Short answers, pulled from the story.
The oldest object scholars have identified as a musical instrument is a simple flute dated back 50,000 to 60,000 years. The disputed Divje Babe Flute from Slovenia is estimated between 43,400 and 67,000 years old and, if confirmed, would be the only Neanderthal musical instrument. Mammoth and swan bone flutes from the Swabian Alps of Germany, dating back 30,000 to 37,000 years, are more widely accepted as the oldest.
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, since it is through purpose that the object becomes one. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist.
Hornbostel-Sachs classifies instruments by the means by which they produce sound. Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs published it in 1914 with four groups: idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, and aerophones. Sachs later added a fifth category, electrophones, for instruments such as theremins.
Excavations at the Royal Cemetery in Ur uncovered one of the first ensembles of instruments yet discovered, including nine lyres known as the Lyres of Ur, two harps, a silver double flute, a sistrum, and cymbals. A set of reed-sounded silver pipes found there was the likely predecessor of modern bagpipes. Leonard Woolley carried out the excavations in the 1920s, and the graves were carbon dated to between 2600 and 2500 BC.
Electronic instruments, or electrophones, emerged with the proliferation of electricity in the 20th century, beginning with electromechanical instruments like Hammond organs and electric guitars. In the late 1960s, Bob Moog and other inventors developed the first commercial synthesizers, such as the Moog synthesizer. Samplers were introduced around 1980, and MIDI, a standard for synchronizing electronic instruments, arrived in 1982.
Scholars agree there are no completely reliable methods for determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Most early instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable, bio-degradable materials that decayed over time. Ordering instruments by complexity or geography is also misleading, since advancements sometimes reduced complexity and cultural contact cannot always be traced.