The art of miniature did not bypass musical instruments. There are only a dozen craftsmen in the world who can skillfully reproduce a small copy of a full-size piano or cello. We present a list of the smallest musical instruments.
The smallest piano
In 2006, the Japanese company Sega Toys created a tiny electronic piano weighing just over 3 kilograms. An exact copy of the grandiose concert instrument measures 25 cm wide, 33 cm long and 18 cm high. 
The creators of the mini-piano called Grand Pianist assure that their musical instrument is not a toy. By pressing the keys, you can hear a real live sound. However, playing it is quite inconvenient, since the size of each of the 88 keys is 4 mm wide.
How to play the smallest piano in the world
In addition, 100 ready-made melodies of various musical genres are built into the database of the smallest piano for autoplay. Also, the “mini-keys” have a slot for a memory card and connection to an mp3 player.
The smallest saxophone
The smallest saxophone is called Sopranissimo, or Soprillo. The length of the instrument is 30 cm, while the most common alto saxophone has a size of 80 cm. 
The soprillo saxophone has a pronounced squeaky sound due to the small size of the instrument.
An extremely small mouthpiece requires the performer to play embouchure, a special way of folding the lips of musicians for playing wind instruments. It is especially difficult to play the soprillo in the upper register.
The demand for the Sopranissimo Sax among musicians is very low, so manufacturers still continue to produce this subspecies of the saxophone exclusively for decorative purposes. The low popularity of the soprillo compared to alto and tenor saxophones also affects its price - you can buy such an instrument for $ 3,400.
The smallest harmonica
The smallest harmonica is considered Little Lady from the German company Honner. The length of the microharmonica is 5 cm, the thickness is 15 mm, and the weight is only 18 grams. The manufacturer positions the instrument as a key chain, but it can be played as a full-fledged harmonica. 
Little Lady has only four holes with a range of one octave, which is very reminiscent of Honner's "Vetorok" (original Speedy) children's harmonica. Both are tuned in the key of C major.
Despite its uniquely small size, the Little Lady is not uncommon. You can buy an accordion with a brass body and pearwood inlays for $23.
The smallest violin
Violinist Chen from China created a violin 1 cm long. It is made of maple and is a working instrument, although it is difficult to play it. It took him 7 years to create this tiny violin. 
This is not the only mini-tool in Chen's arsenal. Previously, he made violins 2 cm and 3.5 cm long. The 9 mm violin was created by Mikhail Maslyuk, a resident of the Ukrainian Zhmerinka, from the city of Zhmerynka. On a coin with a face value of 1 kopeck, 5 such instruments can fit.
The record holder in the manufacture of small violins is Mykola Sryadisty from Kiev. He created an instrument even smaller than Maslyuk's violin. Its length is 0.5 mm, and the violin easily passes through the eye of the needle. The violin made by Sryadisty is an exact copy of the Stradivarius violin.
The smallest cello
In 1973, master Eric Meissner introduced the world to a tiny 41 mm long cello. The instrument is designed so that it can be played without taking into account the fact that it is not very convenient to do so. The mini-cello exists in a single copy and in Meissner's private house. 
The smallest balalaika
Nikolai Sryadisty managed to create not only a tiny violin, but also the smallest balalaika, consisting of 40 parts. Each of its strings is 50 times thinner than a human hair, and the instrument itself is made of wood. 
To decorate his miniature, Sryadsty made a case, connecting two poppy seeds with a cobweb. Inside the left recess, he engraved a portrait of the virtuoso balalaika player Vasily Andreev, and placed a nano-balalaika in the right one.
There is a guitar whose dimensions correspond to the size of a blood cell, namely 0.001 mm. In 1997, it was created by Harold Craighead and Dustin Carr, professors at the Department of Nanotechnology at Cornell University in the USA. 
It was only in 2011 that Craighead and Carr came up with a special laser beam to play the miracle instrument. You will not be able to hear the sounds of a mini-violin, since the sounds it produces are outside the human auditory range.
The thickness of each of the six strings is 2,000 times thinner than a human hair, and they can only be played using a special laser beam. In the late 90s, the nanoguitar entered the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest in the world.
