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Board Zither
Zither (; , from the Greek ''cithara'') is a class of stringed instruments. The modern instrument has many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. 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 hammered dulcimer family and piano and a few rare 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 assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty. In modern usage the term "zither" usually refers to three specific instruments: the concert zither (), its variant the Alpine zither (each of which uses a fretted fingerboard), and the chord zither (more recently described as a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chordophone
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like Guitar, guitars, by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum, plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow, like Violin, violins. In some keyboard (music), 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 classic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dulcimer
The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of this instrument are found in many cultures, including: * Hammered dulcimer (England, Scotland, United States) * Hackbrett (southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland) * Tsymbaly (Ukraine), tsimbl (Ashkenazi Jewish), țambal (Romania) and cimbalom (Hungary) may refer to either a relatively small folk instrument or a larger classical instrument. The santouri (Greece) (called "santur" in the Ottoman Empire) is almost identical to the Jewish and Romanian folk instruments. * Santur (Iran and Iraq) * Santoor (northern India and Pakistan) is constructed and tuned differently from the santur of Iran and Iraq * Khim (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand) * Yangqin (China), Đàn tam thập lục (Vietnam), yanggeum (Korea) Appalachian dulcimer and deriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kithara
The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word ''kithara'' has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymologically stems from ''kithara''. Origin and uses The cithara originated from Minoan- Mycenaean swan-neck lyres developed and used during the Aegean Bronze Age. Scholars such as M.L. West, Martha Maas, and Jane M. Snyder have made connections between the cithara and stringed instruments from ancient Anatolia. Whereas the basic lyra was widely used as a teaching instrument in boys’ schools, the cithara was a virtuoso's instrument and generally known as requiring a great deal of skill.: Aristotle calls the cithara an ''organo ... [...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 Cithara, 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 (instrument), mandore), arguments have been made that they represent a European-based tradition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cittern
The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the medieval citole (or cytole). Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a popular instrument of casual music-making much like the guitar is today. History Pre-modern citterns The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the Renaissance music period. It generally has four courses of strings (single, pairs or threes depending on design or regional variation), one or more courses being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The cittern may have a range of only an octave between its lowest and highest st ... [...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 pla ... [...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 o ... [...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, such as 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, and the ability of the neck to resist bending is important to the guitar's ability to hold a constant pitch duri ... [...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 vio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), 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" commonly refers to an instrument from the Family (musical instruments), family of History of lute-family instruments, European lutes which were themselves influenced by India, Indian short-necked lutes in Gandhara which became the predecessor of the Islamic music, Islamic, the Sino-Japanese and the Early music, European lute families. The term also refers generally to any necked string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the Sound board (music), 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 ... [...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 . 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 asymmetrical, leani ... [...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 viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (m .... 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] |
