List of medieval musical instruments

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David playing the harp, accompanied by clappers/cymbals on stick, plucked-fiddle. c. 795, Germany/France. David, Musee du Louvre Objets d'art MR 370.jpg
David playing the harp, accompanied by clappers/cymbals on stick, plucked-fiddle. c. 795, Germany/France.

This is a list of medieval musical instruments used in European music during the Medieval period.

Contents

Percussion

String instruments

Artist's rendering of a medieval harp De Cantu et musica sacra. Bk. 2, Table 6.jpg
Artist's rendering of a medieval harp

Wind instruments

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renaissance music</span> Western musical period between the 15th and 17th centuries

Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ars nova, the Trecento music was treated by musicology as a coda to Medieval music and the new era dated from the rise of triadic harmony and the spread of the contenance angloise style from Britain to the Burgundian School. A convenient watershed for its end is the adoption of basso continuo at the beginning of the Baroque period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String instrument</span> Class of musical instruments with vibrating strings

String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.

Medieval metal is a subgenre of folk metal that blends heavy metal music with medieval folk music. Medieval metal is mostly restricted to Germany where it is known as Mittelalter-Metal or Mittelalter-Rock. The genre emerged from the middle of the 1990s with contributions from Subway to Sally, In Extremo and Schandmaul. The style is characterised by the prominent use of a wide variety of traditional folk and medieval instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Spain</span> Music and musical traditions of Spain

In Spain, music has a long history. It has played an important role in the development of Western music, and has greatly influenced Latin American music. Spanish music is often associated with traditional styles such as flamenco and classical guitar. While these forms of music are common, there are many different traditional musical and dance styles across the regions. For example, music from the north-west regions is heavily reliant on bagpipes, the jota is widespread in the centre and north of the country, and flamenco originated in the south. Spanish music played a notable part in the early developments of western classical music, from the 15th through the early 17th century. The breadth of musical innovation can be seen in composers like Tomás Luis de Victoria, styles like the zarzuela of Spanish opera, the ballet of Manuel de Falla, and the classical guitar music of Francisco Tárrega. Nowadays commercial pop music dominates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurdy-gurdy</span> Mechanical stringed musical instrument

The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood or metal—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">In Extremo</span> German medieval metal band

In Extremo is a German Medieval metal band originating from Berlin. The band's musical style combines metal with Medieval traditional songs, blending the sound of the standard rock/metal instruments with historical instruments. Versions of well-known traditional/Medieval ballads make up the main part of their repertoire, but the band has written an increasing share of original material in recent years. Their own material is written in German, whilst the traditional songs and cover songs are in a variety of languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk instrument</span> Musical instrument

A folk instrument is a traditional musical instrument that has remained largely restricted to traditional folk music, and is not usually used in the classical music or other elite and formal musical genres of the culture concerned, though related intruments may be.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music in the Elizabethan era</span> Period in the musical history of the Kingdom of England

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), English art and high culture reached a pinnacle known as the height of the English Renaissance. Elizabethan music experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music. Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-class.

The Harp Consort is an international early music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music.

Oni Wytars is an early music ensemble that was founded in 1983 by Marco Ambrosini and Peter Rabanser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cythara</span>

The cythara is a wide group of stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments. In fact, unless a medieval document gives an indication that it meant a necked instrument, then it likely was referring to a lyre. It was also spelled cithara or kithara and was Latin for the Greek lyre. However, lacking names for some stringed instruments from the medieval period, these have been referred to as fiddles and citharas/cytharas, both by medieval people and by modern researchers. The instruments are important as being ancestors to or influential in the development of a wide variety of European instruments, including fiddles, vielles, violas, citoles and guitars. Although not proven to be completely separate from the line of lute-family instruments that dominated Europe, arguments have been made that they represent a European-based tradition of instrument building, which was for a time separate from the lute-family instruments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slide trumpet</span> Historical type of trumpet with a single sliding section of tubing

The slide trumpet is an early type of trumpet fitted with a movable section of telescopic tubing, similar to the slide of a trombone. Eventually, the slide trumpet evolved into the sackbut, which evolved into the modern-day trombone. The key difference between these two instruments is that the slide trumpet possesses only a single slide joint, rather than the two joints in the U-shaped slide of the sackbut or trombone. There are several types of slide trumpet of different places and eras.

Calliope is a New York City-based band which plays Renaissance music and modern music using early musical instruments, such as the sackbut, shawm, viol, and the hurdy-gurdy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guitarra latina</span>

The guitarra latina is a plucked string instrument of the Medieval period in Europe. It has single string courses, and it is normally played with a pick. This gittern or citole with curved sides is illustrated in the medieval musical text the Cantigas de Santa Maria, alongside another gittern, the guitarra morisca.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guitarra morisca</span> Type of lute

The Guitarra morisca or Mandora medieval is a plucked string instrument. It is a lute that has a bulging belly and a sickle-shaped headstock. Part of that characterization comes from a c. 1330 poem, Libro de buen amor by Juan Ruiz, arcipestre de Hita, which described the "Moorish gittern" as "corpulent". The use of the adjective morisca tacked to guitarra may have been to differentiate it from the commonly seen Latin European variety, when the morisca was seen on a limited basis during the 14th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music technology</span> Use of technology by musicians

Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to compose, notate, playback or record songs or pieces; or to analyze or edit music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music technology (mechanical)</span>

Mechanical music technology is the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to compose, notate, play back or record songs or pieces; or to analyze or edit music. The earliest known applications of technology to music was prehistoric peoples' use of a tool to hand-drill holes in bones to make simple flutes. Ancient Egyptians developed stringed instruments, such as harps, lyres and lutes, which required making thin strings and some type of peg system for adjusting the pitch of the strings. Ancient Egyptians also used wind instruments such as double clarinets and percussion instruments such as cymbals. In Ancient Greece, instruments included the double-reed aulos and the lyre. Numerous instruments are referred to in the Bible, including the horn, pipe, lyre, harp, and bagpipe. During Biblical times, the cornet, flute, horn, organ, pipe, and trumpet were also used. During the Middle Ages, hand-written music notation was developed to write down the notes of religious Plainchant melodies; this notation enabled the Catholic church to disseminate the same chant melodies across its entire empire.

Mary Teresa Elizabeth Remnant, was an English musician, scholar, musicologist and medievalist. She was a leading figure in the Early music revival in the United Kingdom.

References

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