From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids
- For the linguistic declension case, see Instrumental case.
- For the Mouse on Mars album, see Instrumentals (album).
An instrumental is, in contrast to a song, a musical composition or piece without lyrics or any other sort of vocal music; all of the music is produced by musical instruments. These instruments include anything in the range of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Specifically, this term is used when referring to popular music; some musical genres make little use of the human voice, such as jazz, electronic music, and large amounts of Western classical music (although in electronic music, the voice can be sampled just like anything else). In commercial music, some tracks or songs on a compact disc include instrumental tracks. These tracks are exact copies of the corresponding song, but do not have vocals.
A song is still considered "instrumental" if voices are used, but not to make coherent lyrics. Therefore, voice droning, yodelling, and whistling, for example, can be used in "instrumentals".
[edit] See also
- Instrumental rock
- List of Rock Instrumentals
- Brass instrument
- Percussion instrument
- Woodwind instrument
- A cappella