Stringed instrument - XDECTM ECU - HUS-1000 Test Bench
Types of instruments
Construction
Stringed instruments can be divided into three groups.
Lutes - Instruments in which the strings are supported by a neck and a bolt ("gourd"), such as a guitar, a violin, a saz.
Harps - Instruments in which the strings are in a frame.
Harps - instruments with the strings mounted on a body like a Guqin, a cymbal or an autoharp.
It is also possible to use the instruments into groups focused on how the instrument is played.
Types playing techniques
The bass is either plucked (Pizzicato) or curved (arco) depending on the genre and piece.
For a complete list, see List of string instruments.
All string instruments produce sound one or more vibrating strings, transferred to the air through 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 vibrate the strings (or the primary technique in the case of instruments where more than one may apply.) The three most common techniques are plucking, bowing and striking.
Pick
Main article: plucked string instrument
Picking is used as the only method of playing on instruments such as banjo, guitar, harp, lute, mandolin, old, sitar, and either by a finger or thumb, or a type of plectrum. This category includes the keyboard instrument the harpsichord, which formerly feather quills (now plastic picks) to pluck the strings.
Instruments normally played by bending (see below) can also be picked, a technique referred to by the Italian term pizzicato.
Bend
Bending (Italian: Arco) is a method used in some stringed instruments, including the violin, viola, cello, and less often, the double bass (of the violin family) and the old viol family. The arch consists of a stick with many hairs stretched between its ends. Bending the tool string causes a stick-slip phenomenon occur, causing vibration of the string.
Ancestors of modern bowed string instruments are the rebab Islamic empires, the Persian and Byzantine kamanche lira. Other string instruments are the rebec, hardingfele, nyckelharpa, Koky, erhu, igil and sarangi. The hurdy gurdy is bowed by a wheel.
Striking
The third common method of sound production in stringed instruments is the string with a hammer. By far the most famous instrument for this method is the piano where the hammers are controlled by a mechanical action, another example is the hammered dulcimer, where the player holds the hammers.
A variant of the hammering method is found in the clavichord: a brass tangent touches the string and prints it on a hard surface, inducing vibration. This method of noise produces a soft sound. The maneuver can also be performed with one finger and plucked string instruments, guitarists refer to this technique as a hammer-on. After the invention of the electric pickups guitars could be played only by hammer-ons. Since then both hands can be used for what is often called "two-handed tapping." Guitar-/bass-like instruments are manufactured primarily for this purpose, like the Bunker Touch Guitar, Chapman Stick it, the Warr guitar and Megatar.
Violin-family string instrument players are also occasionally instructed to strike the string with the side of the arch, a technique called col legno. This produces a percussive sound with the pitch of the note. A well-known using the col legno for orchestral strings, the Gustav Holst's "Mars" movement of the planets suite.
You can by striking the drum.
Other methods
The aeolian harp is a very unusual way of producing sound, the strings are struck by the movement of air.
Some string instruments have keyboards attached which are manipulated by the player, which means they do not pay attention to the strings directly. The best known example is the piano where the keys felt hammers by means of a complex mechanical action. Other stringed instrument with a keyboard, the clavichord (where the strings are struck by tangents), and the harpsichord (where the strings are plucked by tiny Picks).
This keyboard also, the strings are plucked or bowed occasionally with hand. Composers such as Henry Cowell wrote music which requires the player to reach the piano and plucking the strings directly, or to "bend" them with her bow around the strings, whether by rolling the clock to play a brass instrument like a trombone on the array of strings.
Other keyed string instruments, small enough to be had by strolling players, including the plucked autoharp, hurdy gurdy and the arc nyckelharpa, played by cranking a wheel rosined.
Steel-string instruments (like guitar, bass, violin, etc.) can be played using a magnetic field. E-Bow is a small hand-held battery-powered device that can be used the strings of a guitar generation. It offers a durable, singing tone on the string is magneto-shaking.
Bridge is a third method of picking the string is divided into two parts and beat the side that unreinforced. The technique is mainly used in electric instruments, because they have a pick-up, which only the local string vibration increased. It is also possible on acoustic instruments, but less convenient. So press the seventh fret on a guitar and pulls the head side and a tone will resonate at the counter section. For electric instruments, this technique can generate multi-tone sounds remniscent a clock or a bell.
String length or scale length
This is the length of the string from the nut to bridge on bowed or plucked instruments and ultimately determines the distance between different notes on the instrument. For example, a bass with a low range needs a carapace length of about 42 inches, while a violin scale is only about 13 inches. On the shorter scale of the violin, the left hand can easily reach of just over two octaves without shifting position, while the bass more "scale, one octave or ninth is reachable in lower positions.
