A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies A Vibration in a string is a Wave. Usually a vibrating string produces a Sound whose Frequency in most cases is constant In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. Hornbostel-Sachs (or Sachs-Hornbostel) is a system of Musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs At various times and in various different cultures various schemes of Musical instrument classification have been used Organology (from Greek: - organon "instrument" and λόγος - logos "study" is the science of Musical instruments and A Chordophone is any Musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points The most common string instruments in the string family are violin, cello, viola double bass, guitar, and harp. The Violin family of Musical instruments was developed in Italy in the Sixteenth century. The violoncello (abbreviated to cello, or 'cello, plural cellos or celli —the c is tʃ The viola is a bowed String instrument. It is the middle voice of the Violin family, The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed String instrument used in the modern symphony orchestra. The guitar is a Musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles The harp is a Stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard.

Types of string instruments

The double bass is either plucked (pizzicato) or bowed with the bow, which is called "arco" depending on the genre and piece.

For a full list, see List of string instruments. This is a list of String instruments categorized according to the technique used to produce sound followed by a list of string instruments grouped by country or region of origin

All string instruments produce sound from one or more vibrating strings, transferred to the air by the body of the instrument (or by a pickup in the case of electronically-amplified instruments). They are usually categorized by the technique used to make the strings vibrate. The three most common techniques are plucking, bowing and striking.

Plucking

Main article: Plucked string instrument

Plucking (Italian: Pizzicato) is used as the sole method of playing, on instruments such as the guitar, oud, sitar, banjo and harp, either by a finger or thumb, or by some type of plectrum. Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of String instruments that are played by plucking the strings Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in The guitar is a Musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles The oud ( عود ʿūd, plural أعواد, a‘wād; kaban; Persian: بربط barbat; ud The sitar ( Hindi: सितार Urdu: ستار Persian: سی تار) is a Plucked stringed instrument. The banjo is a Stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States, adapted from several African instruments The harp is a Stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. Often called a pick or plec, a plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. This category includes the keyboard instrument the harpsichord, which formerly used feather quills (now plastic plectra) to pluck the strings. A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard.

Bowing

Bowing (Italian: Arco) is a method used in some string instruments, including the violin, viola, cello, and less commonly, the double bass (of the violin family) and the old viol family. The violin is a bowed String instrument with four strings usually tuned in Perfect fifths It is the smallest and highest-pitched member The viola is a bowed String instrument. It is the middle voice of the Violin family, The violoncello (abbreviated to cello, or 'cello, plural cellos or celli —the c is tʃ The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed String instrument used in the modern symphony orchestra. The Violin family of Musical instruments was developed in Italy in the Sixteenth century. The viol (also called viola da gamba) is any one of a family of bowed, Fretted stringed Musical instruments developed in the 1400s The bow consists of a stick with many hairs stretched between its ends. In Music, a bow is moved across some part of a Musical instrument, causing Vibration which the instrument emits as Sound. Bowing the instrument's string causes a stick-slip phenomenon to occur, which makes the string vibrate. Stick-slip (or "slip-stick" refers to the phenomenon of a spontaneous jerking motion that can occur while two objects are sliding over each other

Other bowed instruments are the hardingfele, nyckelharpa, kokyū, rebec, erhu, igil, kamanche, and sarangi. A Hardanger fiddle (or in hardingfele is a traditional Stringed instrument used originally to play the Music of Norway. A nyckelharpa (literally "key harp" plural nyckelharpor or sometimes keyed fiddle) is a traditional Swedish musical instrument The rebec (sometimes rebeck, and originally various other spellings is a bowed string Musical instrument. The erhu ( also called nanhu ( 南[[wikt 胡|胡]] "southern fiddle" and sometimes known in the West as the "Chinese An igil ( Tuvan - игил is a two- stringed Tuvan musical instrument played by bowing the strings This article is about the Persian kamancheh For the related but different Turkish & Armenian instrument see Kemenche. The Sarangi ( Hindi The hurdy gurdy is bowed by a wheel. A hurdy gurdy (also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed Musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a Rosined wheel which the strings A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load ( Mass) or performing labour in machines

