Klong Put from Vietnam is played with wooden implements or by clapping your hands. Photo: Yin Yeping/GT

If you're a fan of world music and how it developed, then you're in for a treat this month at the National Center of Performing Arts (the Egg). A collection of up to 500 musical instruments is on display, all on loan from Shanghai's Museum of Oriental Musical Instruments, and they come from all corners of the globe. 

Each continent has its own section, showing the development of music and instrument making. Many of them are made of natural materials like those adapted directly from an empty coconut shell or from bamboo, or made from goat or crocodile skins.

Here you may find the Mbira, a thumb string instrument that's about 40 centimeters long and 29 centimeters wide, from Guinea, Africa. The sound comes from the resonance after you pluck the string stretched over a hollowed-out gourd. The cabasa is a percussion instrument, a modern version of the shekere from Mali in the shape of a wooden mallet. Originally it was a gourd with strings of beads strung round the outside, and then it is shaken to produce the sound. The cabasa is still used extensively in Latin music.

From Asia, you can see a Korean hourglass drum, often used in festivals and celebrations. Also referred to as a "waisted" drum, there are many examples of this type of two-headed drum, normally attached around the waist so that both ends can be beaten and the drummer can dance at the same time - there are many African and Indian drums played like this also.

There are two very delicate lutes from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) the museum acquired from the Imperial Treasury in Japan. They are inlaid with jade, and decorated very finely with pictures of Chinese traditional mountains and water painting scenery.

One of the smallest instruments in Asia, the Hokkaido kokin from Japan can also be found here. It looks like a piece of wood, usually from 12 to 15 centimeters long with a string running through and dangling out at either end. The sound comes from pulling the string while blowing on the instrument; the volume and the harmonic range changes depending on how strongly you pull the string and the intensity of the airflow from mouth. Originating in China, it is now popular in minority ethnic groups of Qiang, E Lun Chun, and Manchu.

You don't have to be a professional to visit. The exhibits impressed 60-year-old Zhang Han who was visiting with friends. She said she wasn't very interested in music but found the exhibit very interesting.

"I had little idea that the instruments can be in such rich categories as well as the materials," she said. "You don't have to go to different countries but may still sense their aboriginal culture merely from glancing at these instruments." Zhang particularly admired a crocodile skin drum from Thailand. "It's interesting to see that you could make something playable from this!" she said.