A folk instrument is an instrument that developed among common people and usually doesn't have a known inventor. It can be made from wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

 or other material. It is a part of folk music

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

. The instruments can be percussion instruments, different types of flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, the bow

Musical bow

The musical bow is a simple string musical instrument most archaic cultures as well as in many in the present day. It consisting of a string supported by a flexible stick 1.5 to 10 feet long, and strung end to end with a taut cord. Usually made out of wood...

 and different types of trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s.Some instruments are referred to as folk instruments even if they do not meet the criteria for classifying a folk instrument because they commonly appear in folk music. An example would be harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

.

List of folk instruments

• Accordion
  Accordion
  The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
  
  
• Appalachian dulcimer
  Appalachian dulcimer
  The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings. It is native to the Appalachian region of the United States...
  
  
• autoharp
  Autoharp
  The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...
  
  
• bagpipe
• balalaika
  Balalaika
  The balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
  
  
• bandura
  Bandura
  Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...
  
  
• banjo
  Banjo
  In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
  
  
• bağlama
  Baglama
  thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....
  
  
• bodhran
  Bodhrán
  The bodhrán is an Irish frame drum ranging from 25 to 65 cm in diameter, with most drums measuring 35 to 45 cm . The sides of the drum are 9 to 20 cm deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side...
  
  
• bukkehorn
  Bukkehorn
  A bukkehorn is an ancient Norwegian musical instrument, made from the horn of a ram or a goat. It was traditionally used by cowherds on summer dairy farms in the high mountains.-External links:*...
  
  
• Rhythm Bones
• bouzouki
  Bouzouki
  The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...
  
   and Irish bouzouki
  Irish bouzouki
  The Irish bouzouki is a development of the octave mandolin adapted for Irish traditional and other folk music from the late 1960s onward.-Adoption for Celtic music:...
  
  
• Bullroarer
  Bullroarer (music)
  The bullroarer, rhombus, or turndun, is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over greatly-extended distances. It dates to the Paleolithic period, being found in Ukraine dating from 17,000 BC...
  
  
• cavaquinho
  Cavaquinho
  The cavaquinho is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wire or gut strings. It is also called machimbo, machim, machete , manchete or marchete, braguinha or braguinho, or cavaco.The most common tuning is D-G-B-D ; other tunings include D-A-B-E...
  
  
• charango
  Charango
  The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, 66 cm long, traditionally made with the shell of the back of an armadillo. Primarily played in traditional Andean music, and is sometimes used by other Latin American musicians. Many contemporary charangos are now made with...
  
  
• cümbüş
  Cümbüs
  The cümbüş is a Turkish stringed instrument of relatively modern origin. Developed in the early 20th century by Zeynelabidin Cümbüş as an oud-like instrument that could be heard as part of a larger ensemble. In construction it resembles both the American banjo and the Middle Eastern oud. A...
  
  
• çiftelia
  Çiftelia
  The Çifteli is an Albanian wooden, largely acoustic string instrument, with only two strings .The çifteli is commonly used by Albanian folk musicians as well as other modern musicians and is played by Albanians at weddings, concerts, national events, and other occasions...
  
  
• concertina
  Concertina
  A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...
  
  
• daegeum
  Daegeum
  The daegeum is a large bamboo transverse flute used in traditional Korean music. It has a buzzing membrane that gives it a special timbre...
  
  
• darbuka
• didgeridoo
  Didgeridoo
  The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
  
  
• dhol
  Dhol
  Dhol can refer to any one of a number of similar types of double-headed drum widely used, with regional variations, throughout the Indian subcontinent and nearby regions. Its range of distribution in India and Pakistan primarily includes northern areas such as the Assam Valley, Bengal, Gujarat,...
  
  
• Djembe
  Djembe
  A djembe also known as jembe, jenbe, djbobimbe, jymbe, yembe, or jimbay, or sanbanyi in Susu; is a skin-covered drum meant played with bare hands....
  
  
• dholak
  Dholak
  The Dholak is a North Indian, Pakistani and Nepalese double-headed hand-drum Madal. The name dholki may also refer to a slightly different instrument that uses high-pitch tabla style syahi masala on its treble skin. This instrument is also known as Naal or Dholki....
  
  
• dingulator
• dotara
  Dotara
  The dotara is a two or four or some times five stringed musical instrument resembling more to mandolin than a guitar...
  
  
• dranyen
• drum
  Drum
  The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
  
  
• ektara
  Ektara
  Ektara is a one-string instrument used in Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and Pakistan.thumb||EktaraIn origin the ektara was a regular string instrument of wandering bards and minstrels from India and is plucked with one finger...
  
  
• erhu
  Erhu
  The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...
  
  
• fiedil / Fiddle
  Fiddle
  The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
  
  
• Fujara
  Fujara
  The fujara originated in central Slovakia as a large sophisticated folk shepherd's fipple flute of unique design. It is technically a contrabass instrument in the tabor pipe class....
  