Striking

The third common method of sound production in stringed instruments is to strike the string with a hammer. By far the most well-known instrument to use this method is the piano (sometimes considered a percussion instrument), where the hammers are controlled by a mechanical action; another example is the hammered dulcimer, where the player holds the hammers. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers The hammered dulcimer is a stringed Musical instrument with the strings stretched over a Trapezoidal sounding board

A variant of the hammering method is found in the clavichord: a brass tangent touches the string and presses it to a hard surface, inducing vibration. The clavichord is a European stringed Keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical This method of sound production yields a soft sound. The maneuver can also be executed with a finger on plucked and bowed instruments; guitarists refer to this technique as a hammer-on. Hammer-on is a Stringed instrument playing technique performed (especially on Guitar) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the Fingerboard After the invention of electric pickups guitars could be played solely by hammer-ons. Since both hands then can be used it is often called "two-handed tapping". Tapping is a playing technique generally associated with the Electric guitar, although the technique may be performed on almost any String instrument. Guitar-/bass-like instruments are beeing manufactured mainly for this purpose, like the Bunker Touch Guitar, the Chapman Stick, the Warr Guitar and the Megatar. The Chapman Stick is an electric Musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s Warr Guitars is a company that manufactures the Warr Guitar which is a Musical instrument developed by Mark Warr that looks very much like a standard Electric guitar, but can The Megatar is a stringed Musical instrument designed to be played with two-handed Tapping.

Violin-family string instrument players are also occasionally instructed to strike the string with the side of the bow, a technique called col legno. This yields a percussive sound along with the pitch of the note. A well-known use of col legno for orchestral strings is the Gustav Holst's "Mars" movement from The Planets suite. Gustav Theodore Holst (21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934was an English Composer and was a music teacher for nearly 20 years The Planets Op 32 is a seven- movement Orchestral suite by the British composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914

Other methods

The aeolian harp employs a very unusual method of sound production: the strings are excited by the movement of the air. An aeolian harp (or æolian harp or wind harp) is a Musical instrument that is "played" by the wind

Some string instruments have keyboards attached which are manipulated by the player, meaning they do not have to pay attention to the strings directly. A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a Musical instrument, particularly the piano The most familiar example is the piano, where the keys control the felt hammers by means of a complex mechanical action. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers Other string instruments with a keyboard include the clavichord (where the strings are struck by tangents), and the harpsichord (where the strings are plucked by tiny plectra). The clavichord is a European stringed Keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. Often called a pick or plec, a plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument.

With these keyboard instruments too, the strings are occasionally plucked or bowed by hand. A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a Musical keyboard. Composers such as Henry Cowell wrote music which asks for the player to reach inside the piano and pluck the strings directly, or to "bow" them with bow hair wrapped around the strings, or play them by rolling the bell of a brass instrument such as a trombone on the array of strings. A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance Henry Cowell ( March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American Composer, musical theorist, Pianist A brass instrument is a Musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular Resonator. The trombone is a Musical instrument in the brass family Like all brass instruments it is a lip-reed Aerophone: sound is produced when the player’s

Other keyed string instruments, small enough to be held by a strolling player, include the plucked autoharp, the bowed nyckelharpa, and the hurdy gurdy, which is played by cranking a rosined wheel. The Autoharp is a musical String instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which when depressed mute all the strings other than those that form the A nyckelharpa (literally "key harp" plural nyckelharpor or sometimes keyed fiddle) is a traditional Swedish musical instrument A hurdy gurdy (also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed Musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a Rosined wheel which the strings

Steel-stringed instruments can be played using a magnetic field. An E-Bow is small hand-held battery-powered device which can be used to excite the strings of an electric guitar. The EBow or ebow ( Brand name for "Electronic Bow " or Energy Bow (often spelled E-bow in common usage is a hand-held battery-powered It provides a sustained, singing tone on the string which is magnetically-vibrated.

