| Name | Image | Description | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alphorn |  | 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. | |
| Electric Harp |  | Like electric guitars, electric harps are based on their acoustic originals, and there are both solid body and electro-acoustic models available. A solid body electric harp has no hollow soundbox, and thus makes very little noise when not amplified. It is usually lever harp, though solid body pedal harp has also been built. An electro-acoustic harp looks nearly identical to a regular acoustic harp, whether lever or pedal. It too has pickups at the base of each string, and some also contain a separate pickup inside the soundbox, enabling the harpist to mix the signals from both kinds of pickup to produce special effects. The image shows Andreas Vollenweider (a Swiss musician) and his electrically modified harp. | |
| Hang |  | A hang (pronounced 'hung' or 'hong') is a melodious percussive musical instrument, similar to a steel drum. It uses many of the same physical principles to operate. However, since it is struck with the fingers, the sound is generally much softer than a steel drum, and can be played in many ways to produce a wide variety of sounds. The instrument is also frequently called a hang drum, because of the nature in which it is played, its relation to the steel drum, and its popularity with hand drummers. | |
| Musical Box |  | 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. | |
| Piccolo |  | The piccolo is a small flute. Like the flute, the piccolo is normally pitched in the key of C, one octave above the concert flute (making it, effectively, a sopranino flute). Because the piccolo's sound is in a very high register, it has a potential to be strident or shrill. Thus, it is often used only as an ornamental, "flavor" or "garnish" instrument, or not at all. Nonetheless, there have been many concertos and solo pieces written for the piccolo, written by notable composers such as Persichetti, Vivaldi, and Todd Goodman. Historically the piccolo had no keys, but does today, and should not be confused with the fife, or classical piccolo, which has a smaller bore and is therefore more strident. The piccolo is used in conjunction with marching drums in traditional formations at the Carnival of Basel, Switzerland. |
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