musical instrument, any device for producing a musical
sound. The principal types of such instruments, classified by
the method of producing sound,
are percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic.
Bone whistle, c. 10,000 BC; in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, Eng.
Musical instruments are almost universal components of
human culture: archaeology has revealed pipes and whistles in
the Paleolithic Period and clay drums and shell trumpets in
the Neolithic Period. It has been firmly established that the
ancient city cultures of Mesopotamia, the
Mediterranean, India, East Asia, and the Americas all
possessed diverse and well-developed assortments
of musical instruments, indicating that a long previous
development must have existed. As to the origin of musical
instruments, however, there can be only conjecture. Some
scholars have speculated that the first instruments were
derived from such utilitarian objects as cooking pots (drums)
and hunting bows (musical bows); others have argued that
instruments of music might well have preceded pots and bows;
while in the myths of cultures throughout the world the origin
of music has frequently been attributed to the gods, especially
in areas where music seems to have been regarded as an
essential component of the ritual believed necessary for
spiritual survival.
Whatever their origin, the further development of the
enormously varied instruments of the world has been
dependent on the interplay of four factors: available material,
technological skills, mythic and symbolic preoccupations, and
patterns of trade and migration. Thus, residents of Arctic
regions use bone, skin, and stone to construct instruments;
residents of the tropics have wood, bamboo, and reed
available; while societies with access to metals and the
requisite technology are able to utilize
these malleable materials in a variety of ways. Myth and
symbolism play an equally important role. Herding societies,
for example, which may depend on a particular species of
animal not only economically but also spiritually, often develop
instruments that look or sound like the animal or prefer
instruments made of bone and hide rather than stone and
wood, even when all the materials are available. Finally,
patterns of human trade and migration have for many
centuries swept musicians and their instruments across seas
and continents, resulting in constant flux, change, and cross-
fertilization and adaptation.
The sound produced by an instrument can be affected by many
factors, including the material from which the instrument is
made, its size and shape, and the way that it is played. For
example, a stringed instrument may be struck, plucked, or
bowed, each method producing a distinctive sound. A wooden
instrument struck by a beater sounds markedly different from
a metal instrument, even if the two instruments are otherwise
identical. On the other hand, a flute made of metal does not
produce a substantially different sound from one made of
wood, for in this case the vibrations are in the column of air in
the instrument. The characteristic timbre of wind instruments
depends on other factors, notably the length and shape of the
tube. The length of the tube not only determines the pitch but
also affects the timbre: the piccolo, being half the size of the
flute, has a shriller sound. The shape of the tube determines
the presence or absence of the “upper partials” (harmonic or
nonharmonic overtones), which give colour to the single note.
(For more on the science of sound, see acoustics.)
This article discusses the evolution of musical instruments,
their structure and methods of sound production, and the
purposes for which they have been used. Although it focuses
on the families of instruments that have been prominent in
Western art music, it also includes coverage of non-Western
and folk instruments.