String length or scale length

This is the length of the string from nut to bridge on bowed or plucked instruments and ultimately determines the distance between different notes on the instrument. The nut of a String instrument is a small piece of hard material which supports the strings at the end closest to the Headstock or scroll. A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a Stringed instrument and transmitting the Vibration of those strings to some other structural component For example, a double bass with its low range needs a scale length of around 42 inches, whilst a violin scale is only about 13 inches. On the shorter scale of the violin, the left hand may easily reach a range of slightly more than two octaves without shifting position, while on the bass' longer scale, a single octave or a ninth is reachable in lower positions.

Contact points along the string

The strings of a piano

In bowed instruments, the bow is normally placed perpendicularly to the string, at a point half way between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge. However, different bow placements can be selected to change timbre. In Music, timbre (ˈtæm-bər' like timber, or, from Fr timbre tɛ̃bʁ is the quality of a Musical note or sound that distinguishes different Application of the bow close to the bridge (known as sul ponticello) produces an intense, sometimes harsh sound, which acoustically emphasizes the upper harmonics. This is a list of musical terms that are likely to be encountered in printed scores In Acoustics and Telecommunication, the harmonic of a Wave is a component Frequency of the signal that is an Integer Bowing above the fingerboard (sul tasto) produces a purer tone with less overtone strength, emphasizing the fundamental, also known as flautando, since it sounds less reedy and more flute-like. This is a list of musical terms that are likely to be encountered in printed scores The fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated fo, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series.

Similar timbral distinctions are also possible with plucked string instruments by selecting an appropriate plucking point, although the difference is perhaps more subtle.

In keyboard instruments, the contact point along the string (whether this be hammer, tangent, or plectrum) is a choice made by the instrument designer. Builders use a combination of experience and acoustic theory to establish the right set of contact points.

In harpsichords, often there are two sets of strings of equal length. These "choirs" usually differ in their plucking points. One choir has a "normal" plucking point, producing a canonical harpsichord sound; the other has a plucking point close to the bridge, producing a reedier "nasal" sound rich in upper harmonics.

Production of multiple notes

A string at a certain tension and length will only produce one note (monophony), so to obtain multiple notes (polyphony), string instruments employ one of two methods. In Music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of Melody without accompanying Harmony. In Music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent Melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( Monophony One is to add enough strings to cover the range of notes desired; the other is to allow the strings to be stopped. The piano is an example of the former method, where each note on the instrument has its own set of strings. On instruments with stoppable strings, such as the violin or guitar, the player can shorten the vibrating length of the string, using their fingers directly (or more rarely through some mechanical device, as in the hurdy gurdy). A hurdy gurdy (also known as a wheel fiddle) is a stringed Musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a Rosined wheel which the strings Such instruments usually have a fingerboard attached to the neck of the instrument, providing a hard flat surface against which the player can stop the strings. On some string instruments, the fingerboard has frets, raised ridges perpendicular to the strings that stop the string at precise intervals, in which case the fingerboard is called a fretboard. A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a Stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck

Modern frets are typically specially shaped metal wire set into slots in the fretboard. Early frets were cords tied around the neck, still seen on some instruments as wraps of nylon monofilament. Such frets are tied tightly enough that moving them during performance is impractical. The bridges of a koto, on the other hand, may be moved by the player, occasionally in the course of a single piece of music. The koto ( 琴 or 箏) is a traditional Japanese stringed Musical instrument derived from the Chinese Zither ( Guzheng

The middle Eastern string instrument the qanun, though it has many strings to give a selection of notes, is equipped with small levers called mandal that allow each course of multiple strings to be incrementally retuned "on the fly" while the instrument is being played. See also Kanun (disambiguation The qanún or kanun ( Arabic قانون qānūn, Turkish These levers raise or lower the pitch of the string course by a microtone, less than a half step. Similar mechanisms which change pitch by standard intervals (half-steps) are used on many modern Western harps, either directly moved by fingers (on Celtic harps) or controlled by foot pedals (on orchestral harps).

