The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge(s) to the soundboard.
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop buttons which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute.
The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when pressed on the keys. Most modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys: 52 white keys for the notes of the C major scale and 36 shorter black keys raised above the white keys and set further back, for sharps and flats. This means that the piano can play 88 different pitches, spanning a range of a bit over seven octaves. The black keys are for the "accidentals", which are needed to play in all twelve keys.
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
The qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon is an Arabic string instrument played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of the Arab East, and Arab Maghreb region aka North Africa, later it reached West Africa, Central Asia due to Arab migration. It was also common in ancient Armenia, and Greece. The name derives ultimately from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the Old Assyrian Empire, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in Mesopotamia. This instrument came inscribed on a box of elephant ivory found in the old Assyrian capital Nimrud. The instrument is a type of large zither with a thin trapezoidal soundboard that is famous for its unique melodramatic sound.
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professional and VIP ranges, and later, a series of other keyboard instruments. They were used by a number of popular musicians including Sam the Sham, Country Joe and the Fish, Pink Floyd, Sly Stone, Blondie, and the B-52s.
Copedent is a term used to describe the tuning and pedal arrangement on a pedal steel guitar and is unique to that instrument. Typically expressed in the form of a table or chart, the word is a portmanteau of "chord–pedal–arrangement and is pronounced "co-PEE-dent". It was coined in 1969 by Steel Guitar Hall of Fame member Tom Bradshaw and first reached a wide audience in a 1972 article in Guitar Player magazine. A complete copedent includes the order of strings, their tuning, string gauges, and whether a string is plain or wound; it also indicates how any string's pitch is changed by applying a foot pedal or a knee lever. It has become an international standard used by steel guitar players and manufacturers to describe the specifications of these instruments.
The harp lute, or dital harp, is a musical instrument that combines features of harp and lute and to increase its compass of the latter. It was invented in 1795 by Edward Light,.
The octobass is an extremely large and rare bowed string instrument that was first built around 1850 in Paris by the French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875). It has three strings and is essentially a larger version of the double bass – the specimen in the collection of the Musée de la Musique in Paris measures 3.48 metres in length, whereas a full-size double bass is generally approximately 2 m in length.
The cross-strung harp or chromatic double harp is a multi-course harp that has two rows of strings which intersect without touching. While accidentals are played on the pedal harp via the pedals and on the lever harp with levers, the cross-strung harp features two rows so that each of the twelve semitones of the chromatic scale has its own string.
Sébastien Érard was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano.
The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp, used today mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.
Piano pedals are foot-operated levers at the base of a piano that change the instrument's sound in various ways. Modern pianos usually have three pedals, from left to right, the soft pedal, the sostenuto pedal, and the sustaining pedal. Some pianos omit the sostenuto pedal, or have a middle pedal with a different purpose such as a muting function also known as silent piano.
The pipe organ is played from an area called the console or keydesk, which holds the manuals (keyboards), pedals, and stop controls. In electric-action organs, the console is often movable. This allows for greater flexibility in placement of the console for various activities. Some very large organs, such as the van den Heuvel organ at the Church of St. Eustache in Paris, have more than one console, enabling the organ to be played from several locations depending on the nature of the performance.
The Steingraeber Piano Manufactory is a major German manufacturer of grand and upright pianos. The family business was founded 1852 in Bayreuth, where the instruments are still manufactured today. It has its headquarters in Steingraeber Haus, a historic Rococo palace. Fanny and Alban Steingraeber run the company in the seventh generation.
Jacob Hochbrucker was an eighteenth-century harp maker and musician credited with the invention of the single-action pedal harp popularized in Europe between 1729 and 1750 by his descendants, and particularly by the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, who performed on it after her arrival in Paris in 1770.
Zane Beverly Beck (1927–1985) was an American steel guitarist and builder of pedal steel guitars. He is best known for his 1952 innovation of adding knee levers to the pedal steel guitar to alter the pitch of certain strings, a feature which has become a standard on all modern-day instruments. Other inventors had patented crude knee-operated devices as far back as 1933, but none were successful. Beck revolutionized the concept into a durable and reliable mechanism and was the first to put knee levers on production guitars. He became a member of the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame (1991). As a musician, he performed on the Grand Ole Opry and Shreveport's Louisiana Hayride. Beck formed the ZB Music Company which manufactures steel guitars, later called BMI.
The Almpfeiferl or Brucker Almpfeiferl is an Austrian folk instrument from the fipple family, descended from the baroque recorder, to which it is similar in design and playing style. The instrument has six finger holes, differentiating from traditional European flutes by the number and arrangement of the finger holes. The holes are arranged with four on the front side of the instrument, and two one the back side. They tended to have a high pitch, around c'' (C6).
The Violinzither or Violinharp is a string instrument of the zither family, invented in 1925 by Clemens Neuber in Klingenthal. The instrument is a cross between the fretless chord zither and a concert zither.
