brass

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular resonator. They are also called labrosones, literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments".

There are two factors in changing the pitch on a valved brass instrument: pressing the valves to change the length of the tubing, and changing the player's lip aperture or "embouchure", which determines the frequency of the vibration into the instrument.

Trumpet

The trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC.

french horn

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about 12 feet of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. It is descended from the natural horn and is informally known as the French horn.

Horns have valves, operated with the left hand, to route the air into extra tubing to change the pitch. Most horns have lever-operated rotary valves, but some horns like the Vienna horn use piston valves. A horn without valves is known as a natural horn, changing pitch along the natural harmonics of the instrument but with a wide range of notes due to the long tubing.

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. The trombone is usually characterised by a telescopic slide with which the player varies the length of the tube to change pitches, although the valve trombone uses three valves similar to those on a trumpet.

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the ophicleide. Tuba is Latin for trumpet or horn. The horn referred to would most likely resemble what is known as a Baroque trumpet.

piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the piccolo's alternative name, the "ottavino".

flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind group. Unlike other woodwind instruments, a flute is a reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air against an opening.
A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, a flautist, or a flutist.

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois", "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca. 1770 from the Italian oboè, a transliteration in that language's orthography of the 17th-century pronunciation of the French word hautbois, a compound word made of haut ("high, loud") and bois ("wood, woodwind"). A musician who plays the oboe is called an oboist.

Cor anglais

The cor anglais, or English horn, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family.
The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe and is consequently approximately one-third longer. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe. Music for the cor anglais is thus written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument actually sounds. This results in the fingering being the same as that for the oboe.

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The name derives from adding the suffix -et meaning little to the Italian word clarino meaning a particular type of trumpet, as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed.

basson

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 1800s, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature. The bassoon is a non-transposing instrument known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, variety of character, and agility. Listeners often compare its warm, dark, reedy timbre to a male baritone voice.

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bored transposing musical instrument considered a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and are played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in 1841. He wanted to create an instrument that would both be the loudest of the woodwinds and the most versatile of the brass, and would fill the then vacant middle ground between the two sections.

THE WOODWIND FAMILY!

A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against an edge of, or opening in, the instrument, causing the air to vibrate within a resonator. Most of these instruments were originally made of wood, but some, such as the saxophone and most flutes, are now commonly made of other materials such as metals or plastics.

Timpani are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper, and more recently, constructed of more lightweight fiberglass. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick or timpani mallet.

Timpani are also commonly know as kettle drums or kettle drums!

bass drum

A bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. There are three general classifications of bass drums: the concert bass drum, the 'kick' drum, and the pitched bass drum.
The type usually seen or heard in orchestral or concert band music is the concert bass drum. The 'kick' drum, struck with a beater attached to a pedal, is usually seen on drum kits.

Snare drum

The snare drum is a drum with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the a drumhead, typically the bottom.

Today in popular music, especially with rock drum kits, the snare drum is typically used to play a backbeat pattern.

cymbols

Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a definite note. Cymbals are used in many ensembles ranging from the orchestra, percussion ensembles, jazz bands, heavy metal bands, and marching groups. A staple requirement of the drum kit, at least one suspended cymbal and a pair of hi-hat cymbals can be found on it.

tambourine

The tambourine or Marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all.

Woodblock

A wood block is essentially a small piece of slit drum made from a single piece of wood and used as a percussion instrument. It is struck with a stick, making a characteristically percussive sound.
East Asian musics use a variety of wood blocks ranging from small hand-held instruments to enormous temple blocks which may be sounded by swinging a large log against them. Log drums made from hollowed logs, and slit drums made from bamboo, are used in Africa and the Pacific Islands.

Gong

A gong is an East and South East Asian musical instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet.
Gongs are broadly of three types. Suspended gongs are more or less flat, circular discs of metal suspended vertically by means of a cord passed through holes near to the top rim. Bossed gongs have a raised center boss and are often suspended and played horizontally. Bowl gongs are bowl-shaped, and rest on cushions and belong more to bells than gongs. Gongs are made mainly from bronze or brass but there are many other alloys in use.

Glockenspiel

The glockenspiel is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It is similar to the xylophone, in that it has tuned bars laid out in a fashion resembling a piano keyboard. The xylophone's bars are wooden, while the glockenspiel's are metal, thus making it a metallophone.
A pair of hard unwrapped mallets, made of rubber, plastic, or metal, are generally used to strike the bars, although if laid out horizontally, a keyboard may be attached to the instrument to allow chords to be more easily played.

Xylophone

The xylophone,is a musical instrument in the percussion family which probably originated in Slovakia. It consists of wooden bars of various lengths that are struck by plastic, wooden, or rubber mallets. Each bar is tuned to a specific pitch of the musical scale. The term "xylophone" can refer to Western-style concert xylophones or to one of the many wooden mallet percussion instruments found around the world. The arrangement of the bars is generally from low (longer bars) to high (shorter bars).

THE STRING FAMILY

A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. The most common string instruments in the string family are violin, cello, viola, double bass, mandolin, banjo, guitar, and harp.

violin

The violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello.

Someone who plays the violin is called a violinist or a fiddler. He or she produces sound from a violin by either drawing a bow (normally held in the right hand) across one or more strings (which may be stopped by the fingers of the other hand to produce a full range of pitches), plucking the strings (with either hand), or a variety of other techniques. The violin is played by musicians in a wide variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, folk and traditional, and rock and roll.

viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.
The casual observer may mistake the viola for the violin because of their similarity in size, closeness in pitch range and nearly identical playing position. However, the viola's timbre sets it apart: its rich, dark-toned sonority is more full-bodied than the violin's. The viola's mellow voice being frequently used for playing inner harmonies, it does not enjoy the wide solo repertoire or fame of the violin.

cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument.

A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section

of an orchestra. It is the second physically largest member of the violin family of musical instruments, next to the double bass.

The name Cello is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone", referring to the violone, the lowest-pitched instrument of the viol family, the group of string instruments that were superseded by the violin family.

double bass

The double bass or contrabass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument used in the modern symphony orchestra. It is a standard member of the string section of the symphony orchestra and smaller string ensembles in Western classical music. In addition, it is used in other genres such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, bluegrass, and tango.

Like many other string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both bowing and plucking styles are used. In jazz music, the bass is mostly plucked, except for some solos which are performed with the bow. In most other genres, such as blues and rockabilly, the bass is plucked.

harp

A harp is a stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. As many other non-percussion instruments, it can also be used as a percussion instrument. All harps have a neck, resonator and strings.

Various types of harps are found in Africa, Europe, North, and South America, and a few parts of Asia. In antiquity harps and the closely related lyres were very prominent in nearly all musical cultures, but they lost popularity in the early 19th century with Western music composers, being thought of primarily as a woman's instrument after Marie Antoinette popularised it as an activity for women.