Talk:Musical instrument/Archive 1

Makers?
Aren't there any English articles on the different sorts of craftsmen that actually produce musical instruments? Piano makers, Violin makers etc?--Cancun771 13:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Range pictures
A question:

I have under my homepage http://www.hut.fi/~tbackstr/ranges/ranges.html a list of the ranges of the most common orchestral instruments. The data and pictures and everything is collected and created by myself, and thus it is not under any copyright and could be used on this page. So, the question is, in which format and where should they be added? If somebody whishes to do the actual work of copying the data, then please, go ahead... --Tbackstr


 * For information on uploading files see Uploading images and Special:Upload. I would suggest then placing each image on the article of the appropriate instrument, and an example or possibly all at range (music), which has yet to be written. See also: Images. Hyacinth 01:55, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Harp
Why isn't harp on it? Harp's pretty common (ok maybe not but it's important!) :)
 * If you're talking about my page mentioned above then you have a good question. I admit, I don't know. It just isn't included. --Tbackstr

Do you need to know the range? I think I know it...hmm 47 notes, with all the accidentals in between. The lowest note is the C three octaves below middle C and the highest note is the G three and a half octaves above middle C. At least I think so - I'll check later. dreamyshade

can you tell me instruments from around the world please

Earliest instrument and classifications
the "earliest instrument" question has to be speculation, since there are plenty of music-generating devices (human bodies, hollow logs, etc.) that don't leave music-specific archeological evidence.

boy, i'd much rather see the aerophone/membranophone/idiophone/chordaphone/electronaphone as the prime division of instruments; "keyboard instruments" is a confusing category, since any instrument in it belongs to at least one other category.

maybe all of the classification should be move to the "musical instrument classification" section, and instruments should be discussed in general terms of sound production, tone quality, relationship of musician to instrument. any thoughts? -jp2


 * I agree that the keyboard bit is a mess but I think that needs sorting separately. I don't agree that we should go over to -ophone classifications in this article - it's too scientific-sounding for an introductory article and will confuse many people. At least with "brass" or "woodwind" there is something familiar to hang onto. If the -ophones are going to be used people should be led gently to it later. By the same token I don't think it's an improvement that the little examples of types of instruments have been taken out - I think they were helpful. On a slightly different tack, the use of "tone quality" is an improvement of the previous spectral nonsense but oddly there is no linked article there - though there is a pretty short one at timbre: is that perhaps the answer? Nevilley 22:42 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I just removed this: The oldest known man made instrument is a mousterian bone flute from the "Divje babe I" cave site (Slovenia), made by neanderthals around 45,000-50,000 years ago from a  cave bear bone. See Divje Babe and especially Talk:Divje Babe; this is far from being a historical consensus and doesn't belong here without qualification or sources. --Craig Stuntz 13:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Examples
timbre link: nice idea.

i'm not averse to bringing back examples of instruments, but i would not want to see them in the current instrument family bullets; i'd be more apt to remove all detailed discussion of instrument families from this page and relocate such details to the "family" pages. a general discussion (instruments make sounds; sounds are affected in these fashions) might be a stronger gateway into the current referenced entries. jp2

Improvement drive
Percussion instrument is currently a candidate on This week's improvement drive. Vote for this article if you want it to be improved. --Fenice 20:48, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Soft sound instruments
The following is not a major family of musical instruments, but could be incorporated somehow in string instruments:**

*Soft Sound instruments Soft and desirable instruments can be devided into eastern, western and oriental instruments. Tar, and tar family instruments, mandolin guitar ...

Karol 19:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

(edited for proper viewing Curran (talk)  01:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

(**Broken link Curran (talk)  01:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

electric guitar
Does a solid body electric guitar fit the 'classical' definition of string instrument ?

Yes, it's original means of producing the sound is through vibrating strings, making it no different from an acoustic. Only difference of course is that it's amplified through pickups.68.232.203.30 -ChrisC 17:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

GFDL violation at musical-instrument.koopal.com
One of the authors of this page might like to send a GFDL notice to the site owners of http://musical-instrument.koopal.com/. See what I did (from a position of ignorance) at Talk:Double_bass and the e-mail I sent at Talk:Double_bass/Copyright_notice which then led me to find the proper things to do at Standard GFDL violation letter and WP:MF. This last site contains steps that a contributor might want to follow. There are related koopal.com transgressions - I don't have time to track them all down. Andrew Kepert 10:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

surprisingly arbitrary and misleading article
I found this page surprisingly arbitrary, based on arbitrary classification methods, and in general full of mistakes. The human voice is classified as a "solid state" instrument because, the article says, the sound is generated by the vibrating vocal cords. So why call a clarinet a woodwind then? Woodwind instruments using reeds such as clarinet, saxophone, oboe and many others generate sound by vibrating reeds. Should we classify them as "solid state" instruments as well then ? I prefer to stick to their claffication as woodwind instruments :) And if we really have to classify the human voice as an instrument then I would put it among the wind instruments. But basicly I don't think the human voice should be considered as an "instrument" because if we do so, then we have to consider any part of the body that can generate a sound as instruments; like hands, feet, teeth, stomach, throat, and so on. I think the term "instrument" which means a device built for some purpose, can not comprehend natural parts of a human body, which were not "built" for some purpose. (I do not want to start a philosophic or a religious discussion here :) But simply put, I am observing that there are not any "voice makers" and if I want a good voice there is no shop I can but it from)

