A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, the other three being idiophone, chordophone and aerophone (a fifth class, electrophone, was added in a later revision). A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... A schematic representation of hearing. ... It has been suggested that Net flux be merged into this article or section. ... Hornbostel-Sachs (or Sachs-Hornbostel) is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift für Musik in 1914. ... At various times, and in various different cultures, various schemes of musical instrument classification have been used. ... An idiophone is any musical instrument which creates sound primarily by way of the instrument itself vibrating, without the use of strings or membranes. ... A chordophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. ... An aerophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes, and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound. ... An electrophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by electrical means. ...

Most membranophones are drums. Hornbostel-Sachs divides drums into three main types: struck drums, where the skin is hit with a stick, the hand, or something else; string drums, where a knotted string attached to the skin is pulled, passing its vibrations onto the skin; and friction drums, where some sort of rubbing motion causes the skin to vibrate (a common type has a stick passing through a hole in the skin which is pulled back and forth). For other kinds of drums, see drum (disambiguation). ...

In addition to drums, there is another kind of membranophone, called the singing membranophone, of which the best known type is the kazoo. These instruments modify a sound produced by something else, commonly the human voice, by having a skin vibrate in sympathy with it. Two examples of the kazoo A metal kazoo The kazoo is a simple musical instrument (membranophone) that adds tonal qualities when the player hums into it. ... This article is about resonance in physics. ...