  
• gayageum
  Gayageum
  The gayageum or kayagum is a traditional Korean zither-like string instrument, with 12 strings, although more recently variants have been constructed with 21 or other numbers of strings. It is probably the best known traditional Korean musical instrument...
  
  
• gudok
  Gudok
  The gudok or hudok is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow.A gudok usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them...
  
  
• guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• gusle
  Gusle
  The Gusle is a single-stringed musical instrument traditionally used in the Dinarides region of the Balkans ....
  
  
• gusli
• haegeum
  Haegeum
  The haegeum is a traditional Korean string instrument, resembling a fiddle. It has a rodlike neck, a hollow wooden soundbox, and two silk strings, and is held vertically on the knee of the performer and played with a bow....
  
  
• Hank drum
  Hank drum
  A tank drum or hank drum is a round steel slit/tongue drum originally fashioned from a propane tank.-Description:Strictly speaking a tank drum is made from an empty propane tank. The tank is flipped over, the base cut/knocked off; and seven to ten tongues are cut radially into the 'bottom' of the...
  
  
• hardingfele
  Hardingfele
  A Hardanger fiddle is a traditional stringed instrument used originally to play the music of Norway. In modern designs, the instruments are very similar to the violin, though with eight or nine strings and thinner wood...
  
  
• harmonica
  Harmonica
  The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
  
  
• harmonium
  Harmonium
  A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
  
  
• hammered dulcimer
  Hammered dulcimer
  The hammered dulcimer is a stringed musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. Typically, the hammered dulcimer is set on a stand, at an angle, before the musician, who holds small mallet hammers in each hand to strike the strings...
  
  
• haat baya
• hurdy gurdy
  Hurdy gurdy
  The hurdy gurdy or hurdy-gurdy is a stringed musical instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to a violin...
  
  
• jaw harp
• jouhikko
  Jouhikko
  thumb|right| Replica of a 19th century Jouhikko made by Simon ChadwickThe jouhikko is a traditional, 2 or 3 stringed bowed lyre, from Finland and Karelia. Its strings are traditionally of horsehair. The playing of this instrument died out in the early 20th century but has been revived and there...
  
  
• jug
  Jug (musical instrument)
  The jug as a musical instrument reached its height of popularity in the 1920s, when jug bands, such as Cannon's Jug Stompers were popular. The jug is just that: an empty jug played with the mouth...
  
  
• kazoo
  Kazoo
  The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...
  
  
• kantele
  Kantele
  A kantele or kannel is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries...
  
  
• Kaval
  Kaval
  The kaval is a chromatic end-blown flute traditionally played throughout Azerbaijan, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, southern Serbia , northern Greece , Romania , and Armenia...
  
  
• khamak
  Khamak
  The Khamak is a stringed percussion instrument originating in India.-Characteristics and use:The Khamak consists of three basic parts. A bowl which is often made out of wood is connected by several strings to another, smaller piece . The bowl is held under the arm holding the smaller piece in the...
  
  
• klopotec
  Klopotec
  A klopotec is a wooden mechanical device on a high wooden pole, similar to a windmill. It is used as a bird scarer in the vineyards of traditional wine-growing landscapes of Slovenia, Austria and Croatia...
  
  
• kobza
  Kobza
  The kobza is a Ukrainian folk music instrument of the lute family , a relative of the Central European mandora...
  
  
• komuz
  Komuz
  The komuz or qomuz , Azeri Gopuz, Turkish Kopuz, is an ancient fretless string instrument used in Central Asian music, related to certain other Turkic string instruments and the lute....
  
  
• kora
  Kora (instrument)
  The kora is a 21-string bridge-harp used extensively in West Africa.-Description:A kora is built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator, and has a notched bridge. It does not fit well into any one category of western instruments and would have to be...
  
  
• kulintang
  Kulintang
  Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally-laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums...
  
  
• Launeddas
  Launeddas
  The launeddas is a typical Sardinian woodwind instrument, consisting of three pipes. It is polyphonic and played using circular breathing. An ancient instrument, dating back to at least the 8th century BC, launeddas are still played during religious ceremonies and dances...
  
  
• Låtfiol
  Låtfiol
  The låtfiol is a type of fiddle native to Sweden, which features two sympathetic strings running underneath the fingerboard.-Sources:*...
  
  
• Lur
  Lur
  A lur is a long natural blowing horn without finger holes that is played by embouchure. Lurs can be straight or curved in various shapes. The purpose of the curves was to make long instruments easier to carry A lur is a long natural blowing horn without finger holes that is played by embouchure....
  
  
• Lute
  Lute
  Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
  
  
• mbira
  Mbira
  In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...
  
   / thumb piano
  Thumb piano
  The thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.-Description:Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family...
  
  
• mandola
  Mandola
  The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola , a fifth lower than a mandolin...
  
