| Name | Image | Description | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angélique |  | 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. | |
| Biniou |  | Binioù means bagpipe in the Breton language. There are two kinds of Binioù found in Brittany: the binioù kozh (kozh means "old" in Breton) and the binioù bras (bras means "big"), sometimes also called pib-veur. The binioù bras is essentially the same as the Scottish great Highland bagpipe; sets are manufactured by Breton makers or imported from Scotland or elsewhere. | |
| Bombarde |  | The bombarde, or bombard (in Breton) is a folk musical instrument from Brittany and Cornwall that is a cross between an oboe and a conical-bored pipe chanter (the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody). The bombarde is blown by the mouth; the reed is held between the lips. Typically pitched in B flat, it plays a diatonic scale over two octaves. | |
| Celesta |  | The celesta is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. The "c" can be pronounced as an "s" or "ch". Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano. The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal (usually steel) plates suspended over wooden resonators. One pedal is available to sustain or dampen the sound. The celesta is a transposing instrument, sounding one octave higher than written. The celesta was invented in 1889 by the Parisian harmonium builder Auguste Mustel. | |
| Chabreta |  | Chabreta is a mouth blown bagpipe from Lemosin (France). It is a pipe with a triple-bored bass drone played across the player's arm rather than over the shoulder. The form of the chabrette chanter appears similar to early oboes, including a swallow-tail key for the lowest note which is placed under a fontenelle. | |
| Chalumeau |  | The chalumeau (plural chalumeaux; from Greek: κάλαμος, kalamos, meaning "reed") is a woodwind instrument of the late baroque and early classical era. It has an approximately cylindrical bore and a mouthpiece with a single reed. The clarinet was developed from the chalumeau. The word "chalumeau" was in use in French from the twelfth century to refer to various sorts of pipes, some of which were made of cane and featured a single "reed" cut into the side of the cane itself. | |
| Contrabass Oboe |  | The contrabass oboe is a double reed woodwind instrument in the key of C, sounding two octaves lower than the standard oboe. Current research, in particular that by hautboy specialist Bruce Haynes, suggests that such instruments may have been developed in France as part of an original attempt to maintain the complete family of double reed instruments when the oboe was created from the shawm. It never became a popular or widely employed instrument, and there remain few instances of it today. | |
| Cornemuse |  | The Center-France bagpipes (called in French cornemuse du centre or musette du centre) are of many different types, some mouth blown, some bellows blown; some names for these instruments include chevrette (which means "little goat," referring to the use of a goatskin for its bag), chabrette, chabretta, chabreta, cabreta, bodega, and boha. It can be found in the Bourbonnais, Nivernais, and Morvan regions of France. | |
| Crotales |  | Crotales (pronounced "kro-tah'-les"), sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about 4 inches in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck with hard mallets. However, they may also be played by striking two disks together in the same manner as finger cymbals, or by bowing. Their sound is rather like a small tuned bell, only with a much brighter sound, and a much longer resonance. | |
| Crumhorn |  | The crumhorn is a musical instrument of the woodwind family, most commonly used during the Renaissance period. In modern times, there has been a revival of interest in Early Music, and crumhorns are being played again. The crumhorn is a capped reed instrument. Its construction is similar to that of the chanter of a bagpipe. A double reed is mounted inside a windcap at one end of a long pipe. Blowing into the windcap produces a musical note. The pitch of the note can be varied by opening or closing finger holes along the length of the pipe. The image shows a modern alto crumhorn in f with keys. | |
| Flageolet |  | A flageolet is a woodwind musical instrument and a member of the fipple flute family. The first flageolets were made in the 16th Century and the instrument continued to be made until the 20th Century when it was succeeded by the tin whistle. Flageolets have varied greatly during the last 400 years. The first flageolets were called "French flageolets", and have four tone-holes on the front and two on the back. This instrument was played by Frédéric Chalon and Samuel Pepys, and Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel both wrote pieces for it. | |
