Well, you are only about a millennium behind the times. But never fear. Opportunities to hear this ancient Chinese two-stringed instrument known for it’s plaintive humanlike tone are on the upswing. A ...

The octobass is a huge stringed instrument that is twice the size of a double bass when standing, about 3.6 meters, and the strings cannot be pressed as they are, so the strings are pressed with a ...

The Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival returns to Pittsburgh this weekend. Microtonal music, according to festival organizers, “expands the possibilities of sound by using tuning systems beyond, or in ...

At the heart of many of the world’s musical instruments is the same, simple component—a string stretched tight between two points. Plucked, bowed, or struck, each of an instrument’s strings creates ...

Jeff Reider runs the cello bow slowly over a clean-burning flame, fine hairs from a Mongolian stallion cinching together in a taught line under his watchful eye. “There’s a fine line between cinching ...

"My father was born with this instrument," Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta says. "This is part of our history." Jatta, 55, is from Gambia, a member of the Jola people. He's holding an akonting: a ...