Folk and Ethnic Musical Instruments

Players of plucked string instruments produce their sound by plucking the strings with their fingers or with the help of a plectrum or feather.

The largest part of plucked string instruments belongs to the family of the lutes, which include the guitar the mandolin and the banjo. Using physical characteristics such as neck length and body size, musicologists divide the lute family into several subgroups such as long neck lutes and  short neck lutes. Well known long neck lutes are the shamisen from Japan, the sanhsien from China, the tanbur from Afghanistan, the icbacarre from Mosambique, the khalam from Senegal, the sitar, the sarod and the tambura from India and the saz from Turkey. Their sole representative in Europe is the banjo, which is partly a reimport from America where it had arrived from Africa with the slave trade. Typical short neck lutes are the arabic al ud, the pipa from China, the biwa from Japan, the koboz from Hungary and the mandora from Sweden.

Members of the the zither family totally lack a neck. Their strings are mounted diretcly across the resonance body. Examples inlcude the autoharp, the kantele or kannel from Finland and Estonia, the gusli from Russia, the koto from Japan and the gu zheng from China, among many others.

In the harp family, the strings stand away perpendiculary from the resonsance body instead of running across it. Ethnic examples include the jarocha from Mexico, the arpa llanera and the arpa central from Venezuela, the ardin and the kora from West Africa, the ancient konghou from China and ceng from Turkey.

Although it doesnt fit into any of the above categories, the harpsichord is also regarded as a plucked string instrument, because the mechanism that agitates its strings uses a plectrum like device.