The smallest harp
In 1999, the same Cornell University scientists created the nanoharp, which is recognized as the smallest stringed instrument. 
The mini-afra is cut out of silicon monocrystal. The thickness of its strings is a thousand times less than a human hair. They emit a sound too high a frequency for the perception of the human ear, so a person can only follow the vibration of the strings in the pictures of the electron microscope.
Micronium - the smallest musical instrument in the world
In 2010, students at the Department of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands presented a system of hundreds of nanochips integrated into a silicon crystal. Micronium is capable of playing the sounds of any instrument from a symphony orchestra. Each chip sounds in six keys.Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen
An ancient Greek legend tells that the first musical instrument was created by the god Pan, who walked in the forest near the river, plucked a reed and began to blow into it. It turned out that the reed tube is capable of making enchanting sounds that add up to beautiful melodies. Pan cut several branches of the reed and connected them together, creating the first instrument - the prototype of the flute.
Thus, the ancient Greeks believed that the first musical instrument was the flute. Perhaps it is - at least it is the oldest instrument recorded by researchers. Its oldest copy was found in the south of Germany, in the Holi Fels cave, where excavations of a prehistoric human settlement are being carried out. In total, three flutes were found in this place, carved from a tusk and having several holes. Archaeologists also found fragments that apparently belonged to the same flutes. Radiocarbon analysis has helped determine the age of these tools, and the oldest has been dated to 40,000 BC. So far, this is the oldest instrument found on Earth, but it is possible that other specimens simply have not survived to this day.
Similar flutes and pipes were found on the territory of Hungary and Moldova, but they were made in 25-22 millennia BC.
Candidates for the title of the most ancient musical instruments
Although while the flute is considered the most ancient musical instrument, it is possible that in fact the drum or any other device was the first to be made. For example, the Australian aborigines are sure that their national instrument called the didgeridoo is the oldest, its history goes back to the depths of the history of the indigenous population of this continent, which, according to scientists, is from 40 to 70 thousand years old. Thus, it is quite possible that the didgeridoo is indeed the oldest instrument. It is an imposing piece of eucalyptus trunk, in some cases reaching three meters in length, with a hollow core, eaten away by termites.
Since didgeridoos are always cut from different stems with different shapes, their sounds never repeat.
The most ancient drums found date back to only the fifth millennium BC, but scientists believe that this is one of the most likely candidates for the title of the first musical instrument. Its long history is evidenced by both the wide variety of types of modern drums and their almost ubiquitous distribution, as well as a simple and uncomplicated design that would allow even the most ancient human ancestors to play melodies with the help of simple devices. In addition, it has been proven that in many cultures drum music was a very important part of life: it accompanied all holidays, weddings, funerals, wars.
People have discovered the enchanting sounds of music since ancient times. In ancient Greek myths, both gods and mortals owned the art of playing various musical instruments. Not a single feast was complete without pipes, tympanums and flutes, which brightened up the celebrations of kings and ordinary peasants. But what is the oldest instrument on Earth?
The first musical instruments
The existence of musical instruments in ancient times was first told by archaeologists, who find pipes, tweeters and other items for playing music in almost all excavations. At the same time, similar finds were discovered in those territories where archaeologists managed to unearth the sites of primitive people.
Archaeologists attribute some of the found musical instruments to the Upper Paleolithic era - in other words, these instruments appeared 22-25 thousand years before our era.
In addition, ancient people were able not only to make musical instruments, but also music for them, writing notes on clay tablets. The oldest musical notation to date was written in the 18th century BC. Archaeologists found it in the Sumerian city of Nippur, which they excavated, which was once located on the territory of modern Iraq. Scientists at the University of California who deciphered the sheet music in 1974 stated that it contained the words and music of an Assyrian love ballad for string lyre.
The oldest musical instrument
In 2009, archaeologists discovered in one of the caves located in southwestern Germany the remains of an instrument that strongly resembles a modern one. The analyzes and studies carried out showed that the age of the ancient flute is more than 35 thousand years. Five perfectly round holes were made in the body of the flute, which should be closed with fingers when played, and at its ends there were two deep V-shaped cuts.
