Philomel (musical instrument) under the fingerboard rests against the table. Philomel also is another name for the nightingale, which perhaps is where the instrument gets its name. Philomel (musical instrument) Philomel (; or "Stahlgeige" ) is the name of a musical instrument similar to the violin, but having four steel, wire strings. It has been invented around Monaco di Baviera in the middle of the nineteenth century and has got some similarities with the Bowedmelodion also known as Streichmelodion The philomel has a body with incurvations similar to those of the guitar; therefore, without corner blocks, the outline of the upper lobe forms
Recorder (musical instrument) "silently practicing a tune" or "sing or render in song" (both almost exclusively referring to songbirds), long after the recorder had been named. Thus, the recorder cannot have been named after the sound of birds. The name of the instrument is also uniquely English: in Middle French there is no equivalent noun sense of "recorder" referring to a musical instrument. Partridge indicates that the use of the instrument by "jongleurs" led to its association with the verb: "recorder" the minstrel's action, a "recorder" the minstrel's tool. The reason we know this instrument as the recorder and not one of the