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clarinet

(Encyclopedia)clarinet, musical wind instrument of cylindrical bore employing a single reed. The clarinet family comprises all single-reed instruments, including the saxophone. The predecessor of the modern clarine...

psaltery

(Encyclopedia)psaltery sôlˈtərē, –trē [key], stringed musical instrument. It has a flat soundboard over which a variable number of strings are stretched. Its origin was in the Middle East, and it is referred...

double bass

(Encyclopedia)double bass, bowed stringed musical instrument, the contrabass of the modern orchestral string section. It originated as a double-bass viol, an instrument described as early as 1566. A true double-bas...

stethoscope

(Encyclopedia)stethoscope stĕthˈəskōpˌ [key] [Gr.,=chest viewer], instrument that enables the physican to hear the sounds made by the heart, the lungs, and various other organs. The earliest stethoscope, devis...

crumhorn

(Encyclopedia)crumhorn, J-shaped, double-reed musical instrument used throughout Europe from the 15th cent. through the 17th cent. It possesses a soft, reedy tone. The reed is enclosed by a wooden cap with a hole a...

celesta

(Encyclopedia)celesta sĭlĕˈstə [key], keyboard musical instrument patented in 1886 by Auguste Mustel of Paris. It consists of a set of steel bars fastened over wood resonators and struck by hammers operated fro...

Biwa

(Encyclopedia)Biwa bēˈwä [key], lake, c.40 mi (60 km) long and from 2 to 12 mi (3.2–19 km) wide, Shiga prefecture, S Honshu, Japan. The lake, shaped like the biwa, a musical instrument, is the largest in Japan...

ocarina

(Encyclopedia)ocarina ŏkərēˈnə [key], musical wind instrument with eight finger holes and two thumb holes, rather egg-shaped, and made of metal, terra-cotta or plastic. Unlike other wind instuments, it produce...

Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich ĕrnst flōˈrĕns frēˈdrĭkh klädˈnē [key], 1756–1827, German physicist. An authority on acoustics, he made studies of the transmission of sound in various gas...

lyre

(Encyclopedia)lyre, generic term for stringed musical instruments having a sound box from which project curved arms joined by a crossbar. The strings are stretched between the crossbar and the sound box and are plu...