Listen to the musical bow
Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.
How the musical bow makes its sound
In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the musical bow belongs to the bar zithers: strings are stretched along a rigid bar or stick, often with a gourd resonator.
More broadly it is one of the chordophones (string instruments), where sound comes from vibrating strings, amplified by a resonating body.
Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.
From Wikipedia
The musical bow (bowstring or string bow, a subset of bar zithers) is a string instrument used by a number of African peoples as well as Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It consists of a flexible, usually wooden, stick 1.5 to 10 feet (0.5 to 3 m) long, and strung end to end with a taut cord, usually metal. It can be played with the hands or a wooden stick or branch. It is uncertain if the musical bow developed from the hunting bow, though the San or Bushmen people of the Kalahari Desert do convert their hunting bows to musical use.
Types of bow include mouth-resonated string bow, earth-resonated string bow, and gourd-resonated string bow.
Other bar zithers
Frequently asked questions
What does a musical bow sound like?
Listen to 1 recording on this page. As one of the bar zithers, its sound comes from the way strings are stretched along a rigid bar or stick, often with a gourd resonator.
What type of instrument is the musical bow?
It is classified as bar zithers (Hornbostel–Sachs 311.1).
Sources & credits
- Toque-de-angola – Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
- Wikidata Q1630744 – CC0
- Wikipedia: Musical bow – CC BY-SA 4.0
- Image – Public domain