Instruments

Curtal, Dulcian, Bajón: A History of the Precursor to the Bassoon - A book by Maggie Kilbey charting the history and development of the instrument and includes a catalogue of extant instruments around the world.
http://www.curtalbook.com/

Stages in Evolution of Scales, Melody and Harmony - Paper about the stages in the origins of music and its development.
http://www.greenwych.ca/stages.htm

Neanderthal Flute - Musicological analysis by Bob Fink of the oldest musical instrument, including its significance to the origin of music.
http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm

Culturekiosque Klassiknet: Baroque Instruments - A dictionary to provide the music lover with a reasonable amount of information about period instruments.
http://www.culturekiosque.com/klassik/features/fa1baroq.htm

Rebec Page - Origin and history of the rebec, construction, playing, tuning, bibliography, and many illustrations.
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/rebec.html

The Saxon Lyre - History, construction, and playing techniques.
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~priestdo/lyre.html

Diabolus in Musica Guide to Early Instruments - Information on as many early instruments as possible.
http://www.diabolus.org/guide/guide-m.htm

Medieval and Renaissance Instruments - Musica Antiqua's illustrated guide: pictures, descriptions, and history.
http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/instrumt.html

Early Music Vincent Ho - Early music and instruments, sound files of harpsichords and clavichords, and a table with pictures of the author's early music instruments collection, from medieval psalteries to Renaissance recorders.
http://www.rawbw.com/~hbv/earlymus/

Historic Double Reed Instruments - Describes shawms, curtals, oboes, and bassoons made by Robert H. Cronin.
http://www.roberthcronin.com/

John's Music Things - Description of medieval singing techniques and the musical instruments he plays.
http://www.cb1.com/~john/misc/music.html

Joëlle Morton's Historical Bass - The history of bass string instruments such as the viola da gamba, violone, and double bass, along with their performance practices and iconography.
http://www.greatbassviol.com/

Dulcians - A description of the Dulcian or Curtal, which is the Renaissance predecessor of the bassoon.
http://www.dulcians.org/

Lars' Baroque Flute Corner - Information on the Baroque flute, including instrument care and fingering charts.
http://www.gruk.net/lars/BaroqueFluteCorner.html

Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments - A museum in Scotland open to the public contains 1000 items including stringed, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments from Britain, Europe, and distant lands.
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/

Contrabass Compendium - A list of bass and contrabass instruments, past and present.
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/compendium.html

Lute-Harpsichord: A Forgotten Instrument - Bach sought, and had custom-built, a harpsichord which sounded like a lute. Detailed description of history and construction.
http://www.baroquemusic.org/barluthp.html

A Loud, Low Cost Cornemuse You Can Build from CPVC - Build a cornemuse in 1.5 hours, from an archived discussion from the Musical Instrument Makers Forum.
http://www.mimf.com/archives/cpvc_cornemuse.htm

Mary Rasmussen's Horn and Lute Iconography - Iconography of the horn, lute, pipe and tabor, and tambourine in Western-European Art.
http://www.unh.edu/music/igref.htm

Pifarri Page - Wind instrument ensembles in Italy from 1450 to 1620 by Brenda Flynn.
http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pifarri.html

Kenneth Sparr - Information about lute, guitar and early keyboards.
http://www.tabulatura.com/

Windcaps - Early music in various manifestations by Mark W Venn, including handmade Renaissance woodwind instruments, Cotswold Early Music Festival (formerly the Cirencester Early Music Festival), and the "Mozart" music software.
http://www.windcaps.co.uk/

Kim Christensen's Music Museum - Private collection of music instruments with pictures, sound samples, history, and functional description.
http://musicmuseum.8m.com/

National Music Museum - Founded as an academic support unit of The University of South Dakota, this collection includes more than 10,000 American, European, and non-Western instruments from virtually all cultures and historical periods.
http://www.usd.edu/smm/

Bate Collection of Musical Instruments - An extensive and systematic collection of European orchestral woodwind instruments donated to the University of Oxford by Philip Bate.
http://www.bate.ox.ac.uk

Renaissance Cittern Page - Information on its history, articles, art, music, recordings, players, composers, and builders.
http://www.geocities.com/ren_cittern/

Tapia's Gold - Instruments of the Renaissance - Descriptions of instruments used for dance music during the Renaissance, illustrated with period drawings.
http://www.tapiasgold.com/instruments.html

Instruments to Play Medieval Music - Pictures of medieval instruments with illustrations from medieval art. Includes audio clips, bibliography and discography in French.
http://www.instrumentsmedievaux.org/

Links to History of Musical Instruments - Includes links to museums and collections, historical guides, historical sources and facsimiles, societies, individual instruments, and world instruments.
http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/musi/Callon/2273/Instr.htm