Italian musical instruments

A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys—with the exception of the Bosendörfer and Stuart & Sons pianos—and tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament. A musician who specializes in piano is called a pianist.

A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of eight strings. A variety of string types are used, with steel strings being the most common and usually the least expensive. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin lyra) is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke that lies in the same plane as the sound table, and consists of two arms and a crossbar.

thumb|200px| Castanets seller in Granada, [[Spain]] thumb|198px|Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1909 painting Dancing girl with castanets Castanets, also known as clackers or palillos, are a percussion instrument (idiophonic), used in Spanish, Calé, Moorish, Ottoman, Greek, Italian, Mexican, Sephardic, Portuguese, Filipino, Brazilian, and Swiss music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a similar instrument called the crotalum.

The ocarina (otherwise known as a potato flute) is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from clay or ceramic, but other materials are also used, such as plastic, wood, glass, metal, or bone. The Italian Ocarina was invented in 1853 by 17-year-old Giuseppe Donati, who also gave it the name ocarina. Donati handmade each ocarina from clay, with anything from 7 to 10 finger-holes and a spout for a mouthpiece.

thumb|Video of a hurdy-gurdy being played

thumb|right|250px|Fortepiano by Paul McNulty (piano maker)|Paul McNulty after Walter & Sohn, 1805

The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed stringed instrument of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings.

The cimbasso ( , ) is a low brass instrument that covers the same range as a tuba or contrabass trombone. First appearing in Italy in the early 19th century as an upright serpent, the term cimbasso came to denote several instruments that could play the lowest brass part in 19th century Italian opera orchestras. The modern cimbasso design, first appearing as the in the 1880s, has four to six rotary valves (or occasionally piston valves), a forward-facing bell, and a predominantly cylindrical bore. These features lend its sound to the bass of the trombone family rather than the tuba, and its val

string instrument played with hammers

thumb|Pommers with reeds Pommer or bombard (French hautbois; Italian bombardo, bombardone) describes the alto, tenor, bass, and contrabass members of the shawm or Schalmey family. They are similar in function to the modern cor anglais, tenoroon, bassoon, and contrabassoon, although the bassoon family's direct ancestor was the dulcian/curtal family.

The launeddas (also called Sardinian triple clarinet) are a traditional Sardinian woodwind instrument made of three pipes, each of which has an idioglot single reed. They are a polyphonic instrument, with one of the pipes functioning as a drone and the other two playing the melody in thirds and sixths.

stringed instrument

thumb|Piffero thumb|Ettore Losini playing the piffero in Bobbio, near [[Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy]] The piffero () or piffaro is a double-reed musical instrument of the oboe family with a conical bore (Sachs-Hornbostel category 422.112). It is used to play music in the tradition of the '''', an area of mountains and valleys in the north-west Italian Apennines which includes parts of the four provinces of Alessandria, Genoa, Piacenza and Pavia. It is also played throughout Southern Italy with different fingering styles dictated by local tradition.

thumb|220px|Putipù. Collection of Museo Azzarini.The putipù is a musical instrument traditionally used in folk music of Southern Italy, in particular of Naples and surrounding regions. It is a friction drum, consisting of a cylindrical sound box closed at the top by a stretched membrane, with a bamboo cane attached at the center. The instrument is played by rubbing the rod with a wet hand, cloth, or sponge, that causes the membrane to vibrate.

thumb|Zampogna Zampogna ( , , ) is a generic term for a number of Italian double chantered bagpipes that can be found throughout areas in Latium. The tradition is now mostly associated with Christmas, and the most famous Italian carol, "Tu scendi dalle stelle", is derived from traditional zampogna music. However, there is an ongoing resurgence of the instrument in secular use seen with the increasing number of folk music festivals and folk music every December by Italian ensembles.

Instrument consisting of a glockenspiel operated by a piano keyboard

thumb|150px|A musician with an Italian baghèt wearing traditional dress 150px|right|thumb|A modern baghet (made 2000 by Valter Biella) in Sol/G