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This list contains musical instruments of symbolic or cultural importance within a
nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...
,
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
, ethnicity,
tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
or other group of people. In some cases, national instruments remain in wide use within the nation (such as the Puerto Rican ''
cuatro Cuatro is Spanish (and other Romance languages) for the number four. Cuatro may also refer to: * Cuatro (instrument), name for two distinct Latin American instruments, one from Puerto Rico (see Cuatro) and the other from Venezuela (see Cuatro) ...
''), but in others, their importance is primarily symbolic (such as the Welsh triple harp). Danish ethnologist Lisbet Torp has concluded that some national instrument traditions, such as the
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
''
kantele A kantele () or kannel () is a traditional Finnish and Karelian plucked string instrument (chordophone) belonging to the south east Baltic box zither family known as the Baltic psaltery along with Estonian kannel, Latvian kokles, Lithuania ...
'', are invented, pointing to the "influence of intellectuals and nationalists in the nationwide promotion of selected musical instruments as a vehicle for
nationalistic Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: T ...
ideas". Governments do not generally officially recognize national instruments; some exceptions being the Paraguayan harp, the
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
''
koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...
'' and the
Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
ian
steelpan The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. Descriptio ...
. This list compiles instruments that have been alleged to be a ''national instrument'' by any of a variety of sources, and an instrument's presence on the list does not indicate that its status as a national instrument is indisputable, only that its status has been credibly argued. Each instrument on this list has a Hornbostel-Sachs number immediately below it. This number indicates the instrument's classification within the Hornbostel-Sachs system (H-S), which organizes instruments numerically based on the manner in which they produce sound. Images and recordings are supplied where available; note that there are often variations within a national musical tradition, and thus the images and recordings may not be accurate in depicting the entire spectrum of the given nation's music, and that some images and recordings may be taken from a region outside the core of the national instrument's home when such distinctions have little relevance to the information present in the image and recordings. A number of countries have more than one instrument listed, each having been described as a ''national instrument'', not usually by the same source; neither the presence of multiple entries for one nation, nor for multiple nations for one instrument, on this list is reflective of active dispute in any instance. Alternative names and spellings are given. These mostly come from alternative spellings within English or alternative methods of transliterating from a foreign language to English, such as the Chinese ''
yangqin The trapezoidal yangqin () is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, likely derived from the Iranian santur or the European dulcimer. It used to be written with the characters 洋 琴 (lit. "foreign zither"), but over time the first character changed t ...
'', also transliterated ''yang ch'in'' and ''yang qin''. Others reflect regions or subcultures within a given nation, such as the Australian didgeridoo which is or has been called ''didjeridu'', ''yidaki'', ''yiraki'', ''magu'', ''kanbi'' and ''ihambilbilg'' in various Australian Aboriginal languages. All non-English words are italicized.


References


Further reading

:''The following are specifically referenced above or are book-length or extended scholarly works documenting a specific national instrument, not including collections of songs.'' *African American: *African American: *African American: *Argentina: *Argentina: *Argentina: *Arab: *Armenia: *Australia: *Australia: *Baganda (Uganda): *Bavaria: *Brazil: *Brazil: *China: *China: *Finland: *Ancient Greece: *Guatemala: *Guatemala: *Guatemala: *Hawaii: *India: *Ireland: *Ireland: *Ireland: *Japan: *Japan: *Japan: *Japan: *Latvia: *Lithuania: *Mexico: *Mexico: *Mongolia: *Mongolia: *Norway: *Norway: *Norway: *Portugal: *Sardinia: *Scotland: *Scotland: *Scotland: *Scotland: *Spain: *Spain: *Sweden: *Switzerland: *Trinidad and Tobago: *Trinidad and Tobago: *Wales: *Wales: *Zimbabwe: *Zimbabwe: {{DEFAULTSORT:National Instruments (Music)
National instruments National Instruments Corporation, doing business as NI, is an American multinational company with international operation. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. C ...
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