| Name | Image | Description | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banjolele |  | The banjolele is a four-stringed musical instrument with a banjo-type body and a neck with (typically) sixteen frets (shorter than a banjo, but longer than a ukulele). The banjolele is commonly tuned GCEA ("C Tuning") or ADF#B ("D Tuning"), with a re-entrant 4th string. The ADF#B tuning often produces a more strident tone, and is used for this reason. | |
| Baritone Horn |  | The baritone horn, or simply baritone, is a tenor saxhorn in B-flat, one octave below the B-flat trumpet. In the UK the baritone is found almost exclusively in brass bands. The baritone horn is also a common instrument in high school and college bands, as older baritones are often in the inventory of middle schools and high schools. | |
| Barrel Organ |  | A barrel organ is a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. The pieces of music are encoded onto wooden barrels (or cylinders), which in a sense, replace the keyboard of the traditional pipe organ. | |
| Barrel Piano |  | A barrel piano (also known as a "roller piano") is a forerunner of the modern player piano. Unlike the pneumatic player piano, the barrel piano was operated by turning a hand crank. Barrel pianos were popular with street musicians, who sought novel instruments that were also highly portable. They are frequently confused with barrel organs, but are quite different instruments. Barrel pianos were first developed in the early 19th century as an attempt to mechanically automate piano music. They never found their way into homes in any significant quantity, instead being favored by street musicians and other entertainers. | |
| Bass Oboe |  | The bass oboe or baritone oboe is a double reed instrument in the woodwind family. It is about twice the size of a regular (soprano) oboe. The bass oboe is notated in the treble clef, sounding one octave lower than written. Its lowest note is B2 (in scientific pitch notation), one octave and a semitone below middle C, although an extension may be inserted between the lower joint and bell of the instrument in order to produce a low B-flat2. The instrument's bocal or crook first curves away and then toward the player, unlike the bocal/crook of the cor anglais (English Horn) and oboe d'amore, and looks rather like a flattened metal question mark. In Holst's "The Planets" the instrument is used to great effect, providing a unique tone of which no other instrument is capable. | |
| Border Pipes |  | The border pipes are a musical instrument that is a close cousin of the Great Highland Bagpipe. It is commonly confused with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Other names have been used for the instrument - lowland pipes in Scotland, and in Northumberland, half-long pipes, this term now referring particularly to surviving examples from the 1920's when there was a partially successful attempt to revive the instrument. The instrument has a conical-bored chanter, in contrast to the cylindrically-bored Scottish smallpipe, and hence sounds at pitch, rather than an octave lower, as the latter instrument does. It is also much louder than the Scottish smallpipe, though not as loud or raucous as the Great Highland Bagpipe. | |
| Clarsach |  | Clàrsach Scots Gaelic, Cláirseach Old Irish are the Gaelic words for 'a harp'. The word clarsach is used in Scottish English and the word cláirseach is used in Irish Language to refer to a variety of small Irish and Scottish harps. In the 1890s a similar new harp was also developed in Scotland for the cultural Gaelic revival. These new instruments were popular and formed the basis of the 20th century revival in Ireland, Scotland and across the world. In Scotland they are called clàrsach though in Ireland they are called Irish harp not cláirseach. Elsewhere they are called Celtic harp or folk harp or small harp or lever harp. The image shows the medieval 'Queen Mary harp' Clàrsach Màiri Banrighinn preserved in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. | |
| Concertina |  | A concertina is a small free-reed accordion instrument from England, usually hexagonal in shape. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pushed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it. Also, each button produces one note, while accordions typically can produce chords with a single button. | |
| Crwth |  | The crwth is an archaic stringed musical instrument, associated particularly with Wales, although once played widely in Europe. The crwth consists of a fairly simple box construction with a flat, fretless fingerboard and six gut strings, purportedly tuned gg´c´c´´d´d´´. The crwth can be played on the shoulder like a violin, between the knees like a cello, on the lap held either upright or at a slightly oblique angle across the player's torso against the left shoulder, or braced against the chest, supported with a strap around the player's neck. | |
| Euphonium |  | The euphonium is a conical-bore, baritone-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "beautiful-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" (eu means "well" or "good" and phonium means "voice"). The euphonium is a valved instrument; nearly all current models are piston valved, though rotary valved models do exist. | |