  
• mandocello
  Mandocello
  The mandocello is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family. It has eight strings in four paired courses, tuned in 5ths like a mandolin, but is larger, and tuned CC-GG-dd-aa . It is to the mandolin what the cello is to the violin.-Construction:Mandocello construction is similar to the...
  
  
• mandolin
  Mandolin
  A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
  
   and octave mandolin
  Octave mandolin
  The octave mandolin is a fretted string instrument with four pairs of strings tuned in 5ths, G, D, A, E , an octave below a mandolin. It has a 20 to 23 inch scale length and its construction is similar to other instruments in the mandolin family...
  
  
• marimbula
  Marímbula
  A marímbula is a folk musical instrument of the Caribbean Islands . The marímbula is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. With its roots in African instruments, marimbula originated in the province of Oriente, Cuba in the 19th century...
  
  
• melodeon
  Melodeon (organ)
  A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...
  
  
• mridangam
• musical saw
  Musical saw
  A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...
  
  
• naal
• Nepali Madal
• nyckelharpa
  Nyckelharpa
  A nyckelharpa , sometimes called a keyed fiddle, is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string.The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a...
  
  
• ocarina
  Ocarina
  The ocarina is an ancient flute-like wind instrument. Variations do exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body...
  
  
• pan flute
  Pan flute
  The pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...
  
  
• pipa
  Pipa
  The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...
  
  
• pogo cello
  Pogo cello
  The pogo cello is a percussion instrument in the idiophone family. This instrument can be heard in the skiffle bands of England, jug bands from the United States, as well as some blues, bluegrass, folk and rock bands...
  
  
• prem juri
• quena
  Quena
  The quena is the traditional flute of the Andes. Usually made of bamboo or wood, it has 6 finger holes and one thumb hole and is open on both ends. To produce sound, the player closes the top end of the pipe with the flesh between his chin and lower lip, and blows a stream of air downward, along...
  
  
• Rebab
  Rebab
  The rebab , also rebap, rabab, rebeb, rababah, or al-rababa) is a type of string instrument so named no later than the 8th century and spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East...
  
  
• Rubab
• salamiyyah
• shofar
  Shofar
  A shofar is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.Shofar come in a variety of sizes.- Bible and rabbinic literature :...
  
  
• sitar
  Sitar
  The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
  
  
• Snare Drum
  Snare drum
  The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
  
  
• smallpipes
  Northumbrian smallpipes
  The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from the North East of England.In a survey of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines wrote: It is perhaps the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the...
  
  
• sopilka
  Sopilka
  Sopilka is a name applied to a variety of woodwind instruments of the flute family used by Ukrainian folk instrumentalists. Sopilka most commonly refers to a fife made of a variety of materials and has six to ten finger holes...
  
  
• spilåpipa
  Spilåpipa
  The spilåpipa is a type of fipple flute traditional in Sweden. It is traditionally from the pastoral/transhumant cultures of that country, though more widespread in the modern era. It is originally most common in the transhumant areas, generally north of Svealand...
  
  
• steelpan
  Steelpan
  Steelpans is a musical instrument originating from The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago...
  
  
• stompbox
• Talking drum
• tin whistle
  Tin whistle
  The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...
  
  
• trembita
  Trembita
  The trembita is a Ukrainian alpine horn made of wood.Used primarily by mountain dwellers known as Hutsuls in the Carpathians. It was used as a signaling device to announce deaths, funerals, weddings....
  
  
• oud
  Oud
  The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...
  
  
• Udu
  Udu
  for other uses see Udu The udu is an African drum originated by the Igbo people of Nigeria. In the Igbo language, udu means vessel. Actually being a water jug with an additional hole, it was played by women for ceremonial uses. Usually the udu is made of clay...
  
  
• ukulele
  Ukulele
  The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....
  
  
• violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  
• vuvuzela
  Vuvuzela
  The vuvuzela , also known as lepatata Mambu , colloquially known in South Africa as "Moerstripper", is a plastic horn, about long, which produces a loud monotone note, typically around B3 . Some models are made in two parts to facilitate storage, and this design also allows pitch variation...
  
  
• washboard
  Washboard
  A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
  
  
• willow flute
  Willow flute
  The willow flute, also known as sallow flute , is a Scandinavian folk flute, or whistle, consisting of a simple tube with a transverse fipple mouthpiece and no finger holes...
  
  
• zampoña
• zurna
  Zurna
  The zurna , is a multinational outdoor wind instrument, usually accompanied by a davul in Anatolian folk music. The name is from Turkish zurna, itself derived from Persian سرنای surnāy, composed of sūr “banquet, feast” and nāy “reed, pipe”...
  
  
• zither
  Zither
  The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
  
  
• zealouser
• Zhaleika
  Zhaleika
  The zhaleika is a Russian single-reed hornpipe. It is the most popular Russian folk wind instrument.-External links:*...
  
  

Over 75 instruments