This book is an extraordinary pictorial dictionary of musical instruments from around the world, containing over 1500 drawings. Each instrument has been selected to provide a balanced historical overview of musical development: aerophones, idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, mechanical and electrical instruments are all equally represented. All of the drawings have been created specifically for the book and details such as strings, frets and keys, together with characteristic decorative patterns, have been painstakingly reproduced. With preface by author and musician Bart Hopkin and introduction by Andrew Haslam, Head of Visual Communication at the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts. Translated into 8 languages and distributed in 26 countries.