It is rather more a family of stringed instruments whose history stretches back potentially six thousand years. We said that the lute doesn’t really refer to any one musical instrument in particular. However, over the last century, it has come back into the interest of classical musicians and folk music enthusiasts.Īnd so it should – because it has a wonderful sound that everyone should hear. These days, the lute is generally considered to be a bit of an historical instrument. ‘Rounded’ is not even accurate the proper word is ‘pear-shaped’ – which is perhaps not too flattering if you think about it. Rather, it refers to any stringed and necked instrument with a rounded body. Whilst the ‘lute’ sounds like the name for a precise thing, it actually isn’t. Because, yes, admittedly, whilst the guitar is awesome, there’s no harm in exploring what else is out there. The five alternatives to the guitar we’ll look at are the banjo, lute, mandolin, cittern, and ukulele. These, as you can image, are those like guitars, lutes, harps, and zithers. Now, we’re not looking at the bowed string instruments – such as the violin family – nor at the hammered variety like the harpsichord, but exclusively at those that are referred to by the technical term, ‘ plucked string instruments’. Regardless, we’re going to look here at some different types of stringed instruments. Of course, though, you’d probably have had to make them yourself – but at least the variety would be something to behold. From the bouzouki to the zither, from the cavaquinho to the vihuela, there have been just an enormous number of different instruments to choose from. Because before Fender and Yamaha got their hands on these things, stringed instruments came in all shapes, sizes, string numbers, sounds, and styles. Sure, we have mass production to blame, most probably. However, in a world in which the guitar – electric guitars as much as the classical guitar – is only one of hundreds of different types of string instrument, it’s quite fun that this one is so much more popular than all the rest. The guitar remains one of the most popular musical instruments in the world – and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon.
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