String Instruments Sounds In terms of the sound that a string instrument makes, there are a few factors to consider. String instruments are known as chordophones, a term that comes from the Greek words khorde, meaning 'string,' and phonos, meaning 'sound' or … It gives a drier, slightly colder sound than a warm, full vibrato. The Japanese zither (koto), for example, can be tuned according to a number of fixed systems; nevertheless, its player produces many microtonal (using intervals that differ from the equally spaced semitones of Western music) variations on these fixed pitches by manipulation of the strings. The difference between the cello and double bass is threefold: The double bass is a lot larger than the cello, has a darker, grittier timbre, and a smaller range. That’s called “stopping” the string, as where you place your finger physically stops the string at that length. It’s also one octave below the cello, even though it’s written at the same pitch. In addition, the harp is also considered a part of the string family. Catgut, also known as gut, is a type of string prepared from fibers extracted from the walls of sheep or goats’ intestines. No one likes reading ledger lines! You might wonder what is the definition of a string instrument? Instruments of the zither family, in which the strings lie parallel to and are of the same length as the string bearer (often also the resonator), are especially widely distributed in Eurasia, the Americas, and Africa. Dating to around c. 13,000–BC, a cave painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow, a hunting bow used as a single-stringed musical instrument. Pianos are considered string instruments that are played by striking or hitting the string. And, of course, timbre. String instruments that can be included in a string orchestra are many, but generally include high-pitched string instruments like the violin and viola in combination with bass string instruments like the bass, contrabass, and cello. On a well-made violin, for example, the resonances of the body of air enclosed in the body of the instrument and of the belly should be close in pitch to the two strings A and D, thus amplifying and colouring these pitches and their overtones. This gives a glassy, scratchy sound, which can actually be really unpleasant if not performed well. Updates? Col Legno is a really great string technique for adding a percussive texture to your string parts. At the very least you’ll need to give notice and specify that you’ll need double bass C extensions. To voice a piano, a skilled worker adjusts the timbre of the instrument by the simple expedient of pricking the felt hammers with needles until a unified quality has been achieved throughout the range of the instrument. So bare in mind that you won’t get a solid attack with quadruple stops. So the body of an instrument must be made of strong material; it must be reinforced, and, at the same time, it must not be so rigid that it cannot easily resonate—i.e., produce a supplementary vibration intensifying that of the string. Learning about the viola’s characteristics will help you understand how to best play to its strengths. Orchestras Typically Boast Five Different Types of String Instruments Most orchestras rely on five different types of string instruments to produce the majority of … If you’d rather watch this as a video, I’ve got you covered! So the frequency for the note “A” is 440Hz. The mute clips onto the bridge and prevents it from vibrating so much. Instruments descended from the lute lay the strings flat across a fretboard, which allows a musician to alter the length of the string by holding down upon the string itself, creating higher-pitched notes the higher up along the fretboard the string is pressed. The bow hairs themselves are usually made from hairs taken from the tail of a horse. There are many types of stringed instruments. Corrections? If the part is in the higher register of the instrument for an extended period of time, then treble clef can also be used. And also some intonation or tuning problems…. The challenge of reconciling these opposite needs is the central one for the chordophone maker. The number of string instruments in an orchestra varies depending on the size of the orchestra. In standard tuning, the lowest note of a violin is G2. You play the cello seated, with the instrument between your legs, while you would usually play the contrabass standing, or perching on a high stool. When you place your finger on the fretboard of a guitar, the string is actually being stopped by the piece of metal that runs perpendicular to the fretboard. In this section you’ll learn the viola string notes, viola range, and viola timbre. Electric Keyboard 5. It’s possible to go even smaller than this, but you begin to run into problems like the high ranges of each instrument sounding very weak. The four main types of stringed instruments used in an orchestra … There are two forms of Col Legno, but normally if you don’t specify which, it’s assumed to be Col Legno Battuto. A string instrument is a musical instrument that makes sound by vibrating the strings on it. There are “fine tuners” where the string is held in place, at the tailpiece. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Often the viola is the most overlooked of the string instruments. Because most stringed instruments are made from wood or other easily perishable materials, their history before written documentation is almost unknown, and contemporary knowledge of “early” instruments is limited to the ancient cultures of East Asia and South Asia, the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; but even for these places historians must depend largely on iconographic (pictorial) sources rather than surviving specimens. However, the ones above are arguably the most famous and the most important to Chinese history and tradition. Namely: divisi strings and double stopping. Usually the note a half or full tone above the written note. You see, Haydn often spent time with a noble Austrian (Karl Joseph Weber, Edler von Fürnberg) and would play in a thrown-together quartet of string players (himself included). Koto is easy to spot due to its elongated body averaging 71 inches in length with a width of about 7.9 inches. There are also a few ways to tell string players which part of the bow to use. In this section you’ll learn the violin string notes, violin range, and violin timbre. In the Middle Ages the Crusades (late 11th through the late 13th century) stimulated Europe to adopt a whole set of new instruments; similarly, the Chinese adopted many new instruments from their Central Asian neighbours as Buddhism spread eastward and as the Han Chinese expanded their influence across the region (roughly, the 3rd century bce to the 10th century