Traditional French musical instruments

Traditional French musical instruments, known as instruments traditionnels in French, are musical instruments used in the traditional folk music of France. They comprise a range of string, wind, and percussion instruments.

Percussion instruments[]

Gumbe — a French Guianan frame drum
Kayamb (caïamb/kayanm) — a shaken Réunionnais idiophone
Pahu — a French Polynesian drum
Pate — a French Polynesian and Wallisian/Futunan log drum
Rouleur — a Réunionnais drum
Sunaglieri — Corsican mule bells
Timpanu — a Corsican triangle

String instruments[]

Cetera — a cittern of 4 to 8 double strings that is of Tuscan origin and dates back to the Renaissance, is the most iconic Corsican traditional instrument. Its most prominent exponent is Roland Ferrandi (also a lutenist).
Cythara — a lute
Epinette des Vosges — a traditional plucked-string instrument of the zither family from the Vosges region in eastern France^[1]
Mandulina — a Corsican mandolin
Mandore — a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four to six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range.
Tambourin à cordes — a box zither from southern France
Ukulele — a small, guitar-like instrument from French Polynesia

Bowed[]

Basse de Flandre — a simple large stringed fiddle (a musical bow) made with a long stick from French Flanders in .
Bobre — a bowed instrument from Réunion
Vielle à roue — a mechanical string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings.

Wind instruments[]

Flutes[]

French flutes are called flûte. There are many traditional flutes.

Graïle (graile) — vertical wooden oboe from Occitanie
Pu toka — a French Polynesian conch
Pu'akau — a French Polynesian flute
Pūʻili — a French Polynesian bamboo flute

Reed Instruments[]

Cialamedda (also cialamella/cialambella) — a Corsican reed instrument, more recently with a wooden box body
Pirula — a Corsican reed recorder
Vivo — a French Polynesian nose flute

Free reed mouth organs[]

Binioù kozh — a Breton bagpipe
Bodega — a Occitan bagpipe
Boha — a bagpipe from Landes of Gascony in Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bombard — a contemporary conical-bore double-reed instrument from Brittany
Bousine — a small, droneless bagpipe from Normandy^[2]
Cabrette — a bagpipe from Auvergne in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Caramusa — a Corsican bagpipe made of wood, leather and reed
Chabrette — a bagpipe from Limousin in Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Cornemuse du Centre — a bagpipe from Central France
Loure �� an ancient bagpipe from Normandy

Horns[]

Pifana (also pivana) — a type of Corsican gemshorn generally made from a goat horn

Other instruments[]

Orgue de barbarie (also orgue à manivelle) — a mechanical musical instrument from the Alsace region of Grand Est consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated.^[3]
Orgue de danse — a mechanical organ from Paris, Île-de-France designed to be used in dance halls or ballrooms.
Orgue de rue — a automatic mechanical pneumatic organ from Paris, Île-de-France designed to be mobile enough to play its music in the street.
Limonaire — a pneumatic musical organ from Paris, Île-de-France covering the wind and percussive sections of an orchestra.^[4]^[5]^[6]
Ralé-poussé — a Réunionnaise accordion
Riberbula — a jaw harp used by the Corsican people
Urganettu — a Corsican diatonic accordion

References[]

^ Méthode d'épinette par Christophe Toussaint. Édition princeps 2004. 2ème édition 2007.
^ Les architectes odinistes des cathédrales. Les chanoinesses et les évêques odinistes dans les diocèses saxons-normands, Fascicules de I à VII, de Maurice Erwin Guignard, à Bonneval & Chartres.
^ Ord-Hume 1978, p. 52.
^ https://coaa.us/index_archive/Issues_21_to_30/Limonaire%20Freres%20Paris_Andrea%20Stadler_%20_26-27-28.pdf
^ http://www.janinetissot.fdaf.org/jt_limonaire.htm
^ https://www.le-pays.fr/saint-just-saint-rambert-42170/loisirs/la-petite-musique-des-orgues-odin_11438299/

[1] Méthode d'épinette par Christophe Toussaint. Édition princeps 2004. 2ème édition 2007.

[2] Les architectes odinistes des cathédrales. Les chanoinesses et les évêques odinistes dans les diocèses saxons-normands, Fascicules de I à VII, de Maurice Erwin Guignard, à Bonneval & Chartres.

[FOOTNOTEOrd-Hume197852-3] Ord-Hume 1978, p. 52.

[4] ttps://coaa.us/index_archive/Issues_21_to_30/Limonaire%20Freres%20Paris_Andrea%20Stadler_%20_26-27-28.pdf

[5] ttp://www.janinetissot.fdaf.org/jt_limonaire.htm

[6] ttps://www.le-pays.fr/saint-just-saint-rambert-42170/loisirs/la-petite-musique-des-orgues-odin_11438299/

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