"Origins and Development of Musical Instruments details the creation, use, and development of musical instruments from the Old Stone Age to the present. Musical instruments - from the simplest whistles to the most complex organs, from conch trumpets to sousaphones, from archers' and musical bows to violins and pianos, the most basic straw reeds to modern MIDI systems, and pairs of stones struck together to synthesizers - are all described by instrument collector and expert Jeremy Montagu. Montagu speculates on how these instruments originated and relates how they moved from one culture to another through history, all the while evolving into today's modern instruments." "Each chapter is devoted to a different type of instrument. Intervals and additional sections enhance the text with information on musicians, the Medieval Renaissance, the ideal accompaniment, archaeology, symbiotic and newly created instruments, classification of instruments, scales and music, and some of the problems of acoustics. This comprehensive volume is illustrated with more than 120 photos capturing several hundred instruments from all over the world, many of them from the author's own collection of more than 2,500 instruments. A copious bibliography, index, and maps complete this priceless resource."--Jacket.