The length of the musical instrument was 21.8 centimeters, and the thickness was only 8 millimeters.
The material from which the flute was made turned out not to be wood, but from a bird's wing. This instrument is by far the oldest, but not the first in the history of archaeological finds - bone pipes, hollow animal horns, pipes made of shells, stone and wooden rattles, as well as drums made from animal skins have also been repeatedly found at excavations.
There are many legends about the origin of music. The ancient Greeks believed that the great gods of Olympus gave it to them, but modern scientists have conducted a number of ethnographic and archaeological studies. As a result of these studies, it was found that the first music appeared in primitive society and was used as a lullaby for lulling.
No one can say exactly when music originated, but it is known that it has accompanied mankind since ancient times. Even at the dawn of civilization, three methods of musical sound production stood out: hitting a sounding object, vibrating a stretched string, and blowing air into a hollow tube. This was the beginning of three varieties of musical instruments - percussion, string and wind.
The very first wind instruments were hollow bones of various animals. For example, the oldest known to scientists - the Neanderthal pipe - is made from the bone of a cave bear. In their development, wind instruments took on different forms, but different peoples observed common patterns in this process.
Pan flute
Having learned to extract sound from a tube (first a bone one, then a wooden one), a person wanted to diversify this sound. He noticed that pipes of different lengths make sounds of different heights. The simplest (and therefore most ancient) solution was to tie several different tubes together and move this construction along the mouth.
Thus was born an instrument, best known by the Greek name syrinx, or Pan's flute (according to Greek myth, it was created by the god Pan). But one should not think that only the Greeks had such a flute - among other peoples it existed under other names: ekuduchai in Lithuania, nai in Moldova, kugikly in Russia.
A distant descendant of this flute is such a complex and majestic instrument as the organ.
Pipe and flute
To extract sounds of different heights, it is not necessary to take several pipes, you can change the length of one by making holes on it and blocking them with your fingers in certain combinations. Thus, an instrument was born, which among the Russians was called the flute, - among the Belarusians - a pipe, at - a sopilka, at - salamuri, among Moldovans - a flue.
All these instruments are held across the face, this is called the "longitudinal flute", but there was another design: the hole into which air is blown is in the same plane as the holes for the fingers. Such a flute - transverse - was developed in academic music, the modern flute goes back to it. And the "descendant" of the flute - the block flute - is not included in the symphony orchestra, although it is used in academic music.
zhaleika
The instruments discussed above are among the whistling ones, but there is also a more complex design: the instrument is equipped with a bell into which a tongue is inserted - a thin plate (originally made of birch bark), the vibration of which makes the sound louder and changes its timbre.
This design is typical for the Russian zhaleyka, the Chinese sheng. There were similar instruments in Western Europe, and modern classical oboe and clarinet go back to them.
Horn
Another option for the design of a wind instrument is an additional part that comes into contact with the musician's lips, the mouthpiece. This is characteristic of the horn.
The horn is usually associated with the work of a shepherd. Indeed, the shepherds used horns, because the sound of this instrument is quite strong, it can be heard at a great distance. This is facilitated by the conical shape.
This is only a small part of the diversity that the wind instruments of different peoples represent.
Related videos
Sources:
- Vasiliev Yu., Shirokov A. Stories about Russian folk instruments
Advice 4: What musical instruments are considered folk
Folk instruments are an integral part of the traditional culture of a particular country, but in order to understand what kind of instruments can be considered folk, it is necessary to turn to history and folk music.
Roughly speaking, anything that can make a sound more or less pleasant to the human ear can be called a musical instrument: a spoon, a knife, a saw, sticks, and so on. But still, we are used to a more or less standardized fixture. The largest is the organ - a huge piano with a complex system of pipes that produces sounds of high power and the widest range. But what is the smallest musical instrument? Let's figure it out.
The harmonica is an instrument that can easily fit in your pocket. This is a plus: you can always have it with you, which is what harpers use with pleasure - people who professionally play this unusual instrument.
Despite the apparent frivolity, the harmonica is often introduced into blues, jazz and even rock compositions. Many Russian musicians play it well, for example, Boris Grebenshchikov, Sergey Chigrakov, Vladimir Shakhrin and many others.
