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Zithers
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 fret ... [...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 Psaltery
The bowed psaltery is a type of psaltery or zither that is played with a bow (music), 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 the 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 ps ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tube Zither
The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it acoustic resonance, modifies the sound and transfers it to the open air. The instruments are among the oldest of chordophones, being "a very early stage" in the development of chordophones, and predate some of the oldest chordophones, such as the Chinese Se (instrument), Se, zithers built on a tube split in half. Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Tube zithers made from other materials have been found in Europe and the United States, made from materials such as cornstalks and cactus. There are both round and half tube zithers, as well as tube zithers with the strings cut out of the bamboo body, ''idiochordic'', or, rarely, have separate strings, ''heterochordic''. Cultural connections The areas where the bamboo tube ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harp Zither
The guitar zither (also chord zither, fretless zither, mandolin zither or harp zither) is a musical instrument consisting of a sound-box with two sets of unstopped strings. One set of strings is tuned to the diatonic, chromatic, or partially chromatic scale and the other set is tuned to make the various chords in the principal key of the melody strings. First patented May 29, 1894 by Friederich Menzenhauer Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 520,651, dated May 29, 1894. Application filed April 20, 1893, Serial No.471,147. (No model.), United States Patent Office (1858-1937), the guitar zither came into use in the late 19th century and was widely mass-produced in the United States and in Germany by Menzenhauer and later by Osca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Bow
The musical bow (bowstring or string bow, a subset of bar zithers) is a simple string instrument used by a number of African peoples as well as Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 10 feet (0.5 to 3 m) long, and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch. It is uncertain if the musical bow developed from the hunting bow, though the San or Bushmen people of the Kalahari Desert do convert their hunting bows to musical use. Types of bow include mouth-resonated string bow, earth-resonated string bow, and gourd-resonated string bow. History There is speculation that the hunting bow may have been used as a musical instrument from as early as circa 13,000 B.C. Henri Breuil surveyed the Trois Frères in France caves and made an engraving that attempted to reproduce a c. 13,000 B.C. cave painting into a black-and-white lithograph engraving. His engra ... [...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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
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 a demandi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
