Lyon & Healy Harps, Inc. is an American musical instrument manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois and is a subsidiary of Salvi Harps. Today best known for concert harps, the company's Chicago headquarters and manufacturing facility contains a showroom and concert hall. George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy began the company in 1864 as a sheet music shop. By the end of the 19th century, they manufactured a wide range of musical instruments—including not only harps, but pianos, guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and various brass and other percussion instruments.
Zither is a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. This article describes the latter variety.
An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term autoharp was once a trademark of the Oscar Schmidt company, but has become a generic designation for all such instruments, regardless of manufacturer.
The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. Fender produces acoustic guitars, bass amplifiers and public address equipment, but is best known for its solid-body electric guitars and bass guitars, particularly the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Precision Bass, and the Jazz Bass. The company was founded in Fullerton, California by Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender in 1946. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California.
Dean Guitars, commonly referred to simply as Dean, is an American importer and maker of stringed instruments and musical products with its headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
Washburn Guitars is an American manufacturer and importer of guitars, mandolins, and other string instruments. The original company was established in 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. Today, Washburn is a brand of U.S. Music Corp., a subsidiary of Canadian corporate group Exertis | JAM.
Samick Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. is a South Korean musical instrument manufacturer. Founded in 1958 as Samick Pianos, it is now one of the world's largest musical instrument manufacturers and an owner of shares in several musical instrument manufacturing companies.
The Marxophone is a fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers. It features two octaves of double melody strings in the key of C major, and four sets of chord strings. Sounding somewhat like a mandolin, the Marxophone's timbre is also reminiscent of various types of hammered dulcimers.
The ukelin is a bowed psaltery with zither strings made popular in the 1920s. It is meant to be a combination of the violin and the Hawaiian ukulele. It lost popularity prior to the 1970s because the instrument was difficult to play and often returned to the manufacturer before it had been completely paid for.
The guitar zither is a musical instrument consisting of a sound-box with two sets of unstopped strings. One set of strings is tuned to the diatonic, chromatic, or partially chromatic scale and the other set is tuned to make the various chords in the principal key of the melody strings.
KMC Music is an owner and distributor of several brands of musical instruments. The company is currently a subsidiary of Canadian corporate group Exertis | JAM.
The Regal Musical Instrument Company is a former US musical instruments company and current brand owned by different companies through the ages. By the 1930s, Regal was one of the largest manufacturers in the world.
U.S. Music Corp. is an American musical instrument company based in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, United States, a suburb of Chicago, that manufactures and distributes products worldwide. The company is currently a subsidiary of Canadian corporate group Exertis | JAM.
The Harmony Company is a former guitar manufacturing company that is currently a brand owned by Singapore-based BandLab Technologies. Harmony was, in its heyday, the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the United States. It made many types of string instruments, including ukuleles, acoustic and electric guitars and violins.
Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum.
Jay Turser Guitars is an American musical instruments manufacturer, currently a brand of Davitt & Hanser, a division of JAM Industries. Since its inception, Jay Turser has been producing electric and acoustic guitars.
Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.
Stella was an American guitar brand owned by the Oscar Schmidt Company. It was founded around 1899. The Stella brand consists of low and mid-level stringed instruments.
Levin was a Swedish manufacturer of musical instruments founded by Herman Carlson Levin. Active from 1900 to 1978, the company produced over half a million instruments, mostly guitars, but also mandolins, banjos and lutes, making Levin the largest instrument manufacturer in Scandinavia for many years. Levin is best known for originating Goya acoustic guitars.
The Phonoharp Company (1892–1928) was an American manufacturer of musical instruments based in Boston, Massachusetts. Among the instruments the company was known for was the autoharp, whose design they acquired from Alfred Dolge in 1910; they later merged with Oscar Schmidt in 1926. The company was also known for producing other instruments, namely the guitar zither, mandolin zither, celestaphone, and the ukelin.