ce). Use the table above to navigate to the section you’re most interested in. This is where the overlap with a trill comes in, and where there’s some confusion. Omissions? You can refer to the double bass as “contrabass” or simply “bass”. A C Extension is basically an extended fingerboard that extends above the peg box for just the low E string. Very early orchestral music only had four parts, all four instruments are built in the same way, named after the composer most famously associated with it, The layout during performance and recording, Bow hair (made from around 150 to 200 hairs), They’re harder to play in tune, since the player has to get, They’re harder to make sound as tonally full, Beginning and ending a double stop isn’t always easy, unless the composer plans it. A double stop is when the player plays two notes at once. You can play all of these string techniques on all four string section instruments, but they will have different tonal qualities to them, depending on which instrument is playing them. That’s because it’s not unusual for string players to begin at a very young age. The most common string instruments in the string family are guitar, electric bass, violin, viola, cello, double bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and harp. The classical era in general is where you’ll find the most examples of string quartet music. Notes that would usually appear in what’s called the “harmonic sequence” are also resonant on that string. The number of strings on the neck depend on the instrument, for instance a guitar has six strings, but a violin only has four. That vibration transfers through the bridge to the hollow body of the instrument. Some of the earliest stringed instruments were identified in Ancient Mesopotamian archeological sites. The mandolin has a pear-shaped body and 4 pairs of strings. When you see this notated, you’ll realise it’s a combination of legato and staccato. In this section you’ll learn about the various string techniques that are available on string instruments. Makers, then, devote a large part of their skill and knowledge to the choice of material for the soundboard; the maker of wood-bellied instruments prefers old wood because it is dry and well seasoned. The most resonant notes are the open strings (that’s when there is no finger on the string). Importantly though, it’s only really the double stop where the notes can be played at a variety of dynamics simultaneously. Ability is a big factor in how clearly and securely the higher notes can be played. In the West the most widely accepted system of classification is that developed by E.M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, a method based on the type of material that is set into vibration to produce the original sound. Don’t stress too much about that, but just be aware that certain notes will naturally ring out more than others. If you’re never planning to work with a real orchestra, and are doing all of this with samples, then you might be wondering why you need to worry about this. Older instruments (such as a Stradivari violin) have been subjected to additional physical strain and therefore needed heavier bass-bars (braces under the belly). Not in a jolty way, as that would create a detached sound, but in a smooth, bouncy kind of way. Inconsistencies, then, are inherent in all tuning systems; makers of fretted lutes—such as the guitar and the Greek laouto (a type of lute with moveable frets), for example—operate according to a combination of ear and rule of thumb when they insert or adjust frets (note-position markers—e.g., of gut or wire) in the fingerboard. The person who plays the Vietnamese dan bau monochord creates all pitches and nuances on its metal string by pulling in the flexible bamboo stem to which it is attached. Gross. When describing the number of string instruments in each section, you often see a series of numbers separated with slashes, like: And that’s a fairly common setup for a large orchestra: 16/14/12/10/8. That’s why string players have to raise the bow higher or lower (or outwards and inwards in the case of cello and bass) to hit each string individually. These overtones or harmonics mean that you need to be aware of resonance when writing for strings. Learning these bowing techniques will help you find new timbres and textures to exploit in your compositions. Thus, stringed instruments are identified as chordophones—that is to say, instruments in which the sound is produced by the vibration of chords, or strings. That would make bowing an individual string impossible. In contrast to the violin and viola, when you play the cello you hold it between your legs, stood upright on the floor. A trill is also the rapid movement between two notes. Unlike the other instruments in the string family, the contrabass isn’t often used as a solo part, although there are some notable examples. This gives a short, gritty, quite percussive sound. It also depends on the ability of the player…. By definition a tremolo is a “trembling” sound. The violin has a bright, and brilliant timbre, which in the higher range can be very piercing. It’s also sometimes said to be more nasally than the violin. The tuning of the double bass is the same as the bass guitar or first four strings of the electric guitar. Aside from a family of Southeast Asian instruments known as boat lutes—which, by definition, are hewn from a single block of wood—and a few other chordophones, including the Japanese biwa (a lute), portions of the koto (a zither), and often the Puerto Rican cuatro (a lute)—the bodies of most wooden instruments are constructed from multiple pieces of wood. Some models and players will be able to get even higher, but sample libraries are often limited to D5 at the highest. Okay, now something that can be a bit confusing: trills and tremolo. This effect (which is encountered also on the zither and harp) is not a central feature of these instruments, but there are numerous Eurasian chordophones on which the principle is of fundamental importance. In other words, even though a given “scientific” tuning system outlines scales and modes, the instrumentalist who plays an instrument with great pitch flexibility (the violin, for instance) spends much time in the spaces between the notes assigned in the given scale. You can use bowing directions to your advantage. But in string instruments they’re particularly pronounced, and you can exploit them with the use of harmonics. This category includes the harpsichord, which formerly used feather quills (now plastic plectra) to pluck the strings. So there’s no need to mess around with transposing! An artificial harmonic is created when the player stops a note, so they press firmly down on the string as if to play it normally, and then with a second finger