miscellaneous

Here I have put all the instruments that I found difficult to put on any of the other pages, but which still can be regarded as plucked instruments in one way or another.

These also include some interesting, but rather obscure guitars.

Sometimes guitar players like to have 2 instruments in one, so they can very quickly change instruments. Makers came up with the idea of putting 2 different necks on a body. Combinations can be of a normal 6-string neck with a 12-string neck, or with a bass-neck, or with a mandolin-neck, etc.

For very strong players (these instruments are very heavy) triple and even quadruple necks are made, with any combination mentioned above, or (see picture) including a 7-string neck.

both from internet

Multiple neck are mainly used on electric instruments, where it is easier to fix another neck to the solid bit of wood that serves as body. Nevertheless some acoustic versions exist; the most famous one is the Pikasso, made by luthier Linda Manzer for guitarist Pat Metheny (although it has piezo-electric pickups).

Already in the 18th century guitars were made with more than 6 strings, but that were often harp guitars, where the extra strings can only be played open, as they run from a separate neck, and not over the fingerboard.

Multi-stringed guitars are having all the strings running over the fingerboard and all strings can be fingered. The most popular type used nowadays are 7-string guitars (both classical and electric), with special versions like the Russian guitar and the Brazilian violão de sete cordas (see elsewhere in ATLAS).
Quite a few classical guitar players now use a 10-string version (see example).

It was probably the guitarmaker Lacote who developed special multi-stringed guitars, although most of them were harp guitars. The ten-string version was called decacorde - "ten strings" - (see harpguitars.net), and Carulli even wrote a study book for it. Tuning for his decacorde was C D E F G A d g b e'.
Strictly speaking this was a kind of harp guitar (see Guitars-early).

Narciso Yepes had in the 1960s a 10-string guitar built (now based on modern guitar making techniques), with the intention that the 4 extra strings would give more resonance from the overtones of the (free) bass strings.
His tuning was : Gb Ab Bb C E A d g b e' (note the octave jump for the 3 lowest strings).
Later this type of 10-string guitar became also known as "decacorde".

For more information about the 10-string guitar see Tenstringguitar.info, Decacorde, or Tenstringguitar.com.
And for the history of the early multi-stringed/harp guitars, see : Romanticguitar.

In fact any type of guitar can be fretless, if there are no frets on the fretboard.

Already for decades bass guitars (both electric and acoustic) were available in fretless versions. Now also normal guitars with fretless necks are becoming popular, mainly to give the music a kind of Oriental (or better : Middle Eastern) sound.

Although not yet made in large numbers, several firms can provide fretless guitars.
Godin even makes a hybrid guitar with 11 strings (in 6 double courses) which plays and sounds like an oud "for the adventurous guitar player".

For more detailed information see Unfretted.

Just another way of making oriental music : adding a few more frets in between the normal ones, to make it easy to play quarter tones(see also the mondol in North Africa). (picture from eBay)

This instrument ranks as the most minimal guitar. It was designed and made in the 1970's by Allan Gittler.

It is just a round metal pole as body/neck, with press-fitted round metal frets and bridge. No wood is used for the instrument.
The 6 strings are fixed at the top and can be tuned with special devices at the bottom end. It is electric (otherwise you would not hear much noise from only the strings....).

Gittler himself made only about 60 of these guitars, and later Astron (in Israel) produced another 500. A few basses were made as well.

Since 1982 Gittler moved to Israel and adepted the Hebrew name of Bar Rashi. Under that name a newly designed model was introduced and produced in limited numbers. Pity these had left the original minimal concept, and added a small body (with a turning "blade" so you could rest it on your knee) and often also a thin neck, to make it look (and feel) more like a normal guitar. Even that model is at first not easy to play, because of the lack of a fretboard.

For more information see Vintageguitar.

The later model, picture from eBay.

A copy of a very rare Gittler (fretless) Bass (sent in by a reader)

The world's smallest guitar is 10 micrometers long (about the size of a single human blood cell) with six strings, each about 50 nanometers (or 100 atoms) wide.

Researchers made this nano guitar in 1997 for fun at the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility, where they carved it out of crystalline silicon, to illustrate the new technology for nanosized electromechanical devices.

The nano guitar has six strings; each string is about 50 nanometers wide, the width of about 100 atoms. If plucked (by an atomic force microscope, for example) the strings would resonate, but at inaudible frequencies.

See for more information : Cornell.

The early history of the air guitar is still shrouded in mystery, but apparently similar instruments can be found all over the world, also in many non-western societies.

