Which instrument is also known as the “king of instruments”?

  • A. The piano
  • B. The organ
  • C. The harp
  • D. The violin

💡 Need a hand?

Think of an instrument with pipes that uses air to produce sound, and that you often find in old buildings with high ceilings and plenty of reverberation.

✅ View the answer

The correct answer is B. The organ.

The organ is one of the oldest keyboard instruments in the world and has played a central role in religious music for centuries. Its volume was practically unmatched: filling large spaces with sound was simply difficult for individual voices, and the organ did it effortlessly. Pipes of different lengths provide a range from deep bass tones to bright, high notes, all from a single instrument.

📚 More background information

That nickname, “king of instruments,” refers to the scale of the largest examples. Some church organs have thousands of individual pipes, ranging from pencil-sized to taller than a person. That’s no exaggeration for effect — it’s simply how they are built.

The mechanism is actually quite straightforward: air is blown through pipes, and each pipe sounds at its own pitch. The organist uses multiple keyboards with their hands and a pedalboard with their feet, which demands considerable coordination. Using so-called stops, the player can switch different tonal colours on or off. As a result, the same instrument can sound like a flute, a trumpet, or a full choir.

And then there are the bass notes. Anyone who has ever heard a large organ live knows that you don’t just hear them — you feel them, somewhere deep in the chest. That also makes it a rewarding subject in a pub quiz: the organ comes up in questions about music and about architecture alike, since many historic organs are visually striking too, with richly decorated cases that have survived the centuries.