Throughout history the expression of music has been found across the world.  It connects human emotions, experiences, understandings, and unites all of mankind.  Anthropologists agree that mankind sang before he/she developed a language.  With the origins of human technological innovation came toolmaking.  These tools became a distinct human ability that included the making of musical instruments. 
Today, it is these musical tools that are essential in the preservation of mankind’s history of music, as sound recordings have only been in existence for a little over 100 years.  Thus, the impact on our knowledge of the evolution of humanity’s development in music and its multicultural understandings and contributions, rests today in the collection of historical musical instruments.