lord of the Rings soundtracks by Howard Shore, specifically in the Mordor theme. American composer John Corigliano calls one of the movements of his 1975 Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra "Rhaita Dance," asking the oboist to imitate a rhaita by pushing the reed further into his or her mouth. |
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