Friction intruments. Is there really such a group of instruments ? What is the source of this information ? The example given is a glass harmonica. But if the sound is made by vibrating glass, then why not put it among lamellophones ?

Lamellophones. Is there really such a group of instruments ? What is the source of this information ?

The entire sections dedicated to "Instruments that generate sound from matter in its liquid state", "Instruments that generate sound from matter in its plasma state" and "Quintephones (instruments that generate sound informatically)" are nonsense. A water flute is a kind of flute that instead of air uses water. One can make water organs too. But as long as they remain a science park toy, I would not classify them as musical instruments. If anything making a sound is here considered a musical instrument, then this article is missing millions of objects producing sound.

"Instruments that generate sound from matter in its plasma state" and "Quintephones (instruments that generate sound informatically)" simply do not exist. The sound is NOT created by matter in plasma state or by information or data. It is created by loudspeakers which are connected to an electronical device sending electrical output to the speakers which produce sound. They should be classified as electronic instruments like a digital keyboard. How you obtain these electronic output which in the loudspeaker becomes a sound is irrilevant. You can use ionized gaz if you want but the SOUND doesn't come from the ions as the name of these instruments misleadingly suggest. I can make an isntrument playing "colours" then. It would have a camera capturing the colurs put in front of it. An electronic cpu would give a value to this colour being ultraviolet and infrared the two ends of the range. And then it would assign a sound to that colour. So I can play melodies showing to the camera diferent colours in rapid succession. It can be made. Easily too. Now would this intrument be a colorphone ? Would it make sound from colours ? Or would it simply be an electronic device capable of, or pragrammed to produce sounds ?

greetings,

Giandrago 03:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)giandrago

Improving this article
If anyone is interested, I'd like to start a collaboration to improve this article. It is listed at Vital articles and it is currently an embarrassment. I went through the history and noticed that back in late 2007, a vandal blanked most of the article and no one even noticed. I tried restoring the blanked content without losing any recent additions.

I'd like to start a discussion of what information folks think should be in this article, and what sources we might be able to use. Right now.. it's just a mess. It looks like someone tried writing about a classification system for instruments based on a mixture of physics and other things, and there is a little history. --Laser brain (talk) 05:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Working outline
What should the major topics be in this article? Let's hash out a working outline: Add/edit/delete at will. --Laser brain (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Lead
 * Archeology
 * History of musical instruments
 * Primitive and prehistoric
 * Antiquity
 * Middle Ages
 * Seems like a rather big jump to make here, where should another division be made? --Kakofonous (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the jump between Antiquity and Middle Ages? Or between Middle and Modern?  My intent was that Antiquity would take us through the early centuries A.D., Middle Ages would take us until about 1400.  Alternate suggestions? -- Laser brain   (talk)  15:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Modern
 * Renaissance
 * Baroque
 * Romanticism
 * Twentieth century
 * Classification of musical instruments
 * Ancient systems
 * Hornbostel-Sachs
 * Schaeffner
 * Range
 * Construction
 * Materials
 * Production (i.e., luthier)
 * User interfaces (need a better name)
 * Culture
 * Mythology
 * Popular culture
 * What type of pop culture references? This seems quite vague and an invitation for random lists. --Kakofonous (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about some well-referenced text about how musical instruments can be seen as status symbols and how some manufacturers (like Fender Corporation) have grown into brand images on clothing, etc. Thoughts? -- Laser brain   (talk)  15:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See also
 * Notes/references
 * This article should discuss the impact of musical instruments on musical acts (bands and solo), and also how cheaper guitars and the hundreds of cheap synths in the 80s/90s meant more and more people could start making their own music. There should also be some mention of how computers are now a big part of making music. Computers are often used as a musical instrument in the production of newer releases, most commonly with software-based synthesizers. Another thing to make sure of is that we represent a world view, instead of focusing on one country/region of the world. Various musical instruments have all originated from different parts of the world. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 13:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Great ideas! I was thinking your first idea would fit into the Popular Culture section.  Your second idea, about computers, is what I was trying to get at with "User interfaces" but I think we need a better heading.  The section would be about modern ways people make music outside of "traditional" musical instruments. -- Laser brain   (talk)  15:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Since the computer-related stuff is basically synthesizers, it could go into Modern History. The first common synthesizers date back to the 1960s, and the Fairlight CMI was introduced in 1979, which is basically a powerful (for its time) computer connected to a music keyboard. The recent software-based stuff dates from the 90s to present, so all that info seems fitting for 'modern history'. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 15:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Thanks for the ideas. -- Laser brain  (talk)  16:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Working bibliography
I thought I'd list some books I've obtained to work on this article. Please add to the list if you have other good sources. --Laser brain (talk) 04:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Google Books sources
A search for "history of musical instruments" brings up 2124 results on Google Books (limited preview). I've been using limited preview on Google Books to write several articles, and it works extremely well. Some of the better titles available:













