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Vintage damascene violin with interwoven silver and gold
Word of the Week: Craft, art, flower, a city and people, it’s a word used in different parts of speech, meanings and associations, it has a certain musical beauty to its sound but is surprisingly rare in song lyrics
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What old meanings are we cranking out this week?
Word of the Week: They’re going fast! This archaic adjective in use from the mid-17th to mid-19th century describes something in great demand and ready for a quick sale, from the Middle and Old English lieftell, meaning agreeable and countable
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The Ariston Organette
Word of the Week: It’s a mechanical, hand-operated organ instrument first manufactured in the late 1870s playing music from perforated paper, cardboard, or metal disks on wooden rolls or “cobs” that clunkily and rather beautifully captures another era
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The phorminx (centre) alongside the harp and lyre.
Word of the week: Taking us back to some of the earliest ever music, in ancient Greek φόρμιγξ, the phorminx, a developed form of lyre, is one of the oldest instruments and the a forerunner to the kithara
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From The Quincunx, the 1989 novel by Charles Palliser
Word of the week: This ancient symbolic word is not really one to sing, but points down many cultural roads through history, as well as unearthing a variety of lesser known music
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Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Word of the week: What comes around … this week's rather shapely word circles culture in many directions – from medieval French poetry to a 17th-century musical form all the way to modern slang on sport stars to derogatory cars
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Come on feel the Illinois. The university once had its own sarrusophone section
Word of the week: A veritable behemoth of the woodwind family that stretches somewhere between bassoon and saxophone, this wonderful instrument makes a powerful sound dates back to mid-19th century France
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How do you recreate this on a record?
Word of the week: An evocative term suitable for hearing the effects of changeable weather, this is a lesser known word for a musical instrument used to recreate the sound of thunder. But how? And who uses it?
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Adam Ant stands and delivers what could be described as a vectarious number
Word of the week: It is neither triumphant nor relating to mathematical space, but while sounding thoroughly splendid, it's an obscure 17th-century adjective meaning belonging to or associated with a wagon or carriage
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Sicilian versions
Word of the week: Also known as zuffalo, chiufolo, ciufolo, picco pipe, and as an instrument to teach birds because of its comparable sound, this Italian fipple flute is one of the shortest of that family and has origins in the 14th century
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Almost murklins time …
Word of the week: Not to be confused with the pubic wig worn by prostitutes of old and other diseased ridden individuals (the merkin), this rare adjective from the 16th and 17th century simply means ‘in the dark’, an umbrella term to accompany activity
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A sweeping visual statement about this week’s word …
Word of the week: Some kind of norse telescope? An instrument to detect scandal? Neither. This week's archaic word originated in 1802 with an invention to automate chimney sweeping and to put dusty child labourers out of danger
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Can you get a Handel on what this week’s word might be?
Word of the week: It's an obscure, archaic 19th-century word with a definition almost as strangely obvious and clear as what it describes isn't – poor, illegible handwriting, and bad spelling and grammar
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Guitar crossed with cello? Arpeggione models created by luthier Philippe Berne
Word of the week: It is neither guitar nor cello, but fretted and tuned like the former, and bowed like the latter. Read on to find out more with musical examples, as well as instances where guitarists have decided to take a bow …
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Oh what a carillon … in Bruges, Belgium
Word of the week: The bells! The bells! Struck by metal clappers connected to baton keys, this beautiful sounding word – and a-peeling historic instrument – comprises, by definition, a minimum of 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells played melodically or in chords
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The esraj is a four-string version of the older dilruba
Word of the Week: It has a beautifully eerily, emotional sound that echoes the human voice, that comes not from vocal chords, but from bowed strings in this instrument from southern Asia – mainly music in Sikh, Punjab and eastern Bengal culture
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Like a trumpet, but not a trumpet …
Word of the week: It’s similar to a trumpet, but isn’t. What’s the difference, who plays it, and on what songs and pieces. All is revealed here in a blow-by-blow account, featuring artists including Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen and The Pogues
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Have you ‘herd’ this before?
Word of the week: It's a beautiful, haunting Scandinavian high-pitched, very musical vocal style, designed to resonantly call in herds of cows or goats from high pastures and long distances, sung out particularly by women
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A 16-string chromatic nyckelharpa
Word of the week: It's a traditional Swedish instrument that sounds similar to and is bowed like the violin, but with greater resonance, has 16 strings and as many as 37 wooden keys that fret the strings to make particular note
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Plenty of puff: Monsieur le Curé and his Ophicleide
Word of the week: It's an obscure hybrid of tuba and saxophone and evolved from the serpent, this rich-toned keyed brass instrument has a mouthpiece that makes it part of the bugle family
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