touches the string very lightly a fourth above the note. Tenuto is often described as playing a note to its full value. Soundboards, the most important part of the resonance system of stringed instruments, are carefully planed to close tolerances. That’s a real shame, as when you play to its strengths it can give you a really unique texture in your compositions. String instruments can be divided into three groups. for short, is where the string is plucked rather than bowed. The vibration of the string is what actually produces the noise that you hear. These multiples naturally vibrate more in tune with the original, open string and violin body itself and therefore are more resonant. Other keyed string instruments, small enough for a strolling musician to play, include the plucked autoharp, the bowed nyckelharpa, and the hurdy-gurdy, which is played by cranking a rosined wheel. As opposed to the cello and contrabass, which have quite obvious differences! If you have a two note chord in your violin part, half of the violins will play one note while the other half play the second. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Mass-production methods are unsuitable for the production of high-quality chordophones because no two pieces of wood are precisely alike in their acoustical qualities; each piece of wood requires special judgment and treatment. The construction and maintenance of Western stringed instruments generally have been complicated over the centuries by a continual rise in standard pitch, requiring strings to be tightened. The vibration creates a main frequency or note, which is called the fundamental. If you’re ever fortunate enough to have your string parts performed by actual players and not just sample libraries, think carefully about how you’d like the players to sit and create your own seating plan. Cello 3. Each string has a different frequency. Of the duration articulations, from shortest to longest, the order would be: As you can see, tenuto is longer than an ordinary note, and staccato and staccatissimo are shorter. In terms of the sound that a string instrument makes, there are a few factors to consider. There are some other playing methods in traditional music from other cultures, such as resting the violin more vertically on the bowing shoulder and bowing vertically rather than horizontally. The very principle that makes it possible for chordophones to sound is string tension; at the same time, tension is destructive to the instrument, since it tends literally to pull it apart. This is where the bow quickly lands on the string and then chips away. Spiccato is a very short sound, much like staccato. Incidentally, for a two note chord the players will split “per desk”. The bridge of a Hardanger fiddle, with the sympathetic strings visible beneath the main strings. The relative hardness of the hammer on the piano is thus of critical importance to the sound of the instrument and plays a central role in the final process in piano manufacture: voicing. However, when you get below 4 or 5 violins, those slight differences become very pronounced and can sound pretty nasty. The Erhu is a traditional Chinese string instrument that has been in existence for over a millennium. To the general public it just looks like a violin, so they’ve no way of telling them apart. The player places their finger on the fingerboard in order to change the note. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Just hit play! In Collé, the traditional method, the note itself is a little more pronounced. It is an instrument where the instrumentalist has to make strings vibrate in … From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed; since each string played a single note, adding strings added new notes, creating bow harps, harps and lyres. It means to hold the bow on the string, putting on a lot of pressure, and then sharply jolting across the string to produce a load, abrupt note. They have big, hollow bodies with those f holes that amplify all that vibration out. 2 Harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. instruments create their unique timbres, by combining those overtones. A string instrument (or stringed instrument) is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In Western musical tradition, moreover, piano tuners would not think of tuning altogether according to the dictates of a well-tempered system; rather, they use a so-called stretched tuning, in which they imperceptibly sharpen (raise) pitches as they ascend and thus make the highest notes relatively sharper than the lowest ones. So, when you slide your finger up or down the fretboard of one of these instruments you get a continuous change of pitch, not perfect semitones. Likewise, if you understand what the instrument is physically capable of, you’ll know exactly how to push its limits. It has a huge range, allowing it to be used in a wide variety of ways. The shape of the resonator varies greatly. By turning the pegs, and therefore tightening or loosening the string, the tuning of the string changes – just like when you wrap an elastic band around your fingers and pluck it. Nearly all chordophones are made up of strings stretched across a resonator. It’s similar when bowing a violin with no hollow body (such as an electric violin) – the sound is much quieter. The strings are plucked to produce sounds. The string quartet consists of: The traditional orchestral layout, and the one most commonly adopted by all sizes of string sections (including quartets), basically goes clockwise from high to low pitch as if looking at the orchestra from the audience: This layout means the two violin sections are opposite one another, and the middle and lower range instruments are more central. Sometimes this is referred to as flautando – as it’s closer to the tone of a flute. The reason it’s called a double stop is because usually the players uses two fingers to stop two separate strings. Violins, cellos, and double basses don’t have these frets. Plus, they apply vibrato differently to one another. Viola players can easily read both clefs. The vibration of the string is what actually produces the noise that you hear. The string quartet instruments are no different to the instruments you’d find in a typical orchestral string section…minus the contrabass! The other form of Col Legno is Col Legno Tratto, which is where the player bows the strings with the wooden side of the bow. The oldest known of these in the West is the so-called Pythagorean system, articulated by the famed 7th-century Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras; others include meantone temperament, just intonation, and the equal-tempered system, methods of tuning calculation that vary slightly in the exact size they assign to the intervals within an octave.