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Board Zither
Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many string (music), strings stretched across a thin, flat body. This article describes the latter variety. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, the term refers to a larger family of similarly shaped instruments that also includes the dulcimer, hammered dulcimer family and piano and a few rare bow (music), bowed instruments like the bowed psaltery, bowed dulcimer, and streichmelodion. Like an acoustic guitar or lute, a zither's body serves as a resonating chamber (sound box), but, unlike guitars and lutes, a zither lacks a distinctly separate neck (music), neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty. In modern common usage the term "zither" refer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chordophone
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classical music (violin, viola, cello and double bass) and a number of other instruments (e.g., viols and gambas used in early music from the Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String (music)
A string is the Vibrating string, vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments such as the guitar, harp, piano (piano wire), and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material that a musical instrument holds under tension (mechanics), tension so that they can vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain", consisting only of a single material, like steel, nylon, or catgut, gut, or wound, having a "core" of one material and an overwinding of another. This is to make the string vibrate at the desired Pitch (music), pitch, while maintaining a low profile and sufficient flexibility for playability. The invention of wound strings, such as nylon covered in wound metal, was a crucial step in string instrument technology, because a metal-wound string can produce a lower pitch than a catgut string of similar thickness. This enabled stringed instruments to be made with less thick bass strings. On string instruments that the player plucks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cythara
The cythara is a wide group of stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments. In fact, unless a medieval document gives an indication that it meant a necked instrument, then it likely was referring to a lyre. It was also spelled ''cithara'' or ''kithara'' and was Latin for the Greek lyre. However, lacking names for some stringed instruments from the medieval period, these have been referred to as fiddles and citharas/cytharas, both by medieval people and by modern researchers. The instruments are important as being ancestors to or influential in the development of a wide variety of European instruments, including fiddles, vielles, violas, citoles and guitars. Although not proven to be completely separate from the line of lute-family instruments that dominated Europe (lute, oud, gittern, mandore), arguments have been made that they represent a European-based tradition of instrument building, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fingerboard
The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called '' stopping'' the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique. The word "fingerboard" in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions. In particular, the direction ''sul tasto'' (Ital., also ''sulla tastiera'', Fr. ''sur la touche'', G. ''am Griffbrett'') for bowed string instruments to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fretted Instrument
A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework. On instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. ''Fret'' is often used as a verb, meaning simply "to press down the string behind a fret". ''Fretting'' often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Explanation Pressing the string against the fret reduces the vibrating length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the soft fingertip on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neck (music)
The neck is the part of certain string instruments that projects from the main body and is the base of the fingerboard, where the fingers are placed to stop the strings at different pitches. Guitars, banjos, ukuleles, lutes, the violin family, and the mandolin family are examples of instruments which have necks. Necks are also an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, like for instance the saxophone. The word for neck also sometimes appears in other languages in musical instructions. The terms include ''manche'' (French), ''manico'' (Italian), and ''Hals'' (German). Guitar The neck of a guitar includes the guitar's frets, fretboard, tuners, headstock, and truss rod. The wood used to make the fretboard will usually differ from the wood in the rest of the neck. The bending stress on the neck is considerable, particularly when heavier gauge strings are used (see Strings and tuning), and the ability of the neck to resist bending (see Truss rod) is important to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Box
A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vibrations at certain frequencies, known as resonances. The frequency and strength of the resonances of the body of a musical instrument have a significant impact on the tone quality it produces. The air inside the chamber has its own resonances, and these interact with the resonances of the body, altering the resonances of the instrument as a whole. The sound box typically adds resonances at lower frequencies, enhancing the lower-frequency response of the instrument. The distinctive sound of an instrument with a sound box owes a lot to the alteration made to the tone. A sound box is found in most string instruments. The most notable exceptions are some electrically amplified instruments like the solid body electric guitar or the electric vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system). The strings are attached to pegs or posts at the end of the neck, which have some type of turning mechanism to enable the player to tighten the tension on the string or loosen the tension before playing (which respectively raise or lower the pitch of a string), so that each string is tuned to a specific pitch (or note). The lute is plucked or strummed with one hand while the other hand "frets" (presses down) the strings on the neck's fingerboard. By pressing the strings on different places of the fingerboard, the player can shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Streichmelodion
The Streichmelodion or Breitoline is a bowed zither, similar in shape to a viola. The Streichmelodion was created in 1856 by Leopold Breit in Brno, evolving from the alpine zither and inspired by the Streichzither de. The Breitoline is described as having a richer, more robust tone than the Streichzither, and has a compass slightly lower than that of a viola. Breitolines are played with the body of the instrument resting on the player's lap (hence the name "lap harp"), with the part of the zither between the neck and headstock resting on a table. Many Streichmelodions were produced in Markneukirchen at the Ernst Rudolph Glier factory during the 19th century. The instrument has a bridge, with its ribs having a steep curve, similar to those of the viol de gamba. The instrument has a curved fingerboard with around 29 frets, with fretboard markers inlaid at the fifth, ninth, 12th, and 25th frets. Like most classical string instruments, it has two f holes. The pegboxes were asymm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowed Dulcimer
The bowed dulcimer is a musical instrument. Designed in the style of the Appalachian dulcimer (a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings), it is either a standard instrument played with a violin bow, or a purpose-built dulcimer designed around bow playing. The purpose-designed instrument is described as resembling a hybrid between a dulcimer and a cello or viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch .... Bowing as a technique of playing the standard dulcimer has some historical roots; L. Allen Smith feature several examples in his historical survey ''A Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers'' (1983). The more modern purpose-built version of the instrument was developed by Kenneth Bloom of Pilot Mountain, North Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowed Psaltery
The bowed psaltery is a type of psaltery or zither that is played with a bow. In contrast with the centuries-old plucked psaltery, the bowed psaltery appears to be a 20th-century invention. History Violin zither In 1925 a German patent was issued to the Clemens Neuber Company for a bowed psaltery which also included a set of strings arranged in chords, so that one could play the melody on the bowed psaltery strings, and strum accompaniment with the other hand. These are usually called "violin zithers". Ukelin-type instruments Similar instruments were being produced by American companies of the same time period, often with Hawaiian-inspired names, such as ''Hawaiian Art Violin'' or ''Violin-Uke'', and marketed for use in playing the Hawaiian music, which was popular in the United States in the 1920s. These instruments are not typically referred to as psalteries, but by the various trade names they were sold under, such as ''Ukelin''. The conventional bowed psaltery Today, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow (music)
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick which has hair (usually horse-tail hair) coated in rosin (to facilitate friction) affixed to it. It is moved across some part (generally some type of strings) of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and bass, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones. Materials and manufacture A bow consists of a specially shaped stick with other material forming a ribbon stretched between its ends, which is used to stroke the string and create sound. Different musical cultures have adopted various designs for the bow. For instance, in some bows a single cord is stretched between the ends of the stick. In the Western tradition of bow making—bows for the instruments of the violin and viol families—a hank of horsehair is normally employed. The manufacture of bows is considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