Contact points along the string
The strings of a piano
In strings, the bow normally placed perpendicular to the string at a point midway between the end the key and the bridge. However, different bow placements can be selected to change timbre. Application of the arc near the bridge (known as sul Ponticello) produces an intense, sometimes harsh sound, which acoustically emphasizes the overtones. Bending over the key (sul tasto) produces a purer tone with less power prevails, with emphasis on the fundamental, Also known as flautando, because it sounds less canes and more flute-like.
Similar timbral distinctions are also possible with plucked string instruments by selecting picking an appropriate point, although the difference is perhaps more subtle.
In keyboards, the contact point along the string (be it hammer, tangent, or plectrum) A choice is made by the instrument designer. Builders use a combination of experience and acoustic theory to the right set of contacts to determine.
In harpsichords, Often there are two sets of strings of equal length. These "choirs" usually differ in their picking points. A choir has a "normal" pick point, producing a canonical harpsichord sound, the other has a plucking point close to the bridge, producing a reedier "nasal" sound rich in overtones.
Production multiple notes
A string to a certain voltage and the length will be only one note (monophony) to produce, so that multiple notes (polyphony) available, stringed instruments service one of two methods. One is enough strings to add to cover the range of desired notes, the other is for the strings to be stopped. The piano is an example of the old method, each note on the instrument has its own set of strings. On instruments with strings encounter, such as the violin or guitar, the player can shorten the vibrating length of the string, using their fingers directly (or sometimes by some mechanical device, such as the hurdy-gurdy). Such instruments usually have a button on the neck of the instrument, which is a hard, flat background against which the player can stop the strings. On some string instruments, the fingerboard has frets, raised edges perpendicular to the strings, the string stop at precise intervals, in which case the test is a test.
Modern frets are usually specially shaped metal wire in the slots in the key. Early frets ropes were tied around the neck, still seen on a number of instruments like wraps of nylon monofilament. Such frets are solid enough to move them at runtime is not practical bound. The bridges of a koto, On the other hand, may be moved by the player, sometimes over a piece of music.
The Middle Eastern stringed instrument qanun, although it has many strings to give a Selection of nuts, is equipped with small levers called mandal that allow multiple strings of each course step by step retuned "on the fly", while the instrument is played. These levers raise or lower the pitch of the string course by a micro tone, less than a half step. Similar mechanisms that change pitch with standard intervals (half-steps) are used in many modern Western harps, either directly touched by the fingers (on the Celtic harp), or controlled by foot pedals (for orchestral harps).
Sympathetic strings
Main article: sympathetic strings
Some tools are used with sympathetic strings, no extra strings meant to be picked. These strings resonate with the notes. This system is for example present on a sarangi.
Noise
Acoustic instruments
See also: Musical Acoustics
It is sometimes said that the soundboard or sound box "strengthens" the sound of the strings. Technically speaking, no amplification occurs, since all energy to produce sound comes from the vibrating string. What really happens is that the sounding board of the instrument to a larger surface sound waves to create offers that of the string. A larger vibrating surface moves more air, thus producing a louder sound.
Achieving a tonal characteristic that is effective and comfortable to the player and listener ear is something of an art, and the makers of string instruments often seek very high quality wood for this purpose, particularly spruce (chosen for its lightness, strength and flexibility) and maple (a very hard wood). Spruce is used for the soundboard of the instrument of the violin at the piano.
Acoustic instruments can also be made of artificial materials like carbon fiber and glass fiber (especially the larger instruments such as cellos and basses).
In early 20th century, the Stroh violin used a diaphragm-type resonator and a metal horn to the string sound project, as early mechanical gramophones. It went down beginning around 1920, such as electronic amplification in use.
Electronic amplification
Most string instruments can be equipped with a piezoelectric or magnetic pickups to the string vibrations into an electrical signal which is amplified and then converted back into sound through the speakers. Some players attach a pickup to their traditional stringed instrument to "electrify" it. Another option is to use a solid-body instrument that reduces unwanted feedback crying or screaming.
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 may also have changed their tone enhanced by the use of electronic effects such as distortion, reverb, and wah-wah.
Bass registry string instruments like the bass and electric bass are enhanced with bass instrument amplifiers designed for low frequency sounds. The tone of bass-enhanced tools to change a range of electronic Bass effects are available, such as distortion and chorus.
See also
3rd Bridge
List of string instruments
Luthier (maker of string instruments)
Musical acoustics
Musical instrument
String Instrument extensive engineering
String instrument repertoire
String orchestra
Strings (music)
Vibrating string
External links
The physics of the bowed string
Mojo Hand Guitars - Custom Made Guitars
"String instruments". Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
Please help improve this article by adding of citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)
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Instrument intonation
Reine vote in any key
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Intonation in any key
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Retunable key to a just
Keyboard instruments
Flageolet tones or
natural overtone series
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some relationship with additional third bridge
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