String instrument String instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. With bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates
Viola organista his notebooks of 1488–1489 and in the drawings in the Codex Atlanticus and Manuscript H. In the first model the friction of the strings was achieved by a mechanical bow traveling sideways. The second model featured a single rotating wheel, similar to that of the earlier hurdy-gurdy, to play strings. It differs in that a hurdy-gurdy has a small number of strings that are constantly in contact with the wheel, rather than a larger number of strings that can be lowered onto the wheel. A hurdy-gurdy has a keybox with tangents that change the pitches of the strings, rather like