Maryaguirre

Instrument family

Strings

Instruments whose sound begins with a vibrating string — bowed, plucked, strummed or struck.

String instruments turn the vibration of a stretched string into music. The string itself moves very little air, so nearly every instrument in this family pairs it with a resonating body — a hollow box, a bowl, a gourd — that radiates the sound into the room. The way the string is set moving shapes the character of the instrument: drawn across with a bow, plucked with fingers or a plectrum, strummed in chords, or struck.

The family is wide. It includes the bowed instruments of the orchestra, the guitars and their relatives, the harp, and traditions as distinct as the Hindustani sitar, the Japanese koto and the Brazilian berimbau. Each of them answers the same physical question — how to control length, tension and mass of a string — in its own way.

Entries in this family

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Small parlor-style acoustic guitar with a natural spruce top, rosewood sides, black ebony fingerboard and slotted headstock with side-mounted tuners, standing at a three-quarter angle against a grey backdrop.
Strings

Acoustic Guitar

The acoustic guitar is a fretted, plucked or strummed instrument whose strings vibrate over a hollow wooden body that amplifies them without electricity. It exists in two main families: the nylon-string classical guitar, refined in Spain in the nineteenth century, and the steel-string guitar, developed largely in the United States. Both normally carry six strings tuned E–A–D–G–B–E, and together they accompany song, carry solo repertoire and support a wide range of folk and popular styles.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)
Sunburst solid-body electric guitar with a flame-maple top, two humbucking pickups, four gold control knobs and a long rosewood neck, standing on a metal stand against a purple studio backdrop.
Strings

Electric Guitar

The electric guitar turns the vibration of steel strings into an electrical signal, which an amplifier and loudspeaker convert back into sound. It emerged in the United States in the 1930s as players sought to be heard over larger ensembles, and it became a central instrument of rock, blues and much of jazz. Its body may be solid, hollow or something between, but its character depends as much on pickups, amplifier and effects as on the wood.

Modern (after 1900)
Front view of a varnished golden-brown violin with two f-holes, an ebony tailpiece and fingerboard and four strings, photographed upright against a soft grey background.
Strings

Violin

The violin is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the modern violin family, with four strings tuned a fifth apart and set into vibration by a horsehair bow. It took its recognisable form in northern Italy in the sixteenth century and was refined in Cremona over the next two hundred years. It leads the orchestra, anchors the string quartet, stars in the concerto and, under the name fiddle, drives dance and folk music in many regions.

Renaissance–Baroque (1400–1750)
Front view of a dark reddish-brown viola with two f-holes, black tailpiece, fingerboard and pegs, and four strings, shown upright against a pale grey background.
Strings

Viola

The viola is the middle voice of the violin family, tuned a fifth below the violin to C, G, D and A and held under the chin and played with a bow. Its body is larger than a violin's, but not large enough to match its low pitch, which gives it a dark, slightly husky tone. Music for it is usually written in the alto clef. It fills the inner harmony of the orchestra and the string quartet and has a solo repertoire that grew mostly in the twentieth century.

Renaissance–Baroque (1400–1750)
Full front view of a red-brown cello with f-holes, ebony tailpiece, fingerboard and pegs, and a metal endpin, standing upright against a plain grey studio background.
Strings

Cello

The cello is the tenor-bass member of the violin family: a four-string instrument played seated, with its body resting on a floor spike between the player’s knees. Its strings are tuned in fifths an octave below the viola, giving a compass of roughly four octaves that spans much of the human bass and tenor voice and more. Developed in sixteenth-century Italy, it moved from supporting bass lines to concertos, suites and chamber music, and it remains a fixture of orchestras and string quartets.

Renaissance–Baroque (1400–1750)
Three-quarter view of an aged reddish-brown double bass with sloping shoulders, f-holes, ebony tailpiece and fingerboard, three strings and a turned black endpin, against a grey background.
Strings

Double Bass

The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern orchestra, standing well over a metre and a half tall and played upright from a stool or standing. It is tuned in fourths rather than fifths and sounds an octave lower than written. Its ancestry is debated, because it blends features of the viol and violin families. It anchors orchestral harmony, and in jazz and bluegrass it is usually plucked to keep the beat.

