Lamellophone

The lamellophone is a member of the plucked idiophones (Hornbostel–Sachs 12). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the lamellophone makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the lamellophone belongs to the plucked idiophones (lamellophones): flexible tongues or lamellae are plucked – the mbira, kalimba, music box and jaw harp.

More broadly it is one of the idiophones, where the solid body of the instrument itself vibrates, without strings or a stretched membrane.

Press play above and watch the spectrum: the evenly spaced peaks are harmonics, and their relative strength is what gives the instrument its character.

From Wikipedia

A lamellophone (also lamellaphone or linguaphone) is a member of the family of musical instruments that makes its sound by a thin vibrating plate called a lamella or tongue, which is fixed at one end and has the other end free. When the musician depresses the free end of a plate with a finger or fingernail, and then allows the finger to slip off, the released plate vibrates. An instrument may have a single tongue (such as a Jew's harp) or a series of multiple tongues (such as a mbira thumb piano).

Linguaphone comes from the Latin root lingua meaning 'tongue', (i.e., a long thin plate that is fixed only at one end). Lamellophone comes from the Latin word lamella for 'small metal plate', and the Greek word φωνή phonē for 'sound, voice'.