View All (48) Table of Contents IntroductionThe production of soundTypes of instrumentsLutesZithersLyresHarpsThe music of stringed instrumentsSolo usesFor accompanimentEnsemblesSocial and cultural associationsArtistry in instrument makingThe development of stringed instrumentsThe harpThe lyreThe zitherPlucked lutesBowed lutesElectronic technologyThe violin familyMorphologyTuningPlaying positionsViolinViolaCello, or violoncelloDouble bassOther violinsThe bow A Japanese musician plucking the strings of a koto with the right hand to generate a pitch and pressing the strings with the left hand to alter the tone. A portion of the soundboard of an upright piano. The bridge of a Hardanger fiddle, with the sympathetic strings visible beneath the main strings. A street musician playing a Japanese samisen. An ʿūd, from Iran, with the characteristic wooden belly and backward-slanting pegbox. Musician playing a banjo, which is a type of skin-bellied fretted lute. Indian street musicians playing (left to right) a harmonium (portable reed organ) and a sarangi (Hindustani fiddle). Musician playing a haegŭm, a type of fiddle, in a traditional Korean ensemble. Musician playing an ajaeng, a type of bowed zither, in a traditional Korean ensemble. East African bowl lyre; in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford Ugandan musician playing the ennanga arched harp. Egyptian statuette with angular harp, painted wood, Late Period (1085–525 bce); in the British Museum, London. Irish harp. Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk instrument. Side view of a celempung, one of the instruments that elaborate the main melody in Javanese gamelan music. Sitar being played by Indian musician Ravi Shankar, 1967. Bluegrass duo the Stanley Brothers, Ralph (left) playing the banjo and Carter (right) playing the guitar. Joined by bass, mandolin, and fiddle players, they performed as the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys. A Mongolian throat-singer accompanying himself on a traditional horsehead fiddle, with strings and bow made of horsehair. Harpsichord in the Flemish style. A gusla being played by epic singer Dragise Stojanovic, 1973. Toumani Diabate (front) of Mali playing his kora with members of the Symmetric Orchestra, Budapest, Hungary, 2006. Roman marble statue of Apollo with lyre. Musician playing a kŏmungo, a type of Korean zither with six strings. The Chinese trapezoidal box zither, yangqin. Cimbalom and performer. Angel playing a lute, from “Presentation in the Temple,” painted altarpiece by Vittore Carpaccio, 1510; in the Accademia, Venice Tambura. Women playing a rebec (left foreground) and a harp (right foreground) serenading the Greek deities Persephone and Hades. Also present are the three-headed dog Cerberus, celestial male harpists (left background), and demons of the underworld; from Les Echecs amoureux, a 15th-century manuscript produced for Louise de Savoy. Fender Stratocaster electric guitar being played by British rock musician Eric Clapton in London, 2008. Violin. Interior of a violin, showing corner and end blocks and linings; underside of table with bass bar and internal modeling, or curvature. An instrument maker, surrounded by guitars and lutes, carving a violin neck in a shop at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Cello being played by Russian musician Mstislav Rostropovich, 1996. French violin virtuoso Zino Francescatti, c. 1950. Antonio Stradivari in his workshop. Double bass being played by Cuban-born bassist, bandleader, and mambo musician Israel (“Cachao”) López, 2006. The celempung, one of the instruments that elaborate the main melody in Javanese gamelan music. Animation demonstrating a type of action in a grand piano. The sarod, one of the principal melodic solo instruments of Hindustani music. The Brazilian musical bow, berimbau. North American hammered dulcimer. The rebab, one of the instruments that elaborate the main melody in Javanese gamelan music. Schematic of a typical arrangement of the instruments of the modern Western orchestra. Orchestral harp and its components. Violin and bow and their components. Viola and bow and their components. Cello and bow and their components. Double bass and bow and their components.