Curated playlist
Orchestral instruments
- MandolinA plucked mandolin note starts dying the instant it sounds. Players fake a long tone with rapid tremolo picking.
- TrumpetThe trumpet existed for over three thousand years before anyone used it for music. It began as a tool of war and ritual.
- BassoonIn Italian concert scores, the bassoon is called fagotto, from an Old French word for a bundle of sticks.
- ClarinetAround 1700, Johann Christoph Denner added a key to the chalumeau and created the clarinet.
- TromboneGerman city-states stationed trombonists in towers to herald dignitaries. The instrument was the sackbut.
- TubaThe tuba is named for the Latin word for trumpet, yet it sits at the opposite end of the brass family.
- OboeBefore every concert, an orchestra falls silent for the oboe.
- GuitarThe guitar appears four times in the Bible, usually translated as harp.
- HarpsichordA harpsichord plays every note at the same volume, however hard you press. Its strings are plucked, not struck.
- LuteThe lute may appear on a cylinder seal made about 3100 BC. It shows what is thought to be a woman playing one.
- FortepianoThe fortepiano began as a "harpsichord with soft and loud." Cristofori gave his invention that name in Florence.