Curated category
Orchestral instruments
- MandolinThe mandolin most commonly carries four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, eight strings in total, plucked with a pick.
- TrumpetThe trumpet is a brass instrument with a history stretching back to at least 2000 BC, and yet it took more than three thousand years before anyone thought to…
- BassoonThe bassoon is among the most unusual objects in a concert hall. Nearly 1.34 meters tall but with a total sounding length of 2.54 meters, it folds back on…
- TromboneThe trombone has been announcing the arrival of important people since the 16th century. In German city-states, trombonists were stationed in city towers to…
- TubaThe tuba takes its name from the Latin word for trumpet, yet it sits at the opposite end of the brass family, in the bass-to-contrabass range.
- OboeThe oboe is the instrument that tunes the world's great orchestras. Every night, in concert halls from Vienna to New York, the musicians fall silent and wait.
- GuitarThe guitar appears four times in the Bible, hidden in plain sight. The Greek word kithara turns up in passages from First Corinthians and Revelation, almost…
- HarpsichordPress a key on a harpsichord as hard as you like, and the note comes out at exactly the same volume every time. This is the strange truth at the heart of an…
- LuteThe lute is a plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity. A cylinder seal dating from about 3100 BC, now held by…
- FortepianoIn 1700, the Medici family inventory listed a new instrument called a gravicembalo col piano e forte. Bartolomeo Cristofori had built this device in Florence…