Air guitars are made with imagination and come in any size, shape and colour, with amateurs sometimes using umbrellas, rulers and hockey sticks as a substitute for the real thing. Fretted versions are rare. Although the air guitar could be acoustic, the electric models are the most widely used, mainly because Rock&Roll and Heavy Metal are the most popular music styles.

Air guitars are quite cheap and nowadays there is even a trade in second hand instruments on eBay. A lucky bidder may get a very rare instrument, "as good as new, used only for 20 minutes during the Rolling Stones London Concert of 1998".

Playing the air guitar is usually based more on imitating and exaggerating the movements of the intended guitar hero than of their musical abilities.
A peculiar feature of the air guitar is the fact that - despite the often quite vigorous playing techniques - the breaking of strings is a very rare occasion.
Another special feature is the ability of experienced players to change instruments in a split second.

First played only in the privacy of the bedroom - or at most at late night (drinking) parties - now players are more in the open and may be found performing during festivals. Since a couple of years there are even official competitions, with a real World Championship.

More information can be found on Airguitarusa.

Although almost every bowed stringed instrument can also be played by plucking the strings, here is only one example : the upright bass (large violin). Also called standing bass, string bass or plucked bass or something, it is the main bass instrument in many music bands, like rock&roll, jazz, and popmusic.

The upright bass is slowly on replaced by the electric bass guitar, which is easier to amplify (and to transport....).

The tea chest bass is a home made bass used in acoustic skiffle and folk music. Traditionally made from a (empty) wooden tea chest, a broomstick and a suitable piece of rope. The rope (with a knot underneath) goes through a hole in the top of the chest and is tightly fixed to the top of the broomstick. By gripping the rope on the appropriate places you can more or less play a very "dark" bass line.

One reason why the tea chest bass is not so popular anymore, is because the wooden chests are already long ago replaced by plastic crates and boxes. Instead of a tea chest some people use a metal washtub.

This interesting instrument (also called Stössel laute) is invented in the early 1900 by Mr. Stoessel in Germany, who made them in a small factory till about 1940.

This instrument is very peculiar as the way of playing is not in the normal way of fingering around the neck, but by pressing down the strings from the top / back.

Many different models were made, also with different numbers of strings. As you could not "move up the neck" there were only 5 frets (plus zero fret). Some instruments (like the example) have slanting frets and bridge. The back is slightly rounded.

The stoessel lute is not a very loud instrument.

See more about the instrument on this interesting website: Miner Stoessel Lute.

from his website: Gregg Miner with his Stoessel harplute

For even more info see Museum (in German).

This is a quite recent designed folk instrument (by Bob McNally), as a combination of a simple guitar-like instrument and a dulcimer. It vaguely resembles a Turkish saz.

The neck is the main part of the strumstick, and has frets in a diatonic scale, so only a very limited number of modes can be played on it.

The body is carved from the same piece of wood as the neck, and is quite small. The front and back are covered with a thin piece of wood. Three holes are drilled in the top of the neck (from the front) in which the strings run to tuning machines (on the left side).

The 3 metal strings run over a loose bridge to 3 pins at the bottom of the body. Tuning is usually something like g d' g'.

The strumstick is played by strumming all strings (like a guitar), and usually fingering only the first string. It is very easy to play songs on it.

For more information see Strumstick, or Smokeymountain.

Emmett Chapman invented in the 1970s The Stick : a guitar without a body, just a wide flat neck/fingerboard with frets, and with 8 or 10 or 12 strings and (stereo) amplification.

Chapman had discovered you could play an (electric) guitar by tapping the strings with both hands simultaneously on the fingerboard, thereby being able to create separate bass-lines and harmony-lines. So he made a long fretboard (scale is 915mm !), with extra strings, which eventually became The Stick.

The Stick can only be played by tapping (hammering on) with both hands, resulting (if done by an expert) in chords, bass-lines and solo-lines, like you play on a keyboard.

The Stick never really has been very popular, partly thanks to the very special playing technique (which also limits the possible types of music to be played on it) and probably partly thanks to the high price.

Another similar played instrument is the "touch style guitar" produced by Warrguitar, which looks more like a normal electric guitar, although with 8 to 14 strings.

	For much more information : see Stick, with the history, the many different instruments, the possible tunings and the pricelist.
	left : Chapman with his Stick (from his website)

Akkordolia

In Germany there is still a trade in this old dulcimer-type ""piano", which is called "Akkordolia".
It was made in the 1910's by Otto Teller in Klingenthal (see Vintageaudioberlin).

This small box-like instrument is related to similar instruments in India (bulbultarang), Pakistan (benju) and Japan (taishogoto).

