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The Wide World of Music: A Guide to 100 Musical Instruments [Interactive]

Click any instrument to hear what it sounds like!

Explore the wide array of sounds with our interactive instruments list! Games online are rarely ever this educational and fun. From the xylophone to the alphorn, click each image to not only see but hear all instruments on this list in A-Z (or should we say A-X?) order. Before kids decide which one they want to play when they grow up, they can explore instruments of the stringed, brass, percussion, and wind varieties here first. While sorting the name list of instruments in alphabetical order, we’ve also included which of them are aerophones (wind and brass), membranophones (percussion), chordophones (stringed), and electrophones (synthetic) as well as the general note range (which clef they’re played in).

In addition, we included which musical instruments for kids are usually in an orchestra. Only a small fraction of classic instruments are typically included. Kids explore instruments from piccolos to flutes to cellos to violas to timpani, and although each are normal components of an orchestra, that is certainly not representative of all of the beautiful sounds human beings have managed to make with hundreds-of-years-old musical instruments. The list of instruments in a Chinese orchestra might include a yangqin, huqin, dizi, or bianzhong, for instance. There’s a huge variety of music instruments, and this interactive instruments-of-the-orchestra list can help illustrate that.

Of course, this shows only a small fraction of all instruments out there for kids to explore. You can make music with anything, even a can, stick, fence, or rock. It’s important that adults reinforce using music as play, letting kids explore all instruments and flex their creative muscles to create sounds, as there are many mental and physical benefits to making music. Musical instruments list many nations of origin, too, so children can learn about other cultures and their music instruments by exploring the music of Irish, Spanish, African, and other under-represented cultures in the typical canon of American swing music.

Use our interactive list of instruments to find some cool sounds, but know that there are far more out there in the world of music than just our list of 100 instruments. Explore instruments and musical games for kids, and check out interactive sites for education on music theory. Games like turning this page into a guess-the-instrument-sound game can really hone the musical ear to all instruments and their sounds, while some musical instrument games for preschoolers can really help them get ahead. For older students, elementary music games online will allow them to decide on which music instruments they’ll want to learn, without being coerced into a traditional role.

Click around, explore, and have fun with our musical instruments game and music theory interactive!


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