Electronic musical instrument actual musical instruments is often unclear. In the 2010s, electronic musical instruments are now widely used in most styles of music. In popular music styles such as electronic dance music, almost all of the instrument sounds used in recordings are electronic instruments (e.g., bass synth, synthesizer, drum machine). Development of new electronic musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research. Specialized conferences, notably the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, have organized to report cutting-edge work, as well as to provide a showcase for artists who perform or create music
Musical instrument important, provides only possible classification for each instrument. The most common types of instrument classifications are strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion. An ancient Hindu system named the "Natya Shastra", written by the sage Bharata Muni and dating from between 200 BC and 200 AD, divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings; percussion instruments with skin heads; instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air; and "solid", or non-skin, percussion instruments. This system was adapted to some degree in 12th-century Europe by Johannes de Muris, who used the terms