Western instruments include string, woodwind, brass, keyboard, and percussion.

1. String instruments

String instruments are an important branch of the musical instrument family. In classical music and even in modern light music, almost all lyrical melodies are played by string instruments. As can be seen, softness and beauty are common to all string instruments.

The unified tone of string instruments is expressive on many levels: surging and exciting in ensembles, gentle in solos, and dynamic because of their rich and varied bowing (trilling, shattering, plucking, skipping, etc.). Stringed instruments rely on mechanical forces to make the tensioned strings vibrate, so the volume of sound is somewhat limited.

They are usually played on different strings, and sometimes they have to be pressed with the fingers to change the length of the string, thus changing the pitch. In terms of articulation, string instruments are divided into bowed instruments (such as the fiddle) and plucked instruments (such as the guitar).

2. Woodwind instruments

Woodwind instruments have an early origin, evolving from folk music such as the herd flute and the reed flute. Woodwind instruments are among the richest sounding instruments in the family and are often used to express scenes of nature and country life.

They have a special flavor and are an important part of the symphony orchestra, both as accompaniment and for solo performances. Most woodwind instruments produce their sound through air vibrations and can be broadly classified into lip-sounding (e.g. flutes) and reed-sounding (e.g. clarinets) according to their mode of production.

Woodwind instruments are not limited to wood but are also made of metal, ivory, or animal bone. Their timbre varies and is distinctive. They range from beautiful and bright to deep and somber. For this reason, woodwind instruments are often used in orchestras to create a wide range of subtle musical images, which greatly enrich the orchestral effect.

3. Brass instruments

Most of the predecessors of brass instruments were hunting horns. The use of brass in early orchestral music was not significant. For a long time, only two horns were used in symphony orchestras, sometimes with the addition of a trumpet, and it was not until the first half of the 19th century that brass instruments were widely used in symphony orchestras.

Unlike woodwind instruments, brass instruments do not change their pitch by shortening the air column inside the tube, but by relying on the change of air pressure in the player's lips and the instrument itself being connected to the 'additional tube'.

All brass instruments are fitted with a similarly shaped cylindrical horn mouthpiece and a long conical body. The tone of brass instruments is majestic, brilliant, and warm, and although the quality of the sound is distinctive, it is a common feature of the brass group that the volume of the instrument is so large and wide that it is unmatched by other categories of instruments.

4. Keyboard instruments

All the instruments in the keyboard family have one thing in common: the keyboard. The piano is a percussion instrument, the organ is a reed instrument, the electronic synthesizer uses modern electroacoustic technology, and so on.

Keyboard instruments have an incomparable advantage over other instruments in that they have a wide range and the ability to produce multiple tones at the same time. This is why keyboard instruments, even as solo instruments, are rich in harmonic effects and orchestral colours.

This is why keyboard instruments have been so popular with composers and music lovers from ancient times to the present day.

5. Percussion instruments

Percussion instruments are probably the oldest family of musical instruments. They have many members and many different characteristics, and although they have a simple sound, some of which are not even musical, they play an important role in creating the atmosphere of a piece of music.

Percussion instruments are usually used to produce sound by striking, rubbing, and shaking the instrument. Don't think that percussion instruments are only used to enhance a piece and suggest the rhythm of the music many percussion instruments can be used as melodic instruments!

The modern orchestra has added so many different percussion instruments from African and Asian music that it is almost impossible to list them all.