| Hurdy Gurdy |  | A hurdy gurdy (also known as a "wheel fiddle") is a stringed musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a rosined wheel which the strings of the instrument pass over. This wheel, turned with a crank, functions much like a violin bow, making the instrument essentially a mechanical violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, usually made of wood) against one or more of these strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic string instruments, it has a soundboard to make the vibration of the strings audible. Many folk music festivals in Europe feature music groups with hurdy gurdy players. | |
| Kayamb |  | The kayamb is a flat musical instrument used in the Mascarene Islands (a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar) to play sega and maloya music. It is called maravanne in Mauritius. Kayamb is made of reed (or sugar cane flower stems) and is filled with jequirity or canna seeds, it is shaken horizontally with both hands. | |
| Musette De Cour |  | 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. | |
| Oboe |  | The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In comparison to other modern woodwind instruments, the oboe has a clear and penetrating voice. As a result, oboes are readily audible over other instruments in large ensembles. The oboe is pitched in concert C and has a mezzo-soprano to soprano range. Orchestras will usually tune by listening to the oboe play a concert A (usually A440, but sometimes higher if the orchestra tunes to a higher pitch). The pitch of the oboe may be adjusted by permanently altering the scrape, removing cane from the reed, or changing the position of the reed in the instrument (although the latter method should only be used as a last resort, because adjusting the position of the reed may cause some notes to warble). Subtle changes in pitch are also possible by adjusting the embouchure. The baroque oboe first appeared in the French court in the mid-17th century, where it was called hautbois. | |
| Ondes Martenot |  | The ondes Martenot (French for "Martenot waves"; also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales) is an early electronic musical instrument with a keyboard and slide, invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot and originally very similar in sound to the Theremin. The sonic capabilities of the instrument were subsequently expanded by the addition of filter banks and switchable loudspeakers. The instrument is especially known for its eerie wavering notes produced by the thermionic valves that produce oscillating frequencies. The production of the instrument stopped in 1988 but a few Conservatories in France still teach it. In 2008, there is a project to rebuild an instrument which is as close as possible from the original. | |
| Organ |  | The organ is a keyboard instrument played using one or more manuals and a pedalboard. It uses wind moving through metal or wood pipes and/or it uses sampled organ sounds or oscillators to produce sound, which remains constant while a key is depressed. Its sounds, which vary widely in timbre and volume, are divided according to ranks and controlled by the use of stops. The keyboard is not expressive and does not affect dynamics. Organs vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are located primarily in churches, concert halls, and homes. The organ is one of the oldest musical instruments in the Western musical tradition, and carries a rich history connected with Christian liturgy and civic ceremony. | |
| Piccolo Oboe |  | The piccolo oboe is the smallest and highest pitched member of the oboe family. Pitched in E-flat or F above the regular oboe (which is a C instrument), the piccolo oboe is a sopranino version of the oboe, comparable to the E-flat clarinet. The instrument has found the most use in chamber music and avant-garde circles, where it is valued for its unusual tone colour. Perhaps the best-known pieces requiring piccolo oboe are Solo and Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra No. 2, both by Bruno Maderna. | |
| Reed Organ |  | 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. | |
| Sarrusophone |  | The sarrusophone is a family of transposing musical instruments patented and placed into production by Pierre-Louis Gautrot in 1856. It was named after the French bandmaster Pierre-Auguste Sarrus (1813-1876) who is credited with the concept of the instrument and its intended use was to serve as a replacement for the oboe and bassoon in bands, the tones of which lack the carrying power needed for the outdoor band music of that era. All members of the sarrusophone family are made of metal, with a conical bore, and the larger members of the family resemble the ophicleide in shape. Like the oboe and bassoon, all sizes of sarrusophone were originally designed to be played with a double reed. Later, single reed mouthpieces were developed which resemble alto or soprano saxophone mouthpieces. | |
