The Ravanahatha is one of the oldest bowed string instruments in the world. It is made from a coconut shell resonator, a bamboo neck, and a horsehair bow. This combination produces a raw, haunting ...

Since the first of our ancestors discovered that banging a stick on a hollow log makes a jolly sound, we hominids have been finding new and unusual ways to make music. We haven’t come close to tapping ...

Watch how the violin and string instruments make varieties of sound and music. Professor Richard Church, conductor of the University of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, introduces the violin and other ...

Can a single string produce sound? Yes, a single string really can. The Jing ethnic group's single-stringed instrument, through the plucking of its string by the fingertips, weaves the breath of the ...

At the heart of many of the world’s musical instruments is the same, simple component—a string stretched tight between two points. Plucked, bowed, or struck, each of an instrument’s strings creates ...

Sitar player Ravi Shankar died Tuesday at the age of 92. Brian Q. Silver, a sitar player with over 40 years of experience, talks about playing the unique instrument and how Shankar popularized the ...

Vietnam is home to 54 ethnic groups, each with its own customs and traditions. Those groups have created a variety of traditional musical instruments, which have played an important role in Vietnamese ...