Membranophone
A
membranophone is any
musical instrument which produces
sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched
membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original
Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of
musical instrument classification.
Most membranophones are
drums. Hornbostel-Sachs divides drums into three main types: struck drums, where the skin is hit with a stick, the hand, or something else; string drums, where a knotted string attached to the skin is pulled, passing its vibrations onto the skin; and friction drums, where some sort of rubbing motion causes the skin to vibrate (a common type has a stick passing through a hole in the skin which is pulled back and forth).
In addition to drums, there is another kind of membranophone, called the
singing membranophone, of which the best known type is the
kazoo. These instruments modify a sound produced by something else, commonly the human voice, by having a skin vibrate
in sympathy with it.