| Serpent |  | A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett, although it is not part of the cornett family, due to the absence of a thumb hole. It is generally made out of wood, with walnut being a particularly popular choice. The outside is covered with dark brown or black leather. Despite wooden construction and the fact that it has fingerholes rather than valves, it is usually classed as a brass, with the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification placing it alongside trumpets. | |
| Soprano Clarinet |  | The soprano clarinets are a sub-family of the clarinet family. They include the most common types of clarinets, and indeed are often referred to as simply "clarinets". Among the soprano clarinets are the B♭ clarinet, the most common type, whose range extends from D below middle C (written E) to about the C three octaves above the C on the staff (or three octaves above middle C); the A and C clarinets, sounding respectively a semitone lower and a whole tone higher than the B♭ clarinet; and the low G clarinet, sounding yet a whole tone lower than the A, rare in western music but popular in the folk music of Turkey. | |
| Spinet |  | A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ. When the term spinet is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the bentside spinet. The bentside spinet shares most of its characteristics with the full-size instrument, including action, soundboard, and case construction. What primarily distinguishes the spinet is the angle of its strings: whereas in a full-size harpsichord, the strings are at a 90 degree angle to the keyboard; and in a virginals they are parallel to the keyboard, in a spinet the strings are at an angle of about 30 degrees to the keyboard, going toward the right. The image shows a bentside spinet built by Clavecins Rouaud, Paris. | |
| Three Hole Pipe |  | The three-hole pipe, also commonly known as tabor pipe is a wind instrument designed to be played by one hand, leaving the other hand free to play a tabor, bell, psalterium, bones, triangle or other percussive instrument. The tabor pipe has two finger holes and one thumb hole. In the English tradition, these three holes play the same notes as the bottom three holes of a tin whistle, or tone, tone, semitone. Other tabor pipes, such as the French galoubet, Picco Pipe, the Basque txistu, the Aragonese chiflo or the Andalusian pito rociero, are tuned differently. A much larger 3-hole pipe, the fujara, is played in Slovakia. | |
| Tracker Organ |  | A tracker organ is a pipe organ that its key action is a tracker action. A key action which physically connects the keys and the windchests is called a mechanical action or a tracker action. This connection is achieved through a series of wooden or metal rods called trackers. When the organist depresses a key, the corresponding tracker moves allowing wind to enter the pipe. Tracker action is in contrast to electrical or electro-pneumatic actions, which connect the key to the valve via an electrical link or an electrically assisted pneumatic system respectively. | |
| Tuba |  | The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched of brass instruments. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the ophicleide. An orchestra usually has a single tuba, though occasionally a second tuba is required. It serves as the bass of the brass section, though its versatility means it can double as reinforcement for the strings and woodwinds, or increasingly as a solo instrument. The euphonium is sometimes referred to as a tenor tuba, and is pitched one octave higher (in B-flat) than the BB-flat contrabass tuba. The image shows the comparison of euphonium (left) and tuba (right). | |
| Viola |  | The viola (French, alto; German Bratsche) is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello. The casual observer may mistake the viola for the violin because of their similarity in size, closeness in pitch range (the viola is a perfect fifth below the violin), and identical playing position. However, the viola's timbre sets it apart: its rich, dark-toned sonority is more full-bodied than the violin's. The viola's mellow voice is frequently used for playing inner harmonies, and it does not enjoy the wide solo repertoire or fame of the violin. A "full-size" viola's body is between one and four inches longer than the body of a full-size violin, with an average length of about 16 inches (41 cm). | |
| Western Concert Flute |  | The Western concert flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. It is a transverse side-blown musical instrument made of metal. The flute is recognisable by its clean, pure sound. Thousands of works have been composed for the concert flute. The standard concert flute is pitched in C and has a range of about three and a half octaves starting from the musical note C4 (corresponding to middle C on the piano), however, some experienced flautists are able to reach C8. Modern professional flutes may have a longer B-foot joint, which can reach B3. |
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