Facts About Stringed Instruments

From the seemingly impossible melodies of a Paganini violin concerto to the ear-bleeding wail of Jimi Hendrix's guitar set afire, the range of stringed instruments and the music that's played on them around the world is as varied as the people themselves. Stringed instruments can be acoustic or electric and can be played by bowing, plucking or striking the strings. The most common stringed instruments today include violins, guitars, pianos and harps.

History

An early example of a person playing a stringed instrument can be seen in a 1,500-year-old cave painting in the Grotto des Tres Frères in France. The figure in the painting is shown with a hunting bow in its mouth, but without an arrow. Like in the ancient painting, music can be made by plucking a single bowstring held in the mouth, and opening and closing the mouth around the string to change the pitch. Modern people in Africa, Asia, and in Appalachia in the United States still play similar "musical bows," and a modern example of this type of instrument is the Jew's harp. Lyres and harps were seen 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt and Sumeria, and other types of stringed instruments are mentioned in ancient writings from the Greeks and Romans.

Types

The strings on most stringed instruments are plucked, bowed or stricken. For plucked instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the player either picks the strings with his fingers or uses a plectrum. With bowed instruments like violas, cellos and the Persian kamanche, a bow (made of wood and many fine strings of a material such as the hair from a horse's tail) is drawn across the strings, which causes them to resonate. Instruments such as pianos, harpsichords and hammered dulcimers use hammers that strike the strings to produce the sound.

Considerations

An orchestral stringed instrument, such as the violin, is perhaps the most versatile of the stringed instruments, as all three methods of producing sound may be employed. More uncommonly, some stringed instruments are played by movement of the air (such as an Aeolian harp), or they have resonating strings which sound from the vibrations of nearby strings, such as a sitar or a violin d'amore.

Pitch

The strings on stringed instruments are tuned to different pitches. The violin, for example, has four strings each tuned at a fifth from the next, while a guitar has six or twelve strings. The pitch is changed when the player places his fingers along the string. Longer strings produce lower pitches and shorter strings produce higher pitches. Holding a finger on the string essentially shortens it, which raises the pitch.

Features

Acoustic stringed instruments are made of wood, which resonates as the string vibrates. The air around the instrument moves as the wood resonates, which is what produces the sound. Sound is produced in a similar way on an electric stringed instrument, though the vibrations resonate through an electrical pickup to an amplifier rather than through the body of the instrument itself.