Simply click on the 'Preview' tab to read the books. Similar searches can be made to provide research for the rest of the article, such as "musical instruments culture", "impact of musical instruments" and so on. Hope they become useful. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 13:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm.Just found this in Trumpet's references. Is this reliable?  It is certainly informative. -- Meldshal42   (talk)  17:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it is a teacher's lesson sheet. We need to be using reliable, authoritative sources. -- Laser brain   (talk)  17:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A general rule of thumb: Books are best, avoid online sources (unless of course its a well-known source such as the BBC, NYT, Time, etc) . I find that almost all books published by a University press are definitely reliable. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 12:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

ThinkQuest?
What makes ThinkQuest a reliable source? I took a look at the links, and it seems ThinkQuest does not cite its own sources. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 17:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not. But, I think a good strategy for now is to add any prose we can and adjust the sources later.  The material sourced to ThinkQuest should be easily sourced to a RS. -- Laser brain   (talk)  17:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but don't be so sure - Synthesizer has a lot of unsourced prose, and some of it I have not been able to find reliable sources for unfortunately (even with access to Thomson Gale and Google Books and other places). — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 17:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please note that having external references on this page is silly, as it's basically a compilation of the individual Wiki pages about both instrument types and various individual instruments. Why make references to ThinkQuest about the types of instruments that belong to the woodwind family when Wikipedia already has a long article on the subject where all these instruments are listed? Thomas Blomberg (talk) 00:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Length of History section
I'm getting the feeling that once this section is completed, we're going to have to break it off into History of musical instruments and then write shorter summaries for this article. -- Laser brain  (talk)  14:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree. But it can still remain in this article, just copy it over. -- Meldshal  (§peak to me)  16:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Certainly looks that way, otherwise it's going to be much too large. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 16:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry its been solong since I've edited. Try to wait for me at FAC, I'm juggling a ton of future FAs right now and I'm kind of stressed. Thanks for understanding. -- Meldshal  [Chat]  18:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * nominate for GAN? -- Meldshal  [Chat]  18:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Why? This is far from GA status. I think Laser brain's aim is to go straight for FAC, which makes more sense. — Wackymacs ( talk  ~  edits ) 18:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Musical order
I am looking for an article or section that has instrumental order for musical instruments, anyone know where I can find it? i.e. flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, etc. 76.16.191.46 (talk) 06:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing
You need to settle on either citation or cite book and its relatives. I did a couple of tweaks on some of the footnotes. Otherwise, the footnotes look fine.

Prehistoric and Primitive
This section needs major work to bring it up to contemporary standards. The entire section is based on Curt Sachs 1940 (with one minor exception, that doesn't bear keeping anyway), which is a highly outdated POV work. We do not know how prehistoric music developed. We do not know that 3-tone xylophones developed first, followed by larger and more complex ones; we do not know that they began in Southeast Asia and then spread north and west. All of this is Sachs's speculation based on his reading of minimal historical evidence through the lens of linear cultural evolution, and supported by his insistence that present-day "primitive" music represents an unchanged patrimony from ancient times. Illustrating prehistoric music with an Aztec instrument is no more appropriate than illustrating it with a Farfisa organ. If the Sachs theories are kept in the entry, they should be clearly contextualized as no longer widely held, and developed within a particular context that also no longer exists.Rikyu (talk) 22:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. Can you recommend some updated sources for this time period? I tentatively composed this section with Sachs because I haven't found any better books. I suspected it would need to be updated with more contemporary research, but no one here has been forthcoming with sources. I do have newer sources (Brown and Baines, for example) that cite Sachs as being authoritative. -- Laser brain  (talk)  19:06, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Rikyu, you can bring up sources that suggest Sachs is outdated and no longer useful, so it can be fully evaluated? Just because something's old does not necessarily mean it is biased (limited, perhaps, but that's not the same). -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:01, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you for commenting. I'll build something here on the talk page before making any changes to the entry itself. For the record, the problem with Sachs's POV is not its age but his belief that cultures evolved in a unilinear fashion. Other scholars even of his generation disagreed (Boas and Kunst, just to name two), and therefore strongly resisted his equation of some present-day societies with long-dead ones simply on the basis of shared technologies, which in turn implies a developmental scale on which societies can be ranked, and justifies those higher on the ranking (Europe, eg.) in colonizing those lower on the ranking. This is not to say that Sachs favored colonialism, just that his approach provided intellectual support for it, and this was recognized at the time, even by Sachs himself. Anyway, more to come. Rikyu (talk) 20:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No idea if you're still around or if you're interested in working on this, but I've essentially been waiting for you to bring in sources to back up your objection. I don't want to complete this article using Sachs if it's not the best source. Despite his shortcomings, I'm more interested in knowing if what I've sourced to Sachs is correct or if there are scholarly works debunking his history of musical instruments. If there aren't or you don't reply, I'm not sure how to proceed because I've exhausted all my resources trying to find other books. -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  22:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions
Please add section on who are the major manufacturers of musical instruments (of each type) and the major vendors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.207.140 (talk) 00:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The range chart for the "human voice" is rather more restricted than is actually the case. The basso profundos of the RUssian Orthodox church regularly descent to low C (C2), and I've even hit htat note myself on good days, and I'm only a bass-baritone. Some regularly go down to A1, as do the Tibetan monks who include vocal multiphonics in their meditative chant rituals. And a few bassos go even lower. On this recording, Viktor Wichniakov hits a low C1 (about 30 seconds in).

