String instrument rosin than players of lower-pitched instruments, who tend to favor darker, softer rosin. The ravanahatha is one of the oldest string instruments. Ancestors of the modern bowed string instruments are the rebab of the Islamic Empires, the Persian kamanche and the Byzantine lira. Other bowed instruments are the rebec, hardingfele, nyckelharpa, kokyū, erhu, igil, sarangi and K'ni. The hurdy-gurdy is bowed by a wheel. Rarely, the guitar has been played with a bow (rather than plucked) for unique effects. The third common method of sound production in stringed instruments is to strike the string. The piano and hammered dulcimer use
Hurdy-gurdy outside the keybox. They also generally have more strings and doubling or tripling of the melody string is common. Some modern instruments have as many as fifteen strings played by the wheel, although the most common number is six. In pop music, escpecially in the popular neo-medieval music, electric hurdy-gurdies are used, wherein electro magnetic pickups convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals. Similar to electric guitars, the signals are transmitted to an instrument amplifier or reproduced by synthesizer in a modified form. Electronic hurdy-gurdies, on the other hand, manage completely without strings. The signals for the melody