These three groups overlap heavily, but inclusion in any one is sufficient for an instrument to be included in this list. However, when only a specific subtype of the instrument qualifies as a percussion instrument, only that subtype is listed here. For example, a samba whistle (or apito) is an unpitched percussion instrument,[contradictory] but a whistle in general is not.
For brevity, synonyms represented in Wikipedia by redirects to a main article are not listed, but may be mentioned as a note. Only the main article names are listed in these cases. For example, apito is listed but samba whistle is merely noted as an alternate name. A distinct instrument or type represented only by a redirect to an article section should however be shown. Instruments represented only by redlinks have no Wikipedia articles as yet but are shown.
See list of percussion instruments by type for some shorter, more focused lists. Use the sorting arrows on the common usage column to group instruments as pitched, unpitched or both. Use the sorting arrows on the Classification column to group instruments according to their Hornbostel–Sachsclassification.
Also known as samba whistle. Some apitos produce up to three different tones, but none of these is normally used as a pitched note.[3][failed verification]
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and chordophone.
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.
Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. It is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments by ethnomusicologists and organologists. The system was updated in 2011 as part of the work of the Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO) Project.
A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification.
An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound.
An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow, strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity (electrophones). It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel–Sachs system of musical instrument classification. The early classification of Victor-Charles Mahillon called this group of instruments autophones. The most common are struck idiophones, or concussion idiophones, which are made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand or indirectly, with scraping or shaking motions. Various types of bells fall into both categories. A common plucked idiophone is the Jew's harp.
A metallophone is any musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal, such as 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 lamellophone is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician depresses the free end of a plate with a finger or fingernail, and then allows the finger to slip off, the released plate vibrates. An instrument may have a single tongue or a series of multiple tongues.
Struck idiophones is one of the categories of idiophones that are found in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification.
A family of musical instruments is a grouping of several different but related sizes or types of instruments. Some schemes of musical instrument classification, such as the Hornbostel-Sachs system, are based on a hierarchy of instrument families and families of families.
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies.
A pitched percussion instrument is a percussion instrument used to produce musical notes of one or more pitches, as opposed to an unpitched percussion instrument which is used to produce sounds of indefinite pitch.
There are several overlapping schemes for the classification of percussion instruments.
↑ "Celesta". Yamaha. Retrieved 3 March 2024: Although treated as a member of the percussion section in orchestral terms, the celesta is played by a pianist, the part being normally written on two bracketed staves.
1 2 "Profile: tuned percussion"Archived 2014-09-08 at the Wayback Machine . There are lots of tuned percussion instruments. Among the most common are the xylophone, marimba, the glockenspiel, the cowbells and the temple blocks. Other authorities cited here however say that temple blocks are not considered pitched instruments.
↑ "Temple blocks". Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013.Although temple blocks are not considered pitched instruments, they can produce discernable pitches, and some temple blocks are actually tuned to the pentatonic scale. Other authorities cited here however say that temple blocks are tuned percussion.
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