String Kings Music Instruments, Accessories, Strings, Gifts

String Kings Music

String Kings Music celebrates stringed musical instruments, from Autoharp to Zither and everything in between. If an instrument has strings and makes beautiful music, you’ll probably find it here.

We truly love music and are always on the lookout for the very best string instruments, accessories, learning aides, and gift items for musicians and music fans. Have fun browsing our site, and check back often for our latest discoveries.

Guitar Dominance
The guitar is the most popular string instrument worldwide, spanning genres like rock, pop, folk, and classical. In the United States 16% of adults play the guitar, far surpassing other instruments. More than 2.5 million guitars are sold there each year.

What is a Stringed Instrument?

A stringed instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound through the vibration of stretched strings, which are typically made of materials like gut, nylon, or steel. The strings are set in motion by plucking, bowing, or striking, and the sound is amplified by the instrument’s body or a resonator. Strings are the primary sound source, and they vary in thickness and tension to produce different pitches.

Plucked and bowed instruments include a body (wooden or metal) to amplify sound, a neck or frame to support strings, and tuning mechanisms to tighten or loosen strings. Pianos are classified as a keyboard stringed instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating strings, which are stretched across a metal frame inside the instrument. When a key is pressed, a hammer strikes the corresponding string(s). This action causes them to vibrate and produce sound, amplified by the piano’s soundboard.

Sohmer Baby Grand Piano

Piano String Count
A standard grand piano has around 230 strings, but each key can control 1–3 strings tuned in unison to enhance volume and tone. A single piano can have over 12,000 pounds of string tension!

String Instrument Construction

String instruments can be divided into three basic groups: lutes, harps, and zithers. Each of these categories is described briefly here.

Lutes

The lute category includes instruments that support the strings along a neck, which can be fretted or fretless. Examples include banjo, bass guitar, bouzouki, cello, guitar, lute, mandolin, oud, sarod, sitar, Strumstick, tambura, ukulele, upright bass, veena, viola, and violin. Lutes are the among the oldest plucked musical instruments, and have been found in 4,000 year old archaeological remains.

Harps

The harp category includes instruments that contain the strings within a frame. The harp is one of the oldest musical instruments in the world. In fact, harps are depicted in Egyptian tomb wall paintings that date from early 3,000 B.C.

Zithers

The zither category includes instruments with strings that are mounted on a body. Examples of zithers include autoharp, dulcimer, guzheng, harpsichord, pedal steel guitar, piano, psaltery, santoor, and zither. The earliest known zither-type instrument was discovered in a tomb that dated from 433 B.C.

String Kings Music

You can learn more about any of these instruments on our site. Visit our String Instruments page and choose any instrument from the list. For the sake of simplicity, we’re highlighting 27 of the most popular stringed instruments. We’ll cover some of the more obscure string instruments in our posts. For example, a guitarist friend of ours is learning to play the pipa, a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument in the lute family.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in Western music history, Bach’s works heavily featured strings. He saw their tone as divine and expressive.

Johann Sebastian Bach
The sound of strings is the voice of God’s own heart.

Colorful Musical Hearts

Our bass clef and treble clef heart designs are available on several products, including shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, magnets, aprons, playing cards, buttons, and PopSockets. Give a fun and practical gift to your favorite musician, music teacher, or music student.

Treble and Bass Clefs Musical Heart on Grunge Brush Strokes Raglan Baseball Tee Treble and Bass Clefs Musical Heart on Grunge Brush Strokes Tote Bag

Unique Gifts for Music Lovers

We’ve designed 2,000+ products for string instrument musicians and fans. Find a unique gift for your favorite player or enthusiast. Beware of inferior copycats! Our original designs are available here and in our String Kings Music collection.

Find the Best Music Gifts

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This means that–at zero cost to you–we will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Personalized Vinyl Record with Custom Photo for Anniversary, Wedding Shower – Music Home Decor Customized Music Gift with Song Name and Lyrics – Vinyl Record Design – Photos, Names, Wedding Date Personalized Music Gift with Song Name and Lyrics – Heart Design Canvas Print – Names and Wedding Date Customized Song Acrylic Plaque Custom Photo Album Cover Scannable Spotify Code Led Night Light Lamp