String instrument

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Stringed instruments
)
Some string instruments

In

vibrating strings
when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.

Musicians play some string instruments, like

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

feedback from a loud, distorted guitar amplifier
to produce a sustained sound.

Some string instruments are mainly plucked, such as the

electric bass. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki
.

In the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. According to Sachs,[1]

Chordophones are instruments with strings. The strings may be struck with sticks, plucked with the bare fingers or a plectrum, bowed or (in the Aeolian harp, for instance) sounded by wind. The confusing plenitude of stringed instruments can be reduced to four fundamental type: zithers, lutes, lyres, and harps.

In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it. The vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, in order to have better sound projection. Some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body.

Classification

In musicology, string instruments are known as chordophones. It is one of the five main divisions of instruments in the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification.

Hornbostel–Sachs divides chordophones into two main groups: instruments without a resonator as an integral part of the instrument (which have the classification number 31, also known as 'simple'); and instruments with such a resonator (which have the classification number 32, also known as 'composite'). Most western instruments fall into the second group, but the piano and harpsichord fall into the first. Hornbostel and Sachs' criterion for determining which sub-group an instrument falls into is that if the resonator can be removed without destroying the instrument, then it is classified as 31. The idea that the piano's casing, which acts as a resonator, could be removed without destroying the instrument, may seem odd, but if the action and strings of the piano were taken out of its box, it could still be played. This is not true of the violin, because the string passes over a bridge located on the resonator box, so removing the resonator would mean the strings had no tension.

Curt Sachs also broke chordophones into four basic subcategories, "zithers, lutes, lyres and harps."[2]

Earliest string instruments

Harp lute, from West Africa
Bow Harp or Harp Lute, West Africa
Musical bow
Musical bows have survived in some parts of Africa.

Dating to around c. 13,000 BC, a cave painting in the

lyres.[6] In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords. Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute.[7]

This picture of musical bow to harp bow is theory and has been contested. In 1965 Franz Jahnel wrote his criticism stating that the early ancestors of plucked instruments are not currently known.[8] He felt that the harp bow was a long cry from the sophistication of the civilizations of western Asia in 4000 BC that took the primitive technology and created "technically and artistically well-made harps, lyres, citharas, and lutes."[8]

Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in

Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, which include artifacts over three thousand years old. The development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. Lyres with wooden bodies and strings used for plucking or playing with a bow represent key instruments that point towards later harps and violin-type instruments; moreover, Indian instruments from 500 BC have been discovered with anything from 7 to 21 strings. In Vietnam, a 2,000 year old, singularly stringed instrument made of deer antler was also discovered. [9]

Lutes

See: History of lute-family instruments
Gandhara banquet with lute player
Hellenistic banquet scene from the 1st century AD, Hadda, Gandhara. Lute player far right.
Sculpture of a Roman pandura in Spain
Spanish stele of a boy with a pandura.[10]

Musicologists have put forth examples of that 4th-century BC technology, looking at engraved images that have survived. The earliest image showing a lute-like instrument came from

tamburs and pandura.[14] The line of short lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria, Gandhara, and Northwest India, and shown in sculpture from the 2nd century BC through the 4th or 5th centuries AD.[15][16][17]

During the

medieval era, instrument development varied in different regions of the world. Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four-stringed precursor to the guitar, and basic lutes
. These instruments typically used catgut (animal intestine) and other materials, including silk, for their strings.

Renaissance to modern

Viol, fidel and rebec (from left to right) on display at Amakusa Korejiyokan in Amakusa, Kumamoto, Japan

String instrument design was refined during the

guitars became more consistent in design and were roughly similar to acoustic guitars of the 2000s. The violins of the Renaissance featured intricate woodwork and stringing, while more elaborate bass instruments such as the bandora were produced alongside quill-plucked citterns
, and Spanish body guitars.

In the 19th century, string instruments were made more widely available through mass production, with wood string instruments a key part of orchestras – cellos, violas, and upright basses, for example, were now standard instruments for chamber ensembles and smaller orchestras. At the same time, the 19th-century guitar became more typically associated with six-string models, rather than traditional five-string versions.

Major changes to string instruments in the 20th century primarily involved innovations in electronic

and an output jack.

In the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called "stacks". These powerful amplifiers enabled guitarists to perform in rock bands that played in large venues such as stadiums and outdoor music festivals (e.g.,

flangers, and phasers enabling performers to create unique new sounds during the psychedelic rock era. Breakthroughs in electric guitar and basses technologies and playing styles enabled major breakthroughs in pop and rock music in the 1960s and 1970s. The distinctive sound of the amplified electric guitar was the centerpiece of new genres of music such as blues rock and jazz-rock fusion. The sonic power of the loudly amplified, highly distorted electric guitar was the key element of the early heavy metal music, with the distorted guitar being used in lead guitar roles, and with power chords as a rhythm guitar
.

The ongoing use of electronic amplification and effects units in string instruments, ranging from traditional instruments like the violin to the new electric guitar, added variety to contemporary classical music performances, and enabled experimentation in the dynamic and timbre (tone colour) range of orchestras, bands, and solo performances.[18]

Types of instruments

A woman playing some kind of string instrument while riding a horse, Tang dynasty

Construction

String instruments can be divided into three groups:

Lutes
Instruments that support the strings via a
saz
Harps
Instruments that contain the strings within a frame
Zithers
Instruments that have the strings mounted on a body, frame or tube, such as a guqin, cimbalom, autoharp, harpsichord, piano, or valiha

It is also possible to divide the instruments into categories focused on how the instrument is played.

Playing techniques