The fragrance of varnish and curing wood drifts by as you enter Side Door Strings, transporting you to an era when objects and the tools that built them were all made by hand. A violin in the raw sits ...

The ruan, also known as ruanxian, dates back to the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). It takes its name from Ruan Xian, a statesman ...

Click to open image viewer. The Molo is a three-stringed lute (a lute is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening ...

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 ...

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621. The first known instance of a composer ordering up plucking violins came just three years later. To musician and NPR cultural commentator Miles Hoffman, ...