MusicSorting Instruments You Blow, Hit, or Pluck
A cozy music room filled with sunlight, where Melody the guide sits cross-legged on a colorful rug surrounded by a flute, a drum, and a guitar, holding each one up with a big curious smile.
- Identify three ways instruments make sound: blowing, hitting, and strumming or plucking.
- Sort familiar instruments into the group that matches how they are played.
- Explain why two instruments belong in the same group using one shared reason.
- Compare a wind instrument and a percussion instrument and describe one difference.
Key terms
- Instrument family
- A group of instruments that make sound the same way.
- Wind instrument
- An instrument you blow air into to make sound.
- Percussion instrument
- An instrument you hit, tap, or shake to make sound.
- String instrument
- An instrument you pluck or strum to make sound.
- Vibration
- The fast shaking of air, strings, or skin that makes sound.
Why We Sort by How You Play
Musicians group instruments into families based on how they make their sound, not on their size, color, or shape. This is a smart way to organize, because instruments that work the same way often play together in similar parts of a band. A tiny flute and a long flute both belong to the wind family because you blow into both of them. So when you meet a brand new instrument, the most useful question is always how a player gets sound out of it.
How Each Family Vibrates
Every sound comes from something vibrating, which means shaking back and forth quickly. In a wind instrument, the air inside the tube vibrates when you blow, like in a flute or harmonica. In a percussion instrument, a stretched skin or solid bar vibrates when you strike it, like a drum or xylophone. In a string instrument, the string vibrates when you pluck or strum it, like a guitar or harp. Knowing what vibrates helps you understand each family.
Testing an Unknown Instrument
Imagine someone hands you an instrument you have never seen before. To find its family, you do not look at how big or fancy it is. Instead you ask one simple question: do I blow it, hit it, or pluck a string? If you blow it, it is wind. If you hit or shake it, it is percussion. If you pluck or strum strings, it is a string instrument. This one question works for almost any instrument from anywhere in the world.
Worked examples
Which family does a tambourine belong to?
- Ask how you make sound with it: do you blow, hit, or pluck?
- A tambourine makes sound when you shake or tap it with your hand.
- Hitting and shaking are both ways of striking an instrument.
- Match that action to the matching family name.
Answer: A tambourine is a percussion instrument, because you hit or shake it.
A harp and a flute — are they in the same family?
- Decide how you play a harp: you pluck its strings, so it is a string instrument.
- Decide how you play a flute: you blow air into it, so it is a wind instrument.
- Compare the two actions: plucking strings versus blowing air.
- Since the actions are different, the instruments are in different families.
Answer: No — a harp is a string instrument and a flute is a wind instrument.
Activity
Drag each instrument into the bucket that shows how it is played.
Practice
Name three instruments and tell which family each one belongs to.
Describe how you play a mystery instrument and have a friend guess its family.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Instruments are sorted by their size.Instruments are sorted by how you play them, not by how big or small they are.
- A xylophone is a string instrument.A xylophone is percussion because you hit its bars; it has no strings to pluck.
Check your understanding
A drum makes sound when you — what?
Melody has a flute and a recorder. Why do they belong in the same family?
A guitar and a ukulele are in the same family. What do they have in common?
How is a flute different from a drum?
Recap
Instruments are grouped into families by how you make their sound. Wind instruments are blown, percussion instruments are hit or shaken, and string instruments are plucked or strummed. To find any instrument's family, just ask whether you blow it, hit it, or pluck a string.
Reflect
Which instrument family would you most like to play, and why?