Musical instruments (Latin instrumentum) are musical devices that has been constructed by hand or mechanical means from  materials that have been modified with the purpose of making music. In principle, anything that can produce sound, tone or noise and can somehow be controlled by a musician, can serve as a musical instrument; but the expression is reserved generally to items that have making music as a  specific purpose. Musical instruments are almost universal components of human culture.

Archaeology has revealed pipes, flutes, whistles and rattles made from shells and bones in the middle Paleolithic Period (60000-35000 B.C.) and clay drums, bone flutes, shell trumpets in the Neolithic age (9.-3.Millenium B.C.) . Bells, Harps and lyres which were developed in the 3-2 millennium.  
In the Bronze Age the Nordic Lure, Trumpets and double reed whistles were developed..

It has been firmly established that the ancient city cultures of Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean,. India, East Asia, and the Americas all possessed diverse and well-development assortments of musical instruments, indicating that a long previous development must have existed.

Many eastern instruments (organ, Psalterium, Fidel, Sounds, Schalmei and trumpets) arrived in the Middle Ages brought by the Etruscans and Celt to Europe. 

As to the actual origin of musical instruments, however, there can be only conjecture. Some scholars have speculated that the first instruments were derived from such utilitarian objects as cooking pots (drums) and hunting bows (musical bows); others have argued that instruments of music might well have preceded pots and bows; while in the myths of cultures throughout the world the origin of music has frequently been attributed to the gods, especially in areas where music seems to be regarded as an essential component of the ritual believed necessary for spiritual survival.

Whatever their origin, the further development of the enormously varied instruments of the world has been dependent on the interplay of four factors: available material, technological skills, mythic and symbolic preoccupations, and patterns of trade and migration. Thus, residents of Arctic regions use bone, skin, and stone to construct instruments; residents of the tropics have wood, bamboo, and reed available; while societies with access to metals and the requisite technology are able to utilize these malleable materials in a variety of ways. The life-style of the people also determined the kind of instruments it used. Pastoral peoples tended to play flutes and reed-pipes, which could be made by shepherds and herdsman with much time on their hands while tending the animals. The nomadic tribes made small portable instruments which were easier to transport. The more structured societies established bands and orchestras of skilled playesrs with an elaborate range of resources.

Frame Drums used still today by aboriginal peoples.

One of the oldest positively dated musical instrument was discovered in a cave in Slovenia. It was a flute made by the Neanderthals out of the bone of a cave bear. It has been dated to 50,000 years ago

 
Paleolithic Period instruments discovered in the
 Geissenklosterle Cave in southern Germany

 Myth and symbolism plays an equally important role. Herding societies, for example, which may depend on a particular species of animal not only economically but also spiritually, often develop instruments that look or sound like the animal or prefer instruments made of bone and hide rather than stone and wood, even when all the materials are available. Finally, patterns of human trade and migration have for many centuries swept musicians and their instruments across seas and continents, resulting in constant flux, change, and cross-fertilization and adaptation. 

All over the world, archeologists list simple idiophones as the first prehistoric musical instruments. This includes rattles, scrapers, and bone flutes (without holes). The Neolithic strata contains slit drums, flutes (with holes), shell trumpets, and musical bows. The Paleolithic strata yields basket rattles, xylophones, flutes, friction sticks. These early instruments, at least the instruments which survived, often resemble tools that early society utilized.

Earthen pots, used for cooking and storing grain, served as percussion instruments.

Since many of these instruments, built out of perishable materials, did not leave evidence for us to trace their history, we rely on sculptures, paintings, and manuscripts which depict or describe them.

Neolithic flutes carved from the hollow wing bones of red-crowned cranes (Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan Province) were a resent discovery at excavations of the early Neolithic site of Jiahu, located in Henan province, China, have yielded six complete bone flutes between 7,000 and 9,000 years old. Fragments of approximately 30 other flutes were also discovered. The flutes may be the earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated, multinote musical instruments. Also discovered  in Indo-China  were chimes made of stone and specifically tuned to the pentatonic scale

Most instruments of the European orchestra date back to approximately 1150 ca. when they were developed: Trumpet, Bass drum and trombone (12.-15.Century), Violin (15.Century), Viola, Violoncello and retort bass (16.Century), Transverse flute, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet and waldhorn (17.Century) as well as tuba (19.Century).

The electronic music instruments are an invention of the 20. Century. 

Electric and electronic musical instruments are not the creations of traditional instrument makers, but have been constructed by experts from the fields of physics, engineering and technology. Industrial design is behind the way they look.

First attempts to create notes and sounds using electricity are known to have been made in the late 18th and early 19th century. Significant impetus was provided in 1863 by the Berlin physicist Hermann von Helmholtz with an experiment which was famous at the time: with the help of electromagnets, he stimulated tuning forks, with resonators moulding their sound into notes which resembled human vowels. Numerous experiments of this kind were carried out prior to 1900.

Two of these were important for subsequent developments. In 1891, Richard Eisenmann presented an electronic grand piano with electromagnets which caused its strings to vibrate for longer after being struck by the hammer. In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill, USA, built the first electronic organ. It had all the appearance of a machine room, with a separate dynamo for each note.

The rapid development of synthesisers did not begin until after the Second World War. Well-known names include the Fonosynth synthesiser and the Mini Moog. A great many instruments came onto the market, becoming important most of all for their use in popular music. They include electronic pianos, electric guitars and bass guitars as well as organs for the home.

At the same time, costly studios for electronic music began to appear and were used by well-known composers such as Boulez or Stockhausen, creating new music using hitherto unknown sounds.

The reconstructed, 35,000- year-old Hooper swan - bone flute found  in a cave in Geissenklosterle near Blauberen, Germany

Bronze Age Nordic Lurs

Trautonium, Telefunken AG, Berlin, 1934
 

Mini Moog synthesiser, Robert Moog, Buffalo, 1978