The cello ( CHEL-oh), or violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh, Italian pronunciation:[vjolonˈtʃɛllo]), is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow.
The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood or metal—against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of the strings audible.
Stemming from Sweden, the nyckelharpa, meaning "keyed fiddle" or "key harp"(lit.), is a bowed chordophone, similar in appearance to a fiddle or violin, which employs key-actuated tangents along the neck to change the pitch during play, much like a hurdy-gurdy. The keys slide under the strings, with the tangents set perpendicularly to the keys, reaching above the strings. Upon key-actuation, the tangent is pressed to meet the corresponding string, much like a fret, shortening its vibrating length to that point, changing the pitch of the string. It is primarily played underarm, suspended from the shoulder using a sling, with the bow in the overhanging arm.
A Hardanger fiddle is a traditional stringed instrument considered to be the national instrument of Norway. In modern designs, this type of fiddle is very similar to the violin, though with eight or nine strings and thinner wood. The F-holes of the Hardanger fiddle are distinctive, oftentimes with a more "sunken" appearance, and generally straighter edges. Four of the strings are strung and played like a violin, while the rest, named understrings or sympathetic strings, resonate under the influence of the other four. These extra strings are tuned and secured with extra pegs at the top of the scroll, effectively doubling the length of a Hardingfele scroll when compared to a violin. The sympathetic strings, once fastened to their pegs, are funneled through a "hollow" constructed fingerboard, which is built differently than a violin's, being slightly higher and thicker to allow for these extra strings. The resonant strings lie on the center of the special bridge, attached to extra hooks on the tailpiece. Carved out within the center of the bridge is a smaller secondary "bridge", or opening, designed specifically for these resonant strings to pass through. This is where the resonance is picked up and reverberated; as notes are played, the vibrations are sent through the bridge, where the sympathetics echo those notes.
A luthier is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word luthier is originally French and comes from the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be used in French for makers of most bowed and plucked stringed instruments such as members of the violin family and guitars. Luthiers, however, do not make harps or pianos; these require different skills and construction methods because their strings are secured to a frame.
Sympathetic strings or resonance strings are auxiliary strings found on many Indian musical instruments, as well as some Western Baroque instruments and a variety of folk instruments. They are typically not played directly by the performer, only indirectly through the tones that are played on the main strings, based on the principle of sympathetic resonance. The resonance is most often heard when the fundamental frequency of the string is in unison or an octave lower or higher than the catalyst note, although it can occur for other intervals, such as a fifth, with less effect.
Anders Norudde is a Swedish folk musician, multi-instrumentalist, and luthier.
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
A tailpiece is a component on many stringed musical instruments that anchors one end of the strings, usually opposite the end with the tuning mechanism.
A variety of methods are used to tune different stringed instruments. Most change the pitch produced when the string is played by adjusting the tension of the strings.
Making an instrument of the violin family, also called lutherie, may be done in different ways, many of which have changed very little in nearly 500 years since the first violins were made. Some violins, called "bench-made" instruments, are made by a single individual, either a master maker or an advanced amateur, working alone. Several people may participate in the making of a "shop-made" instrument, working under the supervision of a master. This was the preferred method of old violin makers who always put their names on violins crafted by their apprentices. Various levels of "trade violin" exist, often mass-produced by workers who each focus on a small part of the overall job, with or without the aid of machinery.
A violin consists of a body or corpus, a neck, a finger board, a bridge, a soundpost, four strings, and various fittings. The fittings are the tuning pegs, tailpiece and tailgut, endpin, possibly one or more fine tuners on the tailpiece, and in the modern style of playing, usually a chinrest, either attached with the cup directly over the tailpiece or to the left of it. There are many variations of chinrests: center-mount types such as Flesch or Guarneri, clamped to the body on both sides of the tailpiece, and side-mount types clamped to the lower bout to the left of the tailpiece.
Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh is a fiddler, born in Dublin, Ireland, who attended Trinity College Dublin, becoming a scholar in Theoretical Physics (1999) and earning a first-class BA degree in 2001. He is known for developing a drone-based fiddle style heavily influenced by the uilleann pipes and the music of Sliabh Luachra.
Låtfiol is an expression and concept that originates from the 1980s when Swedish folk musicians became more interested in violins with sympathetic strings and were trying to find a Swedish equivalent to the Norwegian hardanger fiddle. The Norwegian violin maker Kåre Leonard Knutsen built a number of instruments for Swedish musicians, some were copies of older instruments with 8 sympathetic strings in Swedish museums, but even more of Knutsen's instruments were provided with two sympathetic strings based on oral sources that such things would have occurred in Sweden in the past. It is in particular violins with two resonant strings that have been called låtfiol by some, but the term is far from widespread. The oral sources for the existence of violins with two sympathetic strings have not been verified, however, more and more double-deckers have appeared, even those with less than 8 sympathetic strings but in those cases either 6 or 4 sympathetic strings. There are written sources about Swedish violins with sympathetic strings but all those instruments have more than two sympathetic strings.
A tromba marina, marine trumpet or nuns' fiddle, is a triangular bowed string instrument used in medieval and Renaissance Europe that was highly popular in the 15th century in England and survived into the 18th century. The tromba marina consists of a body and neck in the shape of a truncated cone resting on a triangular base. It is usually four to seven feet long, and is a monochord. It is played without stopping the string, but playing natural harmonics by lightly touching the string with the thumb at nodal points. Its name comes from its trumpet like sound due to the unusual construction of the bridge, and the resemblance of its contour to the marine speaking-trumpet of the Middle Ages.
The classicalkemenche, Armudî kemençe or Politiki lyra is a pear-shaped bowed instrument that derived from the medieval Greek Byzantine lyre.
The violetta was a 16th-century musical instrument. It is believed to have been similar to a violin, but occasionally had only three strings, particularly before the 17th century. The term was later used as an umbrella for a variety of string instruments. Some of the instruments that fall under its umbrella are the viol, viola, viola bastarda, viola da braccio, viola d'amore, violetta marina, tromba marina and the viola da gamba, viola pomposa, violino piccolo, violoncello, and the violin. Many of the instruments within this family contained anywhere from three to eight strings, either had frets or did not, was built with either very narrow ribs or wide ribs, and most unique of all either did or did not contain sympathetic strings. Sympathetic strings, are strings that sit below the regular strings and vibrate, or resonate, in sympathy with the strings above them as they’re played. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, one of the earliest inceptions of the term came from G.M. Lanfranco, a lesser known 16th century Italian composer, who uses the term “violetta” in one of his books titled Scintille di musica in 1533.
Kemane of Cappadocia or Cappadocian lyra is named a large lyre of the Cappadocian Greeks, in Anatolia.