The smallest harmonica "Little Lady" had a length of 5 centimeters and a thickness of 1.5. They made it in Germany in the 90s of the 19th century, but it has survived to this day.
The harmonica in the minds of most musicians is not a serious, folk or even amateur instrument. The triangle is a different matter. Despite its apparent simplicity, even primitiveness, it has a strong and bright sound. The triangle part, however funny it may sound, is included in many classical works.
For example, "Anita's Dance" from Grieg's drama "Peer Gynt" and the overture to "William Tell" are already incomplete without the sound of a triangle. It was used by Beethoven, Mozart, Hayden and many other composers. And Liszt even wrote a work that the musicians call "Concerto for the Triangle" - Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra. In it, this frivolous instrument plays a very serious role.
The flute itself is miniature, and the piccolo is also called a small flute. This miniature instrument has a high but pleasant sound. She can often be found in symphony orchestras, but the leading part is rarely assigned to the baby, more often she simply complements other instruments. Vivaldi, Shostakovich, Ravel and appreciated the delicate beauty of this instrument.
Children's fun, a whistle, in skillful hands turns into a musical instrument with a bright and rich sound. Traditional folk is usually made from wood, clay, and now plastic. Interestingly, a wide range of sounds can be produced from the same whistle by simply pouring some water inside. Then the whistle turns into sizzling trills.
This simple and unpretentious musical instrument cannot be found in symphony orchestras, but folk groups are happy to insert them, adding an authentic sound.
The tools we have listed above are tiny in and of themselves. Of course, if you wish, you can make the triangle smaller, but they have their own standards and must obey them. But there are tools that have become so tiny at the behest of the creators.
For example, Dustin Carr and Harold Kreidhead from the Department of Nanotechnology at Cornell University introduced the nanoguitar to the public. It has a total length of about 10 micrometers, the strings are about 10 atoms in diameter. Nevertheless, she plays, however, you can crush her with your finger without even noticing, so you have to use a laser beam. The guitar makes sounds, but the human ear cannot hear it, you have to use amplifiers.
Nanoharp
To say that this is just a small musical instrument is to say nothing. For its manufacture, they took a silicon crystal, on which the tool was etched. The diameter of the strings is really nano - 50 nanometers. They emit a sound of 380 million hertz. It is played in the same way as a nanoguitar - with a laser beam.
In addition to miniature and ultra-tech nanotoys, there is a third category - smaller copies of conventional tools. One of them is a piccolo saxophone that will fit on your dinner plate. Its length is 30 centimeters. This is especially noteworthy, given that the saxophone is considered one of the most difficult instruments. To repeat it in miniature is a real feat.
Sega Toys Co in 2006 presented an unusual musical instrument, a piano weighing 2 kilograms. On it, as expected, 88 keys, each of which has a width of 4 millimeters. It is incredibly difficult to play on it, the sound is also not too familiar. But to carry such a piano, you do not need movers.
The string group (double bass, viola, cello and violin) strongly depend on the size of the body, because it resonates and reflects the sound. Some masters like to experiment with size and shape, achieving an unusual sound. But in 1973, Eric Messner did not take extreme measures at all: he created a tool 41 millimeters long. Surprisingly, this cello repeats the usual one in everything, it can even play, albeit in a very high range.
The quality of an instrument does not necessarily depend on its size, and the ones we found are a direct confirmation of this.
- shepherd's pipe
- whistle
- harmonica
- horn
- piccolo flute
- triangle.
- pipe - forty-eight points;
- balalaika - five points;
- VIOLIN(definitely not among the small musical instruments) - 41 points;
- FLUTE- 22 points;
- harmonica(this is already warmer) - 18 points;
- DUDKA(with flute roll call) - 12 points;
- BALALAIKA(wow, small musical instrument) - 5 points;
- TAMBOURINE(there is no harp, give a tambourine - how can you not remember Leonid Bykov) - 2 points.
- harmonica;
- Pipe;
- Pipe;
- Horn;
- Flute;
- spoons;
- Triangle;
- Clarinet
Probably the smallest is a whistle, also a harmonica, a flute is not a big (comparatively) triangle (drummers use it), a pipe that shepherds use. Mini accordion (there is one). The horn is also not a great instrument.