| Highland Bagpipe |  | The Great Highland Bagpipe is probably the best-known variety of bagpipe. Abbreviated GHB, and commonly referred to simply as "the pipes", they have historically taken numerous forms in Ireland, England and Scotland. A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones, and one bass drone. The scale on the chanter is in Mixolydian mode with a flattened 7th or leading tone. The GHB is widely used by both soloists and pipe bands (civilian and military), and is now played in countries around the world, particularly those with large Scottish and Irish emigrant populations, namely England, Canada, United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. | |
| Mellotron |  | The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. The heart of the mellotron is a bank of magnetic audio tapes (which are parallel linear, not looped as has sometimes been reported or presumed). Each tape has approximately eight seconds of playing time. Playback heads (underneath each key) enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds. The earlier MKI and MKII models contained two side-by-side keyboards: On the right keyboard were 18 selectable "lead/instrument" sounds (such as strings, flutes, and brass instruments). The left keyboard played pre-recorded musical rhythm tracks (in various styles). | |
| Melodeon |  | A melodeon or diatonic button accordion is a type of button accordion where the melody-side keyboard is limited to the notes of diatonic scales in a small number of keys (sometimes only one). The bass side usually contains the principal chords of the instrument's key and the root notes of those chords. There is some geographic disagreement over the terms button accordion and melodeon. In England a bisonoric (different note on push and draw of the bellows) button accordion with one, two or three rows of buttons on the right hand (melody) side is likely to be called a melodeon. In Ireland a melodeon refers only to one-row instruments, while in the southern United States even these are called accordions. | |
| Musical Stones |  | 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. | |
| Northumbrian Smallpipes |  | The Northumbrian smallpipes (also known as the Northumbrian pipes) are bellows-blown bagpipes from the north-east of England. They share the unusual characteristic (along with the Uilleann pipes, played on the knee), of being able to play staccato. Here this is done by giving the chanter a completely closed end. This combined with the unusually tight fingering (each note is played by lifting only one finger or opening one key) means that traditional Northumbrian piping is staccato in style. The chanter has a number of metal keys, most commonly seven, but chanters with a two octave range can be made which require seventeen keys, all played with either the right hand thumb or left hand pinkie. | |
| Pibgorn |  | The pibgorn (Welsh literally "pipe horn") is a reed instrument from Wales. It has a single reed like that found in the drones of traditional Scottish Bagpipes, and generally six finger holes and a thumbhole giving a diatonic compass of an octave. The body of the instrument is made of wood, usually a hardwood in modern examples though historical instruments often had bodies of Elder or bone. At the mouthpiece end is a reedcap made of horn that protects the reed from contact with the players mouth. At the bell end is a distinctively carved horn bell which serves to amplify the sound. As part of a general revival in interest in Welsh folk music that has also seen the recreation of the Crwth, Welsh pipes and an increase in the popularity of the Welsh Triple Harp, musicians and instrument makers have attempted to revive the tradition of Pibgorn playing. | |
| Pipe Organ |  | The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound when pressurized air (referred to as wind) is driven through a series of pipes. The admission of wind into the pipes is controlled by a keyboard. The size of pipe organs varies greatly: the smallest portable organs may have only a few dozen pipes, while the largest organs may feature tens of thousands. An organ pipe sounds when a key is depressed on the keyboard, allowing the wind to pass into the pipe from a chest below. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain sound for as long as a key is depressed, unlike other keyboard instruments such as the piano and harpsichord, whose sound begins to decay immediately after the key is struck. The image shows the Hexham Abbey (Northumberland, England) organ built by Lawrence Phelps in 1974. | |
| Positive Organ |  | A positive organ (also positiv organ, positif organ, portable organ, chair organ) (from the Latin verb ponere, "to place") is a portable one-manual pipe organ that may be moved without first being disassembled. It was common in sacred and secular music between the tenth and the seventeenth centuries, when it was used in the performance of basso continuo parts in ensemble works. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was placed on a table or floor to be played, but many modern positive organs feature wheels. The positive organ differs from the portative organ in that it is larger and is not played while strapped at a right angle to the performer's body. The image shows a portable organ on wheels in a church of St. Albans, England. | |
