Instruments Websites

A dictionary to provide the music lover with a reasonable amount of information about period instruments.

Origin and history of the rebec, construction, playing, tuning, bibliography, and many illustrations.

A list of bass and contrabass instruments, past and present.

Includes links to museums and collections, historical guides, historical sources and facsimiles, societies, individual instruments, and world instruments.

History, construction, and playing techniques.

Information on as many early instruments as possible.

Bach sought, and had custom-built, a harpsichord which sounded like a lute. Detailed description of history and construction.

A book by Maggie Kilbey charting the history and development of the instrument and includes a catalogue of extant instruments around the world.

Information about lute, guitar and early keyboards.

Musicological analysis by Bob Fink of the oldest musical instrument, including its significance to the origin of music.

Paper about the stages in the origins of music and its development.

An extensive and systematic collection of European orchestral woodwind instruments donated to the University of Oxford by Philip Bate.

Early music in various manifestations by Mark W Venn, including handmade Renaissance woodwind instruments, Cotswold Early Music Festival (formerly the Cirencester Early Music Festival), and the "Mozart" music software.

A description of the Dulcian or Curtal, which is the Renaissance predecessor of the bassoon.

Information on its history, articles, art, music, recordings, players, composers, and builders.

Founded as an academic support unit of The University of South Dakota, this collection includes more than 10,000 American, European, and non-Western instruments from virtually all cultures and historical periods.