You Can Play Music on That? Trivia Quiz

Answer: glass armonica

Musical tones can be achieved by rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a glass; glasses filled to different levels produce different notes. Franklin took the idea to a different level by having glass discs (bowls) of various diameters put on a horizontal shaft.

A treadle was used to spin the shaft and the wet fingers produced the notes. There is a convincing YouTube video showing "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" being played on one.

Answer: autoharp

It is called a harp but it is really a chorded zither. Pressing down on the white keys dampens some of the strings while the instrument is being strummed. Some players use a finger-picking style of playing. The Carter family brought it to prominence in American country music.

Answer: didgeridoo

At least 1,500 years old, the didgeridoo was devised by aboriginal Australians and is still popular today. Trees that have been attacked by termites (which eat the dead heartwood) are the easiest to convert to an instrument. Generally, the longer the length, the lower the tone. Special lip and breathing techniques are essential to playing the didgeridoo.

Answer: hurdy gurdy

The hurdy gurdy works by having the crank turn a rosined wheel which rubs against the strings. The tone is similar to a violin. Pressing the keys changes the pitch of the strings. In the song "Hurdy Gurdy Man", Donovan sang that the "hurdy gurdy man came singing songs of love".

Answer: crwth

It might look like the name of this instrument came from a Fun Trivia Brain Teasers quiz where all the vowels had been removed from a word, but it is a Welsh word likely related to the instrument's bulging appearance. No one really knows how it should be tuned.

The old instruments used cat gut and the highest string was often tightened as much as possible (without breaking) and the others tuned to be melodic with it.The crwth is played with a bow and has been around for 1,000 years or so.

Answer: kazoo

A favorite of jug bands and kids' bands, the kazoo is simply a metal tube with three holes in it. A thin membrane covers one of the holes and vibrates when the player hums into it. The device is probably of African origin; the kazoo as we know it was invented in the United States. They are now made of plastic as well as metal.

Answer: Appalachian dulcimer

This dulcimer's origins were among Scottish-Irish settlers in America's southern Appalachian mountains. It is often just called a dulcimer, unless one wants to differentiate it from the hammered dulcimer, which is an unrelated instrument. It owes its current popularity among bluegrass and folk musicians to folk/roots players Jean Ritchie and Richard Farina, who popularized the instrument during the folk music revival of the 1960s.

Answer: yes

Proving that people can make music from almost nothing, the musical saw is played by gripping it between the legs, bending it into an S-curve and stroking it with a bow or tapping it with a hammer. Those who play it are known as "sawcerors". Either a regular steel saw or one made just for playing can be used.

Answer: aeolian harp

The aeolian harp is named for Aeolus, the Greek god of wind. The harp is placed in front of a slightly opened window and air moving through the instrument produces sounds. The strings are tunable so different pitches are possible. it dates back to the early 17th century. Samuel Taylor Coleridge used it as the basis for his poem "The Eolian Harp".

Answer: balalaika

It only has three strings so it can't be very hard to play, right? The balalaika traces its ancestry to the domra, which comes from the Caucasus region of Russia. Early balalaikas had two to six strings. Nowadays, three strings is the norm. Besides the guitar-sized version there are contrabass balalaikas, some of which can be over a meter on each side.