Information about Latvian musical
instruments

    This site was created as an addition to the Latvian folklore groups catalogue to give visitors an opportunity to learn what instruments the ensembles use.
    Certainly, it is difficult to judge, which instruments can be considered as Latvian folk instruments, and which can not. On one hand, Latvians themselves may have created only the kokle, pipe and some pulsatile instruments. On the other hand, the synthesizer has already became a popular 'folk' instrument... Where is the golden mean? Let the reader try to answer this question himself. We ourselves shall follow rather simple criteria. Among the folk musicians and the participants of the folklore ensembles there exist different thoughts and intuitive notions, but, in any case, we 'feel', what we can call folk instruments (and - to use in the folklore ensembles), and what we can not... So, let's go!
    The list of instruments is accessible in alphabetical order and by type.
    I want to thank Irisa Priedīte for her help and permission to use her books as source of information for this site.