Sackbuts

The early trombone was generally known as the sackbut in English and French speaking countries. The word comes from the French words at the time meaning to push and to pull, describing the motion of the slide.

The biggest difference with the modern instrument is the size of the bell, which is much smaller and does not flare. The brass is also a bit thicker. This gives the instrument a much darker and mellower sound, which allows it to blend well with strings and voices. 

Sackbuts were most popular in groups with cornetts playing the upper parts. Cornetts are wooden instrument similar to recorders, but played with buzzed lips like brass instruments.

Recorders

Recorders are the most familiar of the instruments to modern audiences, having encountered them in elementary school. Deceptively simple, it takes a great deal of skill to play these instruments well, but when done so the result is lovely. 

Historically, recorders also came in families and in many different keys and sizes. We typically use soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorders playing in consort.

Dulcians

The dulcian is a Renaissance woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include English: curtal, German: Dulzian, French: douçaine, Dutch: dulciaan, Italian: dulciana, Spanish: bajón, and Portuguese: baixão.

The predecessor of the modern bassoon, it flourished between 1550 and 1700, but was probably invented earlier. Towards the end of this period it co-existed with, and was then superseded by, the baroque bassoon. It was played in both secular and sacred contexts, throughout northern and western Europe, as well as in the New World.

Renaissance Guitar

The Renaissance guitar had only 4 courses, the first was usually single and the other three double. Although no historical four-course instruments have survived, it is clear that their dimensions were fairly small. During the Renaissance, the guitar may have been used as it frequently is today: to provide a simple strummed accompaniment for a singer or a small musical group. However, there were also several significant music collections published during the sixteenth century containing contrapuntal compositions for guitar approaching the complexity, sophistication, and breadth of repertory of those appearing in some publications for lute from the same time period.

Xylophone

In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the xylophone was a relatively marginal instrument in the European "art music" tradition, yet it was well-documented by leading music theorists of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Sebastian Virdung includes a woodcut of the xylophone (calling it hölzern glechter), though he dismisses it as a "disreputable" instrument used mostly by common folk. Martin Agricola, followed Virdung’s lead, providing further illustrations and noting its existence in Central Europe. Michael Praetorius depicts a xylophone with 15 wooden bars ranging from 15 to 53 cm in length, tuned diatonically. He classifies it among the "foreign" or "rustic" instruments.