The fretboard, and the underside of the push buttons

NOT INCLUDED

Instruments that maybe you had expected to be "plucked" (within de definitions of this website), but are not.
So just to make sure you did not searched the ATLAS in vain, here are some:

bandura

Kind of Ukrainian zither/harp. The long strings are the basses, plucked with the left hand, the rest are plucked with the right hand, so it looks like a guitar-like instrument, but it is not : it is a harp.
Other names are Kobza, Torban, Theorban and Husli.

For more info about this type of instrument see bandura.

Don't confuse the bandura with the bandurria from Spain, which is a kind of mandolin (see the page of West Europe).

The most wellknown string instrument of Africa is the kora. However as it is played like a harp (with all open strings), it should not be included in this website.

The kora is played mainly in West Africa. It is made from a very large gourd, with a large stick (neck) through it.
From this stick run 21 nylon strings (fixed to leather rings around the neck) down to the side of a large vertical bridge, and then on to be fixed at the end of the gourd body. The strings can be tuned by sliding the leather rings up or down the neck. The strings are divided on the bridge, with notes in progressing order to the left and to the right side (a similar division is used on the tube-zither vahila from Madagascar).

Playing the kora is by holding the instrument with the stick (bridge) with all the strings towards the player. While some fingers hold two vertical sticks on the top of the body, the thumb and forefingers of both hands are free to pluck the strings.

For more information about the kora, see Coraconnection or Kumbengo.

On eBay this instrument is often described as "African" because of the woodcarvings on the back of the body and on the top.

However it is not a plucked instrument, but bowed, as it is a Yugoslavian folk fiddle.

The gusle has just one (nylon) string, and a leather front. The top has usually a carving of an animal : a horse, a goat or something.

See more information at Guslee.

The Ainu people in Japan use a very special instrument, called the tonkori. It looks like a slender guitar, but is in fact a kind of harp.

The tonkori is made from one large piece of pine wood, hollowed out with a thin soundboard on top. The tuning head is part of the body. It has large tuning pegs, with 3 on the right and 2 on the left side. The nylon strings run over two loose wooden bridges and are fixed to a piece of leather on the bottom end.

The tonkori is plucked with both hands, often playing arpeggios, but also strumming all the strings together.
It is nowadays getting popular again with some folk groups playing pop music.

This instrument is only a special way of playing, not a special instrument.

Zongor is the name given to the guitar in the villages in northern Transylvania (Maramures, Oas). During Béla Bartók’s survey of the region in 1913, he discovered the zongorã in Maramures and noted that it had only two strings tuned at a perfect fifth apart (D - A). Since then, a number of strings have been added to the guitar- zongorã which now has four tuned in a major scale (D - F# - A or A - C# - E). Towards the 1960s, the guitar-zongorã also became the accompanying instrument in neighbouring Oas.

The zongorã is played by amateur musicians who only know how to strum the strings with a plectrum. The rhythm is dictated by the melody and to change the chord from time to time they move the index finger of the left hand up and down the neck, pressing all the strings down at the same time. Zongorã musicians buy their (cheap) instrument in stores, replace the strings and play it in an unusual position, with the curved side pressed against their left side and the face of the instrument turned slightly towards the face. Zongorã players are often singers as well and perform folk songs.

For more information about the zongora see Virtualmuseum.

An autoharp (sometimes also called chromaharp) is a zither, with about 20 to 36 strings, tuned in chromatic order. On one side are bars (representing chords) that can be pressed down on the strings. On the bottom of each bar are pieces of felt that block off the sound of strings which are not part of that particular chord, so leaving only a few strings able to sound, when the strings are strummed.

The chords are C, F, G, G7, am, E7, em, etc. Bars of chords that usually are used together in a song, are grouped together.

The autoharp is played by holding the instrument up like a small child in the arms, pressing with the left hand the bars, and strumming with the right hand most of the strings just above the bars. It is possible to play some kind of tune on it by aiming for the right top note of the chord, while strumming.

As the strings are not shortened, but always played open, the autoharp falls not within the context of this website...

For more information about autoharps see Autoharp.com or Autoharpteacher.

For all kind of zithers see : Fretlesszithers.com, and Minermusic.

spinet

Many of the keyboards of the 17th and 18th century (spinet, harpsichords) could be called "plucked" as the strings are plucked with a small plectrum that is (via a mechanical device) fixed to the playing key, so not with hammers as in the piano(-forte). However as the strings are always played open we can regard this instrument as a "mechanical zither".

A close-up of the small vertical docklets, with the red felt dampers and the movable device with the small white (plastic) plectrum. The left one is seen on the back, the right one is ready to pick the string. When the key is pressed the docklet goes upwards (plectrum plus felt), and the string is plucked. After releasing the key the entire device falls by gravity, with the plectrum passing the string silently, while the felt stops the string from further sounding.