The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge(s) to the soundboard.
In organology, the study of musical instruments, many methods of classifying instruments exist. Most methods are specific to a particular cultural group and were developed to serve that culture's musical needs. Culture-based classification methods sometimes break down when applied outside that culture. For example, a classification based on instrument use may fail when applied to another culture that uses the same instrument differently.
As it is a country with many different tribes and ethnic groups, the music of Indonesia itself is also very diverse, coming in hundreds of different forms and styles. Every region have its own culture and art, and as a result traditional music from area to area also uniquely differs from one another. For example, each traditional music are often accompanied by their very own dance and theatre. Contemporary music scene have also been heavily shaped by various foreign influences, such as America, Britain, Japan, Korea, and India.
Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Eastern Indonesia, Southern Philippines, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor, Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sundanese people in Java Island, Indonesia. Its importance stems from its association with the indigenous cultures that inhabited these islands prior to the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or the West, making Kulintang the most developed tradition of Southeast Asian archaic gong-chime ensembles.
A metallophone is any musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal, consisting of tuned metal bars, tubes, rods, bowls, or plates. Most frequently the metal body is struck to produce sound, usually with a mallet, but may also be activated by friction, keyboard action, or other means.
A gamelan gadhon is an ensemble consisting of the 'soft' instruments of the Javanese gamelan. This can include rebab, gendér, gendér panerus, voice, slenthem, suling, siter, gong, kempul, kenong and kendhang.
The ranat ek lek is a metallophone used in the classical music of Thailand. It is the smaller of the two sizes of Thai metallophone; the larger one is called ranat thum lek.
The agung is a set of two wide-rimmed, vertically suspended gongs used by the Maguindanao, Maranao, Sama-Bajau and Tausug people of the Philippines as a supportive instrument in kulintang ensembles. The agung is also ubiquitous among other groups found in Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Mindanao, Sabah, Sulawesi, Sarawak and Kalimantan as an integral part of the agung orchestra.
The babandil is a single, narrow-rimmed Philippine gong used primarily as the “timekeeper” of the Maguindanao kulintang ensemble.
The dabakan is a single-headed Philippine drum, primarily used as a supportive instrument in the kulintang ensemble. Among the five main kulintang instruments, it is the only non-gong element of the Maguindanao ensemble.
The gandingan is a Philippine set of four large, hanging gongs used by the Maguindanao as part of their kulintang ensemble. When integrated into the ensemble, it functions as a secondary melodic instrument after the main melodic instrument, the kulintang. When played solo, the gandingan allows fellow Maguindanao to communicate with each other, allowing them to send messages or warnings via long distances. This ability to imitate tones of the Maguindanao language using this instrument has given the gandingan connotation: the “talking gongs.”
A gambang, properly called a gambang kayu is a xylophone-like instrument used among people of Indonesia in gamelan and kulintang, with wooden bars as opposed to the metallic ones of the more typical metallophones in a gamelan. A largely obsolete instrument, the gambang gangsa, is a similar instrument made with metal bars.
Struck idiophones is one of the categories of idiophones that are found in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification.
The kulintang a kayo is a Philippine xylophone of the Maguindanaon people with eight tuned slabs strung horizontally atop a padded wooden antangan (rack). Made of hand-carved soft wood such as bayug or more likely tamnag, the kulintang a kayo is rarely found except in Maguindanaon households which have a strong kulintang musical heritage. Traditionally, this homemade instrument was used for self-entertainment purposes inside the house, so that beginning musicians could practice kulintang pieces before performing them on the full-sized metal kulintang sets. Only recently have these instruments been used as part of a wooden kulintang ensemble. This ancient instrument is considered to have existed in the Philippines before the importation of metal gongs from China and therefore is considered a precursor to the present-day kulintang.
The kutiyapi, or kudyapi, is a Philippine two-stringed, fretted boat-lute. It is four to six feet long with nine frets made of hardened beeswax. The instrument is carved out of solid soft wood such as that from the jackfruit tree.
Traditional Thai musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Thailand. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments played by both the Thai majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
