Autoharp

The autoharp is a musical stringed instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. There is debate over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia by the name of Charles F. Zimmermann was awarded US patent 257808 in 1882 for a design for a musical inst... more
top ↑

Similar topics in Freebase

  • Mellotron

    Mellotron

    The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard. The heart of the instrument is a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tapes,...
  • Ukulele

    Ukulele

    The ukulele (pronounced /ˌjuːkəˈleɪliː/ YOO-kə-LAY-lee, from Hawaiian: ʻukulele [ˈʔukuˈlele]; variantly spelled ukelele in the UK), sometimes abbreviated as the uke, is a chordophone classified as a plucked lute; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut...
  • Clavinet

    Clavinet

    A Clavinet is an electrophonic keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs. Various models...
  • Koto

    Koto

    The koto (琴 or 箏) is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument derived from the Chinese guzheng. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about 180 centimetres (71 in) long, and made from kiri wood (Paulownia tomentosa). They have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable...
  • Sitar

    Sitar

    The sitar (Hindi: सितार, Bengali: সেতার, Urdu: ستار, Persian: سی تار ) is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages. It derives its resonance from sympathetic strings, a long hollow neck and a gourd resonating...
  • Recorder

    Recorder

    The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It...
  • Kazoo

    Kazoo

    The kazoo is a wind instrument with a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when one vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton—a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane. While blowing is the term typically used to describe the technique...
  • Tambura

    Tambura

    This article is about the Indian fretless drone lute. The New Grove Dictionary of Music also assigns the term to the Eastern European variety of saz: for this see Tamburitza. For the general type, see Tanbur. The tambura (Devanagari: तम्पूरा) is a long necked plucked lute, a stringed instrument...
  • Appalachian dulcimer

    Appalachian dulcimer

    The Appalachian dulcimer (or mountain dulcimer) is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings. It is native to the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic. Although...
  • Slide guitar

    Slide guitar

    Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide is in reference to the sliding motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides, which were the necks of glass bottles....

These people have edited this topic:

Edit this topic
Edit and Show details

Add or delete facts, download data in JSON or RDF formats, and explore topic metadata.

Freebase Logo
What is Freebase?

Freebase is a huge collection of facts, built by people like you. Freebase connects facts in ways other sites can't, giving you new ways to explore millions of subjects.
You can help improve it!

Freebase Attribution

Freebase data is free for use under the CC-BY license.

The original description for Autoharp was automatically generated from Wikipedia.org licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
[1]
Learn more about Freebase licensing and attribution