mms://www.dutchdivas.net/sound/HighC/pasuikovAb.wma

Chopping off the bass range at E2 makes me think that someone has consulted a rather old music appreciation text for their information. -- Dr H —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.92.174.105 (talk) 22:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is completely missing the Classical era right now...the Classical era was 1750-1830 and the Romantic was 1815-1910 (Beethoven was the major transitionary composer between the two eras). I do not know myself which instruments were invented/improved upon during these two eras, but a distinction between the two and a more in-depth discussion of those would be useful.

Some details that must be attended to: a Modern Era section needs to be added (1900-today), and the saxophone must be included in this section. The saxophone is NOT a fixture in any orchestra - it is only very rarely used (ex. some Ravel orchestrations)!! And when it is, the rest of the musicians look askance at it. FInally, clarinets are named by the key they play in, not their size: Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, A clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass clarinet is the entire family of clarinets that are currently in use.

The prehistoric section of this article is very extensive, but coverage of more modern developments is pretty thin right now! This already thorough article would be greatly enhanced by such additions. Shawshank 777 (talk) 01:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been meaning to do the tasks you mention, but I ran out of gas a while back while working on Baroque. I'll try to put some time into it soon so at least the eras are represented properly. -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  02:50, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Additional sources
I did some checking around with music departments at two universities near here and ordered two more books. They are considered the two major works about musical instrument history since Sachs. I think they will provide nice balance in the article, although Sachs is still considered the authoritative reference and both of these books owe some degree to Sachs. They are: I would like to throw a final hook out there and call for additional major references if anyone knows of any. -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  02:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Musical Instruments: A Worldwide Survey of Traditional Music-making by Lucie Rault
 * Origins and Development of Musical Instruments by Jeremy Montagu

bjk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.210.127.42 (talk) 12:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Death to any person who sees it
From the Primitive and prehistoric section: "One East African tribe, the Wahinda, believed it was so holy that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan." On its face, that seems like a pretty outrageous claim. plus, it raises some questions. Who are the sultans? I thought we were talking about pre-history. Wikipedia's Wahinda article has a little bit more to say:

Another reference to the Wahinda in relationship to drums and drumming comes from a Sacred Beat: from the heart of the drum circle, by Telesco and Waterhawk [2]

...[T]here is one "myth" about the drum that needs to be clarified. Many people think of the drum as a man's tool. However, the histories of Egyptian, Semitic, Sumerain, and Wahinda people all tell us of women using these instruments. ... [A]mong the Wahinda of East Africa, it's considered a death wish for a man to even look at a drum. They will only dare to carry it at night, and even better during the dark moon so it cannot be seen. ... Puddytang (talk) 19:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, thank you sincerely for this information. I always thought the Wahinda text to be a bit extraordinary. It comes from Sachs. I actually contacted a ethnomusicologist to get more information on this, but he referred me back to Sachs again, saying Sachs should be considered authoritative. It seems that the text should be updated since the material from your source seems more precise. What's the ISBN of that book? -- Laser brain  (talk)  19:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I just got that from the Wahinda page, so I can't personally speak for the source. Puddytang (talk) 20:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The review has started for this page.
Hello all,

This is your friendly GA reviewer. Just reporting in to say I have started the review on this article. Paradoxical 0^2 (talk) 03:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)