All world instruments can make wonderful and varied sounds in many different combination. Take every opportunity to get to know each instrument. Each has its own personality. The composer takes great care in choosing just those instruments that will make the best effect for the music he has in mind. The more familiar you become with them by sight and by sound, the greater will be your pleasure in the music.
World instruments are devices used in making musical sounds. Most musical instruments fall into three great orders: the strings, the winds, and the percussion. Stretch a rubber band across the top of an empty, open cigar box. Twang the rubber band in the middle. The vibrations can be seen. Yet they will be rapid enough to produce sound waves in the air. You can hear the twang. That is the working principle of a stringed instrument.
Next, blow across the top of an empty bottle. Try different angles for your breath until you hear a soft, cooing sound. This sound comes from the air in the bottle, which your breath has set for quivering with invisible vibrations of the twanged rubber band. You can hear the cooing. That is the working principle of a wing instrument. Now take a very thin board of wood. Sprinkle some bread crumbs over it. These have nothing to do with the sound, but they will help you see what is happening.
Tap the board sharply with your knuckles. You will not see the wood quivering with vibrations. But you will probably feel the vibrations in the hand that is holding the wood, and you will certainly see the bread crumbs dancing in response to them. These vibrations produce the sound waves that carry the tapping sound to your ears. That is the working principle of percussion instrument.
Besides the three traditional orders of instruments, modern science has added a new order: electronic instruments. These have loud speakers, which vibrate much like the wooden board. The vibrations are set up by electrical impulses. Such electrical impulses can be very complicated indeed and can therefore produce all the complex sounds of music. In fact, sounds that no ordinary musical instrument can make can be produced by an electronic apparatus.
A stone dropped into water makes waves that spread out to the sides of the pond. You can see the force which the waves break. When a musical instrument is played, it quivers with vibrations. These vibrations spread out through the air till they break against our ears. The force with which they break is what makes us hear the sound. All world instruments gives off sound waves when they are played but each instruments gives them off in their own individual pattern.
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