Music & Pop Culture
String Instruments
String instruments are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings. Sometimes they are called chordophones. Some common instruments in the string family are guitar, sitar, rabab, violin, viola, cello, electric bass, double bass, banjo and harp. There're three types of chordophones: Pluck, bow and strike.
Plucking is used as a method of playing on instruments such as the banjo, ukulele, guitar, harp, lute, mandolin, sitar, and either by a finger or thumb, or by some type of plectrum.
Plucked string instruments
Guitar
Lucas Imbiriba
Malagueña
​
Harp
Marion Le Solliec
The Lord of the Rings
Lute
Francis Cutting
Greensleeves
Banjo
Ned Luberecki
Duelling banjos
The Guitar
A guitar is a popular musical instrument that makes sound by the playing of its six strings.
It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the right hand while fretting the strings with the left hand.
​
Guitars are recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, rock or flamenco.
The Harp
The harp is a multi-string musical instrument.
All harps have a harmonic curve, resonator and strings.
A person who plays the harp is called a harpist or harper.
Various types of harps are found in Africa, Europe, North and South America and in Asia.
Bowed string instruments
Bowed string instruments are string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings.
The bow consists of a stick with many hairs stretched between its ends.
Bowed string instruments are violin, viola, cello and double bass.
​
Violin
Hilary Hahn
Violin Sonata Nº1 (Bach)
Viola
Jeremy Green
Perfect (Ed Sheeran)
Cello
Yo-yo Ma
Prelude - Cello suite Nº1 (Bach)
Double Bass
Miloslav Gajdos
Prelude and Fugue
The Violin
The violin is also known as a fiddle.
It is a string instrument with four strings.
Someone who plays the violin is called a violinist.
The violin can be used in classical, rock or pop music.
Violinists and collectors particularly prize the instruments made by Stradivari and Amati families.
A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier.
Struck string instruments
You can produce sound if you strike a string.
That’s the case of the piano.
It's the shortest of the musical instrumental families, with only a couple of instruments.
​
The Piano
Peter Buka
Dance Monkey
Piano is an abbreviation of pianoforte, which mean weak and forte in Italian.
The piano has a keyboard and three pedals.
The piano is not a portable instrument, but it's versatile.
​
A piano usually has a protective wooden case surrounding the soundboard and metal strings, and a row of black and white keys (52 white keys and 36 black keys).
The strings are sounded when the keys are pressed down.
​
Song: The wheels on the bus
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
The door on the bus goes open and shut.
The wipers on the bus go swish swish swish.
The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep.
The people on the bus go up and down.
The babies on the bus go, “Wah wah wah.
The mommies on the bus go, “Shhh shhh shhh.