Types of Musical Instruments

Category: Music —

Three summer vacations and one Christmas break is what it took for me to understand that music is a deep and bottomless sea, devoid of any boundaries. Every single musical instrument, right from the African djembe to the Indonesian gamelan angklung, and the Arabic shababa to the Indian sitar, is a testament to the fact that music is a universal language having multiple dialects. The tongue twisters that some of these musical instrument names are, it took me a while just to get their names right! Anyway, the sheer magnitude of the different musical instruments that I was exposed to from all over the world was mesmerizing and it left me spellbound. It awakened an inner desire which soon manifested into a deep curiosity about the different types of musical instruments existing in the world. I set out on a melodic journey of discovery and here is what I unearthed in the process:

Different Types of Musical Instruments
Musical instruments from all over the world can broadly be categorized as follows:

  • wind instruments
  • percussion instruments
  • brass instruments
  • string instruments
  • electronic instruments.

Wind Instruments: Wind instruments require a person to blow into the instrument in order to produce the desired sound. They work on the principle of sound waves, frequencies, harmonics, resonance and acoustics. When you blow into the instrument, the pitch of the sound note produced, varies depending on the length of the internal air column in which the sound waves vibrate. The shorter the air column, the higher is the pitch of the note produced, and vice-versa. Some of the popular wind instruments are:

  • flute
  • piccolo
  • shakuhachi
  • clarinet
  • bassoon
  • english horn
  • oboe
  • accordion
  • saxophone
  • shehnai
  • bagpipe
  • pianica
  • harmonica.

Percussion Instruments: Percussion instruments require a person to strike or beat the instrument surface in order to generate vibrations, which then produce the desired sound note. Depending on the type of surface, one can use one’s hands, sticks, or other similar objects for striking the instrument surface. A characteristic feature of percussion instruments is that the type of sound produced varies depending on the spot that is struck on the instrument surface. For example, in case of the djembe, striking it at the center produces a deep and muffled sort of thump, whereas striking it at the edges produces a sharp and crisp sound which is totally different from the earlier one. Some of the well-known percussion instruments are:

  • drum
  • congo
  • djembe
  • tabla
  • duff
  • dhol
  • nagara
  • cymbals
  • bells
  • xylophone
  • marimba.

Brass Instruments: All those shiny trumpets and trombones that feature so prominently in jazz and blues music are classic examples of brass instruments. Brass instruments are named so, not because all of them are made from brass, but because of the nature and texture of the sound that they produce. They work on pretty much the same principle as wind instruments, with a few modifications here and there. In case of brass instruments, the length of the air column can be changed using press-valves or through a slide mechanism. Some of the popular brass instruments are:

  • trumpet
  • trombone
  • bugle
  • conch
  • tuba
  • french horn.

String Instruments: All your guitars, violins and pianos fall under the category of string instruments. String instruments work on the basis of sound wave vibrations that are created with the help of strings. The pitch of the sound note produced depends on the length of the air column as well as the type and thickness of the string involved. Some of the famous string instruments are:

  • guitar
  • piano
  • violin
  • viola
  • sitar
  • cello
  • double bass
  • mandolin
  • banjo
  • harp
  • sarod
  • santoor.

Electronic Instruments: These are some of the newer musical instruments that have been produced in recent years with the advent of technology. Most of them are designed to reproduce the sounds of existing musical instruments in a simple and user-friendly way. Some of the common electronic instruments include:

  • piano keyboards
  • octopads
  • rhythm machines
  • samplers
  • synthesizers.

It is quite heartwarming to see that despite different countries being associated with different musical instruments, all of them ultimately unite in contributing towards the common language of music. Therefore, one can safely say that music’s universal appeal is clearly visible in the different types of musical instruments that one gets to see all over the world.

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What is Rock?

Category: Music —

Essentially “Rock” is an eclectic mix of a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Several bands use an innovative mix of piano, synthesizers, saxophone, flute, mandolin and sitar to heady effect. The earliest known roots of rock music as a unique genre of music branching out from rock ‘n’ roll date back to the early-to-mid 1960s. Over the next 5 decades since then, rock has been propelled into being one of the most popular and best-selling branches of commercial music by now legendary artists.

With the wave of popularity of rock ‘n’ roll, made immensely popular by the Beatles, two British bands – Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath, in completely contrasting styles, founded the sub-genres of progressive rock and heavy metal. Pink Floyd explored a more psychedelic sound combining electric guitars and keyboards to create amazing sound variations while Black Sabbath delved into a darker, heavier sound emphasizing a slow tempo and tuned down guitars.

The next few years saw an explosion in the rock genres in general giving rise to varied genres discussed in this article along with other less known genres. As you will be able to tell many genres are very hard to define and others overlap with each other making clear lines between genres impossible to draw.

Rock Classifications
Numerous branches of rock have been born – rock ‘n’ roll, soft rock, hard rock, progressive rock, metal, alternative, grunge… each of which have several subtle variations. e.g heavy metal has branched off into progressive, death, acid, dark ambient, power, symphonic, Goth…the list goes on.

Progressive Rock is a very open and intertwined genre of music which got its start in the late 60s, and continues to this day. Prog Rock artists try to take the roots of rock and apply them to a more classically influenced structure. The music is often very elaborate and generally requires very exceptional musicians with a great deal of talent. It is not unusual for Prog Rock pieces to be very lengthy – Echoes by Pink Floyd is an early example of this phenomenon and the tradition continues to this day in other pieces like First Light by Shadow Gallery.

Heavy Metal or Metal as it is currently called started back in the late ’60s and is often credited to Black Sabbath. Heavy metal found its roots in the blues and psychedelic music genres, and got its inspiration in the misery of daily life in industrialized cities combined with a fascination for mysticism. The stereotypical metal song combines heavy thudding drums sounds (often with a double bass) with thickly distorted guitar riffs, screaming vocals and powerful rhythm.

Progressive Metal or Prog Metal as some call it is a combination of progressive rock and heavy metal which came into popularity during the late ’80s with Queensryche and Dream Theater. Progressive metal has a small but very loyal and devoted group of fans who are enthralled by the combination of many unusual elements inherited from the progressive rock tradition such as incorporation of Jazz, Orchestration and other varied influences. Like in Progressive Rock, it is common for pieces to be in excess of 10-15 minutes and sometimes more like the 24-minute Octavarium by Dream Theater.

Hard Rock is a form of rock & roll that finds its roots in the early 1960s garage rock and draws from jazz, blues, rock and roll, and other influences like folk in the case of famed hard rock artist Led Zeppelin who’s main writer and composer Jimmy Page was a famous studio musician and expert guitar player who was interested in Celtic and folk influences. These diverse influences can be clearly heard in one of the most influential albums of this style Led Zeppelin 4. AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple and Iron Maiden are classic examples of early hard rock.

Over the last 50 years, Rock has become one of the most popular genres of music producing numerous iconic artists who have written the history of rock with their own unique contributions to the memories of many generations.

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