| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tabla |  | India | The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in the classical, popular and religious music of the Indian subcontinent and in Hindustani classical music. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres. The term tabla is derived from an Arabic word which means "drum." |
| Tabor |  | England | Tabor, or tabret, refers to a portable snare drum played with one hand. It has been used in the military as a marching instrument, and has been used as accompaniment in parades and processions. A tabor has a cylindrical wood shell, two skin heads tightened by rope tension, a leather strap, and an adjustable gut snare. Tabor and Pipe is a pair of instruments, popular since Mediæval times and played by a single player, consisting of a tabor (a portable drum) played with one hand and a specially designed fipple flute ( a three-hole pipe) played with the other hand. |
| Taepyongso |  | Korea | The Taepyongso is used for military music such as the Daeschwita and Chongdeop of Chongmyo-Jeryeak, Nongak of Pungmullori. This instrument has the loudest sound among the traditional instruments. The blowing part is situated in the upper part of the instrument. |
| Tahitian Ukelele |  | Hawaii | The Tahitian Ukulele (also known as the Tahitian Banjo) is significantly different from other ukuleles in that it does not have a sound box. The body including the head and neck is usually carved from a single piece of wood, with a wide conical hole bored through the middle. The instrument seems to be a relatively recent invention, popular in eastern Polynesia, particularly French Polynesia. It is reported to have been introduced to the Cook Islands in 1990 by the band Te Ava Piti as a newly invented instrument. |
| Taiko |  | Japan | Taiko (太鼓) means simply "drum" in Japanese (etymologically "great" or "wide drum"). Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums (和太鼓, 'wa-daiko', "Japanese drum", in Japanese) and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming (sometimes called more specifically, "kumi-daiko" (組太鼓). |
| Takhe |  | Cambodia | Takhe (also called krapeu) is a plucked musical instrument from Cambodia. It is a crocodile-shaped fretted floor zither with three strings. |
| Talempong |  | Indonesia | A talempong a small kettle gong which gives its name to an ensemble of four or five talempong as well as other gongs and drums. The term can refer to the instrument, the ensemble, or the genre of music. Talempong is a traditional music of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The talempong produce a static texture consisting of interlocking rhythms. Talempong can be used to play a wide variety of music, including traditional and modern. |
| Talking Drum |  | Ghana | The talking drum is a West African drum whose pitch can be regulated to the extent that it is said the drum "talks". The player puts the drum under one shoulder and beats the instrument with a stick. A talking drum player raises or lowers the pitch by squeezing or releasing the drum's strings with the upper arm. This can produce highly informative sounds to convey complicated messages. |
| Tambora |  | Venezuela | The Tambora (from the Spanish word tambor, meaning "drum") is a name for a group of Afro-Caribbean musical instruments. Its origins came along with the African slaves brought by the Europeans during the colonization of The Americas. It is used in many Latin American countries musical styles; in the Dominican musical folkloric styles and merengue, the Cumbia in Colombia , and the Venezuelan gaita. In Venezuelan Gaita music, the tambora is a one-headed drum played with sticks. The player can sit on it or put it on a stand to perform rhythms on the instrument. |
| Tambori |  | Spain | The tambori is a percussion instrument of about 10 centimetres diameter, a small shallow cylinder formed of metal or wood with a drumhead of skin. Its usual function is to accompany the playing of the flabiol in a cobla band, beating the rhythm of the sardana dance, which is the traditional dance of Catalonia, a region of North-East Spain. It is attached to the elbow of the left arm and struck with a drumstick called a broqueta held by the right hand, while the flabiol can be played with the left hand of the same player. The image shows a tambori (left) together with a flabiol. |
| Tamboril |  | Uruguay | Tamboril is a barrel-shaped drum. It has specific name according to its size and function: chico (small, high timbre, marks the tempo), repique (medium, syncopation and improvisation) and piano (large, low timbre, melody). Tamboriles are made of wood with animal skins that are rope-tuned or fire-tuned minutes before the performance. They are worn at the waist with the aid of a shoulder strap called talig or talín and played with one stick and one hand. |
| Tambourine |  | Europe | The tambourine or Marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all. The tambourine can be held in the hand or mounted on a stand, and can be played in numerous ways, from stroking or shaking the jingles to striking it sharply with hand or stick or using the tambourine to strike the leg or hip. Tambourines come in many different shapes with the most common being circular. It is found in many forms of music, classical music, Roma music, Persian music, gospel music, pop music and rock and roll. |
| Tambura |  | Bulgaria | The tambura is a type of stringed instrument found in different versions in different places around the world; most are plucked lutes. The New Grove Dictionary of Music assigns the term to the Eastern European variety of the saz, and to the Indian fretless drone lute. The Bulgarian tambura (see image) is a long-necked, fretted, bouzouki-like string instrument that comes in two styles: eight-string (four pairs) and four-string (two pairs), played with a plectrum. |
| Tamburitza |  | Croatia | The Tamburitza, or Tamburica, is a popular instrument in the folk music of Croatia (especially Slavonia) and northern Serbia (Vojvodina). It is the Croatian national string instrument. It is a string instrument similar to the mandolin that is plucked. Five types of Tamburitza: (1) Bisernica (or Prima) is the smallest tamburitza. It has 5 strings; E, A, D and 2 G strings. It is very loud and it is about 50 cm long. (2) Brač (or Basprima) is a slightly bigger instrument than the bisernica but is played in a similar fashion. (3) Čelo is similar in size to bugarija, and used for dynamics. (4) Bugarija (or Kontra) is similar to a guitar, but has only 3 or 4 strings. (5) Bajs (or Berda) is the largest tamburitza. |
| Tanbur |  | Turkey | The term tanbur or tambūr (Arabic,طنبور) can refer to various long-necked, fretted lutes originating in the Middle East or Central Asia. In Turkey, the terms bağlama and saz both refer to a long-necked lute used in folk music. The Turkish tanbur is a larger variant used in art music. The yaylı tanbur variant is played with a bow instead of a plectrum. The image shows a Turkish tanbur. |
| Tanggu |  | China | Tanggu (堂鼓) is a medium-sized barrel drum from China. The drum is covered with two drumheads of cowhide or pig skin. Four lateral iron rings around the shell allow the drum to be vertically suspended in a frame. It is struck with a pair of wooden beaters. The drum is traditionally used with other instruments like luo (gong) and bo (cymbals) in folk festivals and ensembles. The Jing Tanggu in used in Peking opera. |
| Taphon |  | Thailand | The taphon (Thai: ตะโพน) is a traditional drum of Thailand. It is barrel-shaped, with two heads, and is played by the hands and fingers of both hands. It is used in the classical Thai wind-and-percussion ensemble called piphat. It is considered a particularly sacred instrument in the Thai culture, and is generally kept in a higher place than other instruments. |
| Tar |  | Iran | The tar is a long-necked, waisted lute found in Azerbaijan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and other areas near the Caucasus region. The word تار tar itself means "string" in Persian. This is claimed to be the root of the names of the Persian setar and the guitar as well as less widespread instruments such as the dutar and the Indian sitar. Tar is one of the most important Iranian and Azerbaijani musical instruments. The formation, compilation, edition, and inheritance of the most authentic and most comprehensive versions of radif are all worked on tar. The general trends of Persian classical music have been deeply influenced by tar players. The image shows a woman playing the tar in a painting from the Hasht-Behesht Palace in Isfahan, Iran, 1669. |
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