Renaissance–Baroque (1400–1750)
Gothic-style pedal harp with a gilded, carved twisting column, figured-wood soundboard and curved neck with many strings and mechanism discs, displayed beside a small wooden chair on a pale blue background.
Strings

Harp

The harp is a plucked string instrument whose strings run in a triangular frame at an angle to the soundboard, one string for each pitch. Harps of many shapes have been played for at least four thousand years. The modern concert harp, with 47 strings and seven pedals, became fully chromatic in the early nineteenth century through a mechanism patented by Sébastien Érard. Smaller lever harps and regional harps continue in folk, sacred and popular music around the world.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)
Soprano ukulele in laminated mahogany with four strings, a rosette-edged soundhole and a dark fretboard, lying at an angle on a red and orange striped cushion.
Strings

Ukulele

The ʻukulele is a small four-stringed instrument that took shape in Hawaiʻi in the 1880s, when Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and Hawaiian makers and players adapted a small Madeiran guitar-like instrument, the machete. Its short scale and re-entrant tuning give it a bright, compact sound. It is now made in four common sizes and played in Hawaiian music and in popular and solo styles worldwide.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)
Bowl-back mandolin with a spruce top, ornate black fingerboard and pegbox inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a gilt lyre-shaped tailpiece and eight strings, shown upright from the front on a grey background.
Strings

Mandolin

The mandolin is a small, pear-shaped lute with eight metal strings grouped in four pairs and tuned like a violin. Born from Italian lutes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it developed a rounded Neapolitan body and, later, flat-backed and carved arch-top American forms. Because a plucked note fades fast, players sustain pitch with rapid tremolo picking. Its repertoire stretches from Baroque concertos and opera serenades to Irish reels, Brazilian choro and bluegrass.

Renaissance–Baroque (1400–1750)
Five-string banjo with a long dark fretboard, a short fifth-string tuning peg partway up the neck, a nickel-plated rim with hooks and a pale calfskin-style head, standing on a grey studio backdrop.
Strings

Banjo

The banjo is a plucked lute whose body is a round frame covered with a stretched head, like a small drum. It was created in the Americas by enslaved people of West African origin, who built on the gourd lutes of their home regions. Nineteenth-century minstrel shows spread it widely and often in racist caricature, and factories soon mass-produced it. Today it belongs to bluegrass, old-time, jazz and Irish music, and to a growing body of research and revival.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)
Sitar with a long hollow neck painted red with gold floral borders, movable frets tied with gut, ivory-coloured tuning pegs and a round gourd resonator, shown at an angle against a grey studio background.
Strings

Sitar

The sitar is a long-necked lute of North India and the main plucked voice of Hindustani classical music. Its arched, movable frets let a player glide between notes, and a broad sloping bridge makes each string buzz. Beneath the frets lie extra strings that are never touched but shimmer when melody notes match them. Together these features give the instrument a resonance that lingers like a halo, and they suit the improvised unfolding of a raga.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)
Japanese koto laid out with its black lacquer storage case decorated with gold cranes above it and a brocade cover, spare bridges and a small pouch below, all on a pale grey surface.
Strings

Koto

The koto is a Japanese long zither of about 180 centimetres, with thirteen strings stretched over a hollow paulownia body. Each string has its own movable bridge, so the player tunes by sliding wooden or plastic pieces before a performance, and plucks with picks worn on three fingers. Descended from a Chinese zither, it took its present solo form in the Edo period, through the work of blind musicians, and continues in both traditional and modern music.

Medieval (500–1400)
Five berimbaus laid side by side against a turquoise surface, each a curved wooden bow strung with a thin wire and fitted with a gourd resonator, some painted in bright patterns and others left natural.
Strings

Berimbau

The berimbau is a single-stringed musical bow from Brazil: a long wooden arc, a steel wire and a hollow gourd that amplifies the sound. The player strikes the wire with a thin stick while pressing a coin or stone against it and shaking a small basket rattle. Closely tied to African bows brought across the Atlantic, it leads the music of capoeira, setting the pace and mood for the game in the circle.

Classical–Romantic (1750–1900)

Other families

KeyboardWoodwindsBrassPercussionFree-reed