Based on the size of the smallest musical instruments, then they should probably be listed in this order -
Of course, there are still many different national instruments of a fairly small size.
What is the smallest music. tool? Right answers
The most popular answer is violin - 164 points;
The second most popular - flute - forty-four points;
The next answer is harmonica - eighteen points;
The least popular answer is a tambourine - two points.
You can also add an answer - a small instrument triangle percussion musical instrument
The problem is that you can imagine what this instrument looks like, but you don’t know the name, but it’s not among the answers that 100 to 1 players considered correct (such a rope that they blow and play with a finger, Valdis Pelsh on such piece played once).
The answers should be as follows, in order to score the maximum points:
In an exciting game 100 to 1. To the question What is the smallest musical instrument? there will be answers like this:
triangle
harmonica.
Harmonica, since childhood I like it the most :)
In fact, there are several musical instruments that are very miniature in size. But the smallest of them, in my opinion, is the harmonica. Among the harmonicas there are specimens no larger than a matchbox.
Perhaps there are smaller musical instruments, but I have not seen them.
If the whistle can be considered a musical instrument, then in its parameters it also fits into the ranks of the smallest musical instruments.)
Musical instruments come in a variety of sizes, the smallest of which are those that have the simplest design and fit in the hand. Obviously, these are various kinds of pipes: this is a piccolo flute (translated from Italian - small), a flute, a harmonica, a horn. Interesting material about the smallest musical instruments in the world is here.
The smallest musical instrument:
There are probably other small instruments, but only professional musicians know them.
Flute - piccolo, harmonica, whistle, pipe, whistle, triangle. These are the smallest, so to speak, miniature instruments in my opinion. The rest are already a little larger, a little louder. Surely these options will fall into the most popular ones, but there will be others, interesting ones.
The answer to your musical riddle is a 100 to 1 question. What musical instrument will be the smallest.
In the first place will be - Flute.
The second place will be taken by the Armenian Duduk.
In third place will be - Harmonica.
The smallest musical instruments are harmonica, piccolo flute, jew's harp or drymba, piccolo saxophone, flute, nozzle (drinker), triangle (percussion instrument), harmonica, pipe, castanets, box (percussion instrument).
The smallest musical instrument is probably the harmonica, flute, flute, pipe, tambourine, castanets, gong, pity, pipe, horn, duduk. Maybe of course they are not the smallest, but something will definitely fall out.
1899 Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel "Pan"
The truth is that we cannot name the first musical instrument, since all the primitive people all over the world seem to have created some kind of music. It was usually music with some kind of religious meaning, and the audience became participants in it. They danced, drummed, clapped and sang along with her. It wasn't just for fun. This primitive music was a significant part of people's lives.
The legend of Pan and the reed suggests how man came up with the idea of making so many different musical instruments. He may have imitated the sounds of nature, or used nature's objects around him to create his music.
The first musical instruments were percussion (drum type). 
Later, man invented wind instruments made from animal horns. From these primitive wind instruments, modern brass instruments have evolved. As man developed his musical sense, he began to use reeds and thus produced more natural and gentler sounds. 
In 2009, an expedition led by archaeologist Nicholas Conard from the University of Tübengen discovered the remains of several musical instruments. During excavations in the Hols Fels cave in Germany, scientists managed to find four bone flutes. The most interesting find is a 22-cm flute which is 35,000 years old.
The flute has 5 holes for extracting sounds and a mouthpiece.
These finds show that the Neanderthal already knew how to make musical instruments. This circumstance allows us to take a different look at the world of primitive man, it turns out that music in his world played far from the last role.
Finally, man invented the simple lyre and harp, from which bowed instruments came. The lyre was the most important stringed instrument of ancient Greece and Rome, along with the cithara. According to myth, the lyre was invented by Hermes. For its manufacture, Garmes used a tortoise shell; for the antelope horn frame.
In the Middle Ages, the Crusaders brought many amazing oriental musical instruments from their campaigns. Combined with the folk instruments that already existed in Europe, they developed into many instruments that are now used to play music.
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