Sound production

Acoustic instruments

See also: Musical acoustics

It is sometimes said that the sounding board or soundbox "amplifies" the sound of the strings. Musical acoustics or music acoustics is the branch of Acoustics concerned with researching and describing the Physics of Music — how sounds Technically speaking, no amplification occurs, because all of the energy to produce sound comes from the vibrating string. In Physics and other Sciences energy (from the Greek grc ἐνέργεια - Energeia, "activity operation" from grc ἐνεργός Sound' is Vibration transmitted through a Solid, Liquid, or Gas; particularly sound means those vibrations composed of Frequencies What really happens is that the sounding board of the instrument provides a larger surface area to create sound waves than that of the string. A wave is a disturbance that propagates through Space and Time, usually with transference of Energy. A larger vibrating surface moves more air, hence produces a louder sound.

Achieving a tonal characteristic that is effective and pleasing to the player's and listener's ear is something of an art, and the makers of string instruments often seek very high quality woods to this end, particularly spruce (chosen for its lightness, strength and flexibility) and maple (a very hard wood). Spruce refers to Trees of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of Coniferous Evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae Acer ( maple) is a Genus of Trees or Shrubs They are variously classified in a family of their own the Aceraceae, or Spruce is used for the sounding boards of instruments from the violin to the piano.

Acoustic instruments can also be made out of artificial materials, such as carbon fiber and fiberglass (particularly the larger instruments, such as cellos and basses). Fiberglass (also called fibreglass and glass fibre see Spelling differences) is material made from extremely fine Fibers of Glass.

In the early 20th century, the Stroh violin used a diaphragm-type resonator and a metal horn to project the string sound, much like early mechanical gramophones. A Stroh violin, or violinophone, is a Violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on Its use declined beginning about 1920, as electronic amplification came into use.

Electronic amplification

Most string instruments can be fitted with piezoelectric or magnetic pickups to convert the string's vibrations into an electrical signal which is amplified and then converted back into sound by loudspeakers. Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials (notably Crystals and certain Ceramics including bone to generate an Electric potential in response to A pickup device acts as a Transducer that captures mechanical vibrations (usually from suitably equipped Stringed instruments such as the Electric guitar Some players attach a pickup to their traditional string instrument to "electrify" it. Another option is to use a solid-bodied instrument, which reduces unwanted feedback howls or squeals. Audio Feedback (also known as the Larsen effect after the Danish scientist Søren Larsen who first discovered its principles is a special kind of Feedback Recently, companies such as Yamaha have produced electric instruments which have a distinctive look.

Amplified string instruments can be much louder than their acoustic counterparts, which allows them to be used in relatively loud rock, blues, and jazz ensembles. Amplified instruments can also have their amplified tone modified by using electronic effects such as distortion, reverb, or wah-wah. For the onomateopeic word see Wah-wah. Wah-Wah is a 2005 Drama film, written and directed by British

Bass-register string instruments such as the double bass and the electric bass are amplified with bass instrument amplifiers that are designed to reproduce low-frequency sounds. Bass instrument amplification for the Bass guitar, Double bass and similar instruments is distinct from other types of amplification systems due to the To modify the tone of amplified bass instruments, a range of electronic bass effects are available, such as distortion and chorus. Bass effects are electronic devices used to modify the tone pitch or sound of electric bass guitars or more rarely amplified Double basses Bass effects can be housed

See also

• 3rd Bridge
• List of string instruments
• String instrument repertoire
• Luthier (maker of stringed instruments)
• Musical instrument
• Musical acoustics
• Strings (music)
• Vibrating string
• String orchestra
• String instrument extended technique
• Stringed instrument tunings
• Strings - Pakistan pop band

External links

• The physics of the bowed string