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Contributor: Brian Anthony. Lesson ID: 11256
Where can you take didgeridoo lessons or learn jibara technique? Instruments and music tell us a lot about cultures. Sample some "different" instruments, and create a musical passport as a project!
You are familiar, of course, with the trumpet, the guitar, the kettle drum, and the harmonica. There are probably many instruments, though, that you've never heard of before.
Look at this mystery instrument.
Ethnomusicologists (wow, that's a seven-syllable word) travel the world to collect musical instruments, artifacts, and recordings.
Practice some of the basic concepts they use, then take a virtual tour of the world of musical instruments!
Musical instruments are the tools people create to make music.
Really, anything that makes sound can be considered a musical instrument. That table near you could make a fine drum, for instance.
The experimental composer Karlheinz Stockhausen once famously composed a musical piece for helicopters, as shown in the video below.
Most cultures have devised traditional instruments, each instrument with its own special timbre or sound and with its refined techniques of play.
The tried-and-true method of classifying musical instruments is to group them according to the four traditional families of instruments found in an orchestra: woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion.
Then, consider these questions.
Ethnomusicologists, the scholars who study the music of the world, have come up with different ways to classify musical instruments.
Each classification system has focused on different traits to form instrument families, and some have tried to group instruments that didn't seem to fit the old system.
As you read about Instrument Classification, write down each of the five classifications and take notes to answer these questions.
Then, reflect on the following questions.
Musical instruments are extraordinary cultural artifacts. They not only express their unique sounds, they have their visual beauty, like small works of art.
For many cultures worldwide, musical instruments are a part of identity, and their sound becomes the sound of a people.
Keep going in the Got It? section to listen to different instruments.
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