A lot of music is based on stringed instruments. Violins, cellos, and violas are essential to the complete orchestra. Without the guitar, rock n’ roll wouldn’t exist. And of course, the sitar is a requisite of Carnatic music. Stringed instruments are also one of the more complex instruments and have been around for less than woodwind and percussion. Here’s a brief history of stringed instruments.
The Ancient Mesopotamians made the first widely played stringed instruments, the lutes, which were played like guitars. Lutes were common throughout the Mediterranean, South Asia, and the Middle East. Today, the modern descendants of the lute are the oud, veena, tanpura, guitar, sitar, banjo, mandolin, and erhu. Viols and violins also come from lutes, although they use bows.
The oud is an essential part of Arab music, while the veena and tanpura are used in Indian music, mostly Carnatic. The guitar, of course, is used in pop, jazz, rock, blues, and country. The erhu is used in Chinese music, along with the guqin and guzheng, types of zithers. Zithers come from lyres and harps, and include a wide range of similar instruments and the piano family, such as said piano, harpsichord, and clavichord.
Even though many instruments have been around for a long time, they have changed significantly. Guitars, in the style of ouds and lutes, used to have 12 strings of 6 pairs; and the word ‘kithara’, which used to mean the Greek lyre, now means guitar in Modern Greek. The guitar and the oud are shaped very differently. Well, that’s it! (as the title says, this is very brief)
Anay Ganesh 