Musical Instrument Families: Strings, Winds, and Percussion

String Instruments

These instruments produce sound through the vibration of one or more strings.

Depending on the vibration technique, we distinguish bowed, plucked, and struck strings.

Bowed String

Sound is produced by rubbing the strings with a bow. They typically have four strings and a similar shape.

• Violin: Smallest, highest pitch.
• Viola: Slightly larger than the violin, middle pitch.
• Violoncello: Larger, lower register, played sitting with an endpin.
• Double Bass: Largest, very low register, played standing.

Plucked String

Sound is produced by plucking the strings with fingers, a pick, or a plectrum.

• Harp: Has 47 strings.
• Guitar: Has six strings and a fretted neck.

Struck String

Sound is produced by striking the strings with hammers activated by a keyboard.

• Piano: Has 88 keys covering over seven octaves. It's considered the king of instruments due to its wide register and ability to produce multiple sounds simultaneously, allowing for complex pieces of any style. All pianos have two pedals: the soft pedal (left) alters the hammer trajectory for a softer sound, and the damper pedal (right) sustains the vibrations.

Wind Instruments

Sound is produced by the vibration of an air column inside the instrument's tube.

Pitch is determined by the air column's length and tube thickness.

Wind instruments are divided into woodwind and brass instruments.

Woodwind

They have three mouthpiece types:

• Fipple: Air vibrates against the fipple's lip (recorder, transverse flute).
• Single Reed: A thin cane vibrates when blown (clarinet, saxophone).
• Double Reed: Two reeds vibrate (oboe, English horn, bassoon).

Brass

Made of metal alloys with a rolled or folded tube. The player vibrates their lips against the mouthpiece.

Pitch is controlled by lip pressure and a valve system (pistons) that modifies the air column path.

Main brass instruments: trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba.

Percussion Instruments

They produce sound when hit, shaken, or clattered together.

This is the largest and most varied group, divided into pitched and unpitched percussion.

Pitched Percussion

These instruments produce pitched notes and can perform melodies (e.g., kettledrums, xylophone, carillon/glockenspiel, celesta, tubular bells).

Unpitched Percussion

These instruments produce unpitched sounds and can only perform rhythms (e.g., bass drums, cymbals, triangles, snare drums, tambourines, castanets, bongos, claves, maracas, rattles).