Musical Instruments

In a world where the song of existence thrums through everything, musical instruments are vitally important! Or at the very least, they certainly provide entertainment and beauty for people from all places and walks of life. There are four basic types of instruments in Avaria: percussion, woodwind, stringed, and keyboard. This list is illustrative rather than exhaustive -- not all these instruments are currently coded into the game, and there are certainly many more whose time period and origin would find them a place in Avaria.

Percussion Instruments

These are the oldest of the musical instruments. They exist in two subtypes, idiophone (where sound is created primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself) and membranophone (where sound is created by means of a vibrating stretched membrane). There's no functional difference between the two in terms of mechanics, but the difference may help in imagining the instrument in question and how it works and sounds.

Instrument	Description	Subtype	Cultural Region	Notes
Balafon	A wooden-keyed xylophone, with the keys strung on a frame over gourd resonators.	Idiophone	Western Idiri
Jembe	A skin-covered goblet drum, tuned with ropes and played with the hands.	Membranophone	Northwestern Idiri
Naqqara	A rounded drum of baked clay, with a stretched hide top. Usually played in pairs.	Membranophone	Sirdabi Caliphate

Woodwind Instruments

Not just made of wood, but also metal and bone. Woodwinds come in two primary subtypes, flutes (reedless instruments that create sound by vibrating the air across an opening) and reed instruments (where sound is created by vibrating a thin strip of material inside the instrument).

Instrument	Description	Subtype	Cultural Region	Notes
Mizmar	A conical-bore, double-reed woodwind instrument that produces a wailing melody.	Reed (Double)	Sirdabi Caliphate, North Idiri
Ney	An end-blown flute with either five or six holes in the front, and a single thumb hole in back. Usually made from wood or a reed.	Flute	Sirdabi Caliphate

Stringed Instruments

These exist in immense variety, and are divided into two subtypes, plucked and bowed. Plucked instruments may require a pick or plectrum to play, or they may be played with the fingers alone. Bowed instruments (unsurprisingly) require a bow to play.

Instrument	Description	Subtype	Cultural Region	Notes
Kemenche	A bowed string instrument with three strings and a pear- or paddle-shaped body. Usually played resting upright on the musician's knee, or sometimes on the ground.	Bowed	Sirdabi Caliphate	Especially favored by Irzali.
Kora	A complex hybrid string instrument with characteristics of both lute and harp, plucked with the fingers. The body is made from cowhide stretched over a calabash, and its hardwood neck has 22 strings.	Plucked	Western Idiri	The trademark instrument of Bissenke bards.
Oud	A short-necked, fretless lute, typically with eleven strings grouped in six courses. Played using a wooden plectrum.	Plucked	Sirdabi Caliphate
Rebab	A one-, two-, or three-string instrument with a long neck and small rounded body, often with a spike at the bottom for playing upright while resting on the ground.	Bowed	Sirdabi Caliphate	Popular among nomadic tribes of Rahoum.

Keyboard Instruments

This is the most modern group of instruments, with most only having been devised in the last two hundred years or so. They are divided into two subtypes, the venerable aerophone (creating sound by forcing pressurized air through pipes, mediated by keys) and the new-fangled chordophones (creating sound by striking at or plucking strings, likewise mediated by keys).

Instrument	Description	Subtype	Cultural Region	Notes
Clavichord	A stringed rectangular keyboard instrument, producing sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents.	Chordophone	Ruvera
Pipe Organ	A keyboard instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through different metal pipes, selected using keys.	Aerophone	Kalentoi Empire