0.02 Sources for music instruments and their labels

Musical authorities

• Grove Music Online - https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic (paywall)
• Leisiö, T. (2010). Luonnollisten soitinten luokitusjärjestelmä. Toinen, uudistettu laitos. Musiikintutkimuksen laitos. https://www.yumpu.com/fi/document/view/5067218/luonnollisten-soitinten-luokitusjarjestelma-pdf/5
• https://vocabulary.mimo-international.com/HornbostelAndSachs/en/

See also the previous guidelines and the sources there. Which authority sources were used? Lähdeluettelo

The projected mapping targets

• Wikidata - https://w.wiki/6Cn8
  • Wikidata - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_instruments_(music)
• LCMPT - https://id.loc.gov/authorities/performanceMediums.html
• MIMO - https://mimo-international.com/MIMO/
  • MIMO Thesaurus of musical instrument names https://vocabulary.mimo-international.com/InstrumentsKeywords/en/
• YSO ontology
• UNIMARC: Medium of performance (mop) - https://www.iflastandards.info/unimarc/terms/mop?language=sv
  • Repository: https://github.com/iflastandards/unimarc/blob/master/ttl/ns/unimarc/terms/mop.ttl
• Getty AAT Online search form https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/?find=
• MusicBrainz Instrument - https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Instrument

General sources (global) vocabularies, museums collections etc.

• hoorn.be - https://hoorn.be
• Hello Music Theory https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/instruments (read 2026-07-05)
• The Stringed Instrument Database https://stringedinstrumentdatabase.aornis.com/ (not updated, read 2026-07-05)
• Institute of Musical Instrument Technology https://www.imit.org.uk/pages/a-to-z-of-musical-instrument.html
• A to Z of percussion music https://www.percussion4u.co.uk/pages/a-to-z-of-percussion-instruments
• Cambridge UP: Appendix 1 - A Selective List of Vernacular Horns and Trumpets (paywall)
• Archive.org Marcuse, S. A survey of musical instruments (registration required)
• Instruments du Monde https://instruments-du-monde.com/en
• Europeana https://www.europeana.eu/fi/search?query=
• OnMusic Dictionary https://70.33.166.159/instruments/family/world (Note! Not safe connection) (Read 2026-07-05).
• Organology.net " A practical resource for musical instruments." - https://organology.net/instruments/ (855 on 2026-07-05)
• Dolmetsch music dictionary online https://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheorydefs.htm (read 2026-07-05)
• BnF Data: Instruments de musique https://data.bnf.fr/en/ark:/12148/cb119367821 (search or look at Narrower concepts) (read 2026-07-05)
• Wikipedia: List of national instruments (Music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_instruments_(music)
• RIdIM Repertoire International d'Iconographie Musicale https://db.ridim.org/search.php - images with instruments (read 2026-07-05)

Universities

• U. Washington Ethnomusicology Archives https://content.lib.washington.edu/ethnomusicweb/
• Virginia Tech: Comprehensive Table of Musical Instrument Classifications (Web archive)
• Yale University Library (read 2026-07-03)
  • Music Cataloging at Yale (many resources)
  • When is a "flute" not a flute?"
  • Controlled Vocabularies for Music Cataoging
• Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/s/MusicalInstruments/page/welcome (read 2026-07-05)
• University of Edinburg https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/search/*:*/Collection:%22mimed+%7C%7C%7C+MIMEd%22 (read 2026-07-05)
• Murtomäki, Veijo 2006. Keskiajan ja renessanssin soittimet. Muhi – Musiikinhistoriaa verkossa, Taideyliopiston Sibelius-Akatemia. Verkkoaineisto https://muhi.uniarts.fi/kesk_ja_ren_soittimet/ (Read 2026-07-05).
• Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/

Smaller datasets

Europe

• Minna Hokka https://minnahokka.com/ - traditional Finnish wind instruments (read 2026-07-05)
• Folkdance footnotes https://folkdancefootnotes.org/music/musical-instruments/ (Don Buskirk's blog)
• Traditional musical instruments of Latvia https://www.tautasmuzikasinstrumenti.lv/ (project page)
• A Primer on Latvian folk instruments https://latviansonline.com/a-primer-on-latvian-folk-instruments/ (read 2026-07-05)
• Musical Instruments in the Baltic Region http://www.music.lv/mukti/BalticMI.htm
• Traditional stringed instruments of Greece https://www.helleniccomserve.com/stringintruments.html
• Yves Moreau, 1975: Bulgarian folk music instruments https://socalfolkdance.org/articles/bulgarian_folk_music_instruments_moreau.htm (read 2026-07-05)
• Benjamin Schweitzer (2018) (Master's thesis) Musikinstrumentenbezeichnungen im Finnischen: Historisch-systematischer Überblick, Varianten und Verstetigung (PDF) (read 2026-07-05)
• Folkdance footnotes Beyond Choreography: 2. Instruments https://folkdancefootnotes.org/music/musical-instruments/ (read 2026-07-05)
• Soinuenea Herri Musikaren Txokoa Traditional music museum https://www.soinuenea.eus/en/

Asia

• Sound of Asia https://www.soundofasia.com/ (Commercial company)
• Terms in North Indian music https://chandrakantha.com/glossary/
• Dan Farrant: "12 Turkish instruments you should know" https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/turkish-instruments/

Africa

• Percival Kirby Musical Instruments https://ibali.uct.ac.za/s/pkmi/ (University of Cape Town)
• DEKKMMA - Digitization project. The sound archive of the department of Ethnomusicology of the Royal Museum for Central Africa at Tervuren (Belgium). https://music.africamuseum.be/english/index.html

And many more...