This is a list of instruments by Hornbostel-Sachs number, covering those instruments that are classified under 31 under that system. This category includes all instruments consisting of a simple string bearer and strings. An additional resonator may be present, but it is not integral, so removing it should not destroy the instrument - the resonator must not be supporting the strings.
- 3 : Instruments in which sound is produced by one or more vibrating strings (chordophones, string instruments).
- 31 : Instruments which consist solely of a string bearer or a string bearer with a resonator that is not integral to the instrument
- 311 : Instruments with a string bearer shaped like a bar, or consisting of a sideways board (bar zithers)
- 311.1 : Instruments with a flexible or curved string bearer
- 311.12 : Instruments with string made from a different material than the string bearer
- 311.121 : Instruments with only one heterochord string
- 311.121.2 : Instrument has a resonator
- 311.121.22 : Instrument has a resonator that is attached
- 311.121.221 : Instrument does not have a tuning noose
- 311.121.222 : Instrument does have a tuning noose
- 311.2 : Instrument has a rigid and inflexible string carrier (stick zither)
- 311.21 : Instrument has a string carrier with one curved, flexible end (musical bow)
- 311.211 : Instrument has one resonator gourd
- 311.22 : Instrument has no curved or flexible end (true stick zither)
- 311.211 : Instrument has one resonator gourd
- 312 : Instrument has a string bearer made of a vaulted surface (tube zithers)
- 313 : Instrument has a string bearer made from canes tied together like a raft (raft zithers)
- 314 : Instrument uses a string bearer that is shaped like a board, or is the ground (board zithers)
- 315 : Instrument with strings stretched across the mouth of a trough (trough zithers)
- 316 : Instrument uses strings stretched across an open frame (frame zither)
This category includes musical bows, zithers and some keyboard instruments like the piano and harpsichord.
The musical bow is a simple string instrument used by a number of South African peoples, which is also found in the Americas via slave trade. It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 10 feet long, and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch. It is uncertain if the musical bow developed from the hunting bow, though the San or Bushmen people of the Kalahari Desert do convert their hunting bows to musical use.
Zither is a class of stringed instruments.
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings.
These instruments may be classified with a suffix, based on how the strings are caused to vibrate.
- 4: Hammers or beaters
- 5: Bare hands and fingers
- 6: Plectrum
- 7: Bowing
- 71: Using a bow
- 72: Using a wheel
- 73: Using a ribbon
- 8: Keyboard
- 9: Using a mechanical drive
A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is a separate tool held in the player's hand. In harpsichords, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism.
In music, a bow is a tensioned stick with hair(usually horse-tail hair), coated in rosin to facilitate friction, affixed to it that is moved across some part of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones.
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Depressing a key on the keyboard makes the instrument produce sounds—either by mechanically striking a string or tine, plucking a string (harpsichord), causing air to flow through a pipe organ, striking a bell (carillon), or, on electric and electronic keyboards, completing a circuit. Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the piano keyboard.