| Ring of Bells |  | A "ring of bells" is a set of 3 to sixteen bells hung in a circle for change ringing, a particular method of ringing bells in patterns. Often hung in a church tower, such a set is usually tuned to the notes of a diatonic scale (without intervening chromatic notes). A peal in changing ringing may have bells playing for several hours, playing 5,000 or more patterns without a break or repetition. The distinctive feature of these English-style rings is that they are hung for full-circle ringing: each bell is suspended from a (usually wooden) headstock, which in turn is connected to the bellframe by bearings, allowing the bell to swing freely through just over 360 degrees; the headstock is fitted with a wooden wheel around which a rope is wrapped. The image shows the bell ringing in Stoke Gabriel parish church, south Devon, England. | |
| Scottish Smallpipes |  | The Scottish smallpipe, in its modern form, is a bellows-blown bagpipe developed from the Northumbrian smallpipes by Colin Ross and others, to be playable according to the Great Highland Bagpipe fingering system. The instrument is distinguished from the Northumbrian smallpipes by having an open end to the chanter, and usually by the lack of keys; this means that the sound of the chanter is continuous, rather than staccato, and that its range is only nine notes, rather than the nearly two octaves of the Northumbian pipes. A further distinction from the Northumbrian smallpipes is that there has been no unbroken line of traditional playing. | |
| Singing Ringing Tree |  | The Singing Ringing Tree is a musical sculpture set in the landscape of the Pennines overlooking Burnley, in the north west of England.Completed in 2006, it is part of the series of four sculptures within the Panopticons arts and regeneration project. Designed by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu of Tonkin Liu, the Singing Ringing Tree is "constructed from pipes of galvanised steel, which harnesses the energy of the prevailing winds", to produce a slightly discordant and penetrating choral sound covering a range of several octaves. Some of the pipes are primarily structural and aesthetic elements, while others have been "cut across their width enabling the sound". The harmonic and "singing" qualities of the tree were produced by tuning the pipes "according to their length by adding holes to the underside of each". | |
| Snare Drum |  | The snare drum or side drum is a drum with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the bottom head. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom (internal) side of the top (batter) head to make a 'tighter' sound. Originally, snare drums were military instruments originating from Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. They were commonly called a tabor and were used with the fife in the Swiss military. Today, the snare drum can be found in nearly every form of western music. The image shows snares on a drum. | |
| Steel-string Acoustic Guitar |  | A steel-string acoustic guitar, is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. There are many different variations on the construction of, and materials used in, steel-string guitars. More expensive guitars feature solid tonewood tops (often spruce), sides and backs (often rosewood, maple, or mahogany). | |
| Tabor |  | Tabor, or tabret, refers to a portable snare drum played with one hand. It has been used in the military as a marching instrument, and has been used as accompaniment in parades and processions. A tabor has a cylindrical wood shell, two skin heads tightened by rope tension, a leather strap, and an adjustable gut snare. Tabor and Pipe is a pair of instruments, popular since Mediæval times and played by a single player, consisting of a tabor (a portable drum) played with one hand and a specially designed fipple flute ( a three-hole pipe) played with the other hand. | |
| Tea Chest Bass |  | A tea chest bass is a home-made musical instrument that uses a tea chest (a wooden chest of the type once used in the shipment of tea) as the resonator for an upright stringed bass. The instrument is made from a pole, traditionally a broomstick, placed into or alongside the chest. One or more strings are stretched along the pole and plucked. In Europe, particularly England and Germany, the instrument is associated with skiffle (a type of folk music with a jazz and blues influence) bands. In Australia it was traditionally used to provide the low end for "bush bands", though most such groups today use electric bass or double bass. | |
| Welsh Bagpipes |  | Welsh bagpipes have been documented in Wales since the 10th century. Welsh traditional music declined somewhat with the rise of Nonconformist religion in the 18th century, which emphasised choral singing over instruments and religious over secular uses of music, the pipes had disappeared from use in Wales by the late 19th century. In the last 20 or so years there has been a revival in piping in Wales. This revival led to the formation of a repertoire of Welsh piping tunes, the reconstruction of extinct instruments and the introduction of new instruments based on common European types. |
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