🎺 Musical instruments for kids
Musical instruments come in families, sorted by how they make their sound: strings are plucked or bowed, woodwinds and brass are blown, and percussion is hit or shaken. On Peabody, kids can hear instruments and guess which one is playing, sort them into their families, and see chords on a piano, ukulele and guitar.
- Name That InstrumentHear it, then tap which instrument made it.
- Instrument familiesStrings, keyboards, percussion or electronic: which family?
- Chord FinderAny chord on piano, ukulele or guitar, drawn and played.
The families
Strings: violin, cello, double bass, harp, guitar, ukulele. A string shakes when it is plucked or bowed, and the wooden body makes it loud.
Woodwinds: flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, saxophone. You blow across a hole or through a reed. The saxophone is made of metal, but it has a reed, so it is a woodwind.
Brass: trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba. Your lips buzz into a metal mouthpiece.
Percussion: drums, cymbals, xylophone, triangle, shakers. Anything you hit, shake or scrape.
Keyboards: piano, organ. Press a key and something else makes the sound: in a piano, a felt hammer hits a string.
Electronic: synthesizers make sound from electricity. Every sound in Peabody's music is made this way, in the browser, even the beeps and boops.
Big sounds low, small sounds high
In each family, the bigger instruments play lower notes. The tuba is lower than the trumpet. The double bass is lower than the violin. Longer strings and longer tubes shake more slowly, and slower shaking sounds lower.
Hear them
In Name That Instrument, a sound plays and you tap which of three instruments made it. In Instrument families, you sort what you hear into its family. On the radio, Jazz for kids has a little band to listen to.
For grown-ups
Peabody's instrument sounds are made by its own synthesizer in the browser, so they are close to the real thing, not recordings of it. The games have three big answer boxes and read every question aloud, so a child who can't read yet can play. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to type.