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The ikh khuur (centre)
Word of the week: This distinctive looking trapezoid-shaped sound box instrument is the two- or three-stringed Mongolian bowed double bass, complete with a ornately carved horse head neck, and related to the better known fiddle equivalent and Mongolia’s national instrument, the morin huur
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A traditional jejy voatavo
Word of the week: With a rich, resonant sound mounted on a calabash gourd, this Madagascan instrument is a stick zither chordophone, traditionally with sisal strings and three frets, extra strings strung lengthwise down the sides of the neck and strummed with the fingers to accompany the primary melody played with a bow
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Persian kamanchehs dated around 1880
Word of the week: Most commonly tuned like the violin (G, D, A, E) though with variants, though with its own distinct sound this Persian bowed string instrument used in Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Kurdish music, has a long neck and a spherical body
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Just three cornettos … the largest of which is the curvy s-shaped lysarden, also known as the lizard or tenor model
Word of the week: One of several words for the Renaissance and Baroque period tenor cornett or cornetto, also known as the lizard, lyzard, lizarden, or lyzarden due to its s-curved shape, it has a distinctive horn-like foggy sound and is frequently played in ensemble alongside trombones
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An 18th-century Bohemian nail violin
Word of the week: Invented in 1740 by German violinist Johann Wilde, this strangely beautiful sounding idiophone instrument consists of a semicircular wooden soundboard with vertical iron or brass nails that are then bowed to create a chromatic or diatonic scale
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Pututu made from a conch shell
Word of the week: This Andean trumpet and also the Quechuan word for snail is traditionally made from conch shell of the adult Strombus galeatus, as well as animal horn, and emits a beautifully eerie sound with several natural harmonics with group tritonic music
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The five-string quinton has a tuning of C-G-D-A-E.
Word of the week: Better known as a place or male name, this is also a five-string hybrid of violin and treble viol, popular in mid 18th-century France, used as the fifth voice (quinta vox) in ensembles, and created as a rival to the Italian violin with a greater range
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The ryuteki - dragon flute
Word of the week: Literally meaning ‘dragon flute’, the ryūteki (龍笛) is pure and beautiful sounding traditional Japanese bamboo flute (or ‘fue’) designed to evoke the mythical creature, used in Shinto classical music gagaku, associated with Japan's imperial court
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Varieties of bamboo and other sheng
Word of the week: A traditional Chinese instrument, representing natural harmony and life from the ground (made originally from bamboo), dating back at least 3,000 years, it could be described as a complex form of mouth organ played by breathing in and out, with a free reed, finger holes, mouthpiece and vertical pipes
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Necking it: the baroque theorbo, known to some as the giraffe of the lute world
Word of the week: Designed to emanate the music of the spheres, for opera, and also allow improvisation, this Baroque-era member of the lute family has has a hugely extended neck, second pegbox, large volume with ornate sound holes, and wide range with harmonic options
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The uhadi musical bow, like the umrhhubhe, with a gourd resonator
Word of the week: One of the world’s earliest instruments evolved from the bow and arrow, it is played by drawing a stick across the string whilst using the mouth as a resonator on the bow to add an evocative, often otherworldly tone to accompany simultaneous inward whistling
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The viola d’amore
Word of the week: It’s a particularly ornate member of the baroque-period viol family, distinguished by six or seven strings with matching sympathetic vibrating lower strings and an intricately carved head often featuring Cupid blindfolded to represent the travails of love
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A xun has a blowhole on the top and finger holes for notes of the scale
Word of the week: An egg-shaped vessel flute from China (埙) with a blow and finger holes, it’s one of that civilisations oldest instruments with a haunting, delicate sound, mostly made clay or ceramic, but sometimes bone, wood, stone, gourd, even bamboo
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Yatga player Altantsetseg Badgar
Word of the week: Related to the Chinese guzheng, this beautiful and delicate sounding instrument is a traditional fingernail-plucked Mongolian zither, the other hand applying pressure to strings to change the notes
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Typical wooden zurna
Word of the week: You will know it as soon as heard. With it distinctively high, reedy, resonant and evocative sound, this short folk, conical-shaped oboe of Arab origins can be heard from Turkey across south-east Europe and parts of Asia made of wood with a double reed
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The contrabass balalaika
Word of the week: A distinctive long-necked three-stringed lute used in traditional Russian folk and dance music with a triangular body, this instrument has short sustain with a small sound hole, so requires rapid strumming or plucking, and comes a range of sizes and tunings
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Crwth player Cass Meurig
Word of the week: Intriguingly vowel-less, this is a bowed medieval Welsh lyre with a flat bridge ideal for playing chords and melodies, with a design dating back to Roman times and reached peaked popularity in the Middle Ages
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Vintage damascene violin with interwoven silver and gold
Word of the Week: Craft, art, flower, a city and people, it’s a word used in different parts of speech, meanings and associations, it has a certain musical beauty to its sound but is surprisingly rare in song lyrics
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One of many visual impressions of the great early Renaissance satirist François Rabelais
Word of the Week: It’s a bewildering world, and this wonderful sounding evocative verb, attributed originally to translated François Rabelais from 1469, indeed means to confuse, and its four syllables trundle musically with a form of crash-bang rhythm
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That certain smile: Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope, the calculating curate in BBC’s The Barchester Chronicies
Word of the week: It’s an adjective to describe the act of flattery, often false and deceitful, toadying, fawning and that done by a sycophant, but where does it come from and how might it show up in song?
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