Russian musical instruments

Balalaika

It is a very popular stringed musical instrument in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings. The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest to lowest pitched, the prima balalaika, seconda balalaika, balalaika alto, balalaika bass and balalaika double bass. All have three faces, bodies or tops of spruce fir, logs made of 3-9 sections of wood usually made of maple, usually hung with three strings.

The balalaika prima is played with the fingers, the Sekunda and alto, either with the fingers or the pick, depending on the music being played, and the basses and double basses (equipped with extension legs that rest on the ground) they are played with leather spikes.

Hudok

It is an ancient oriental Slavic musical string instrument, played with a bow. A gudok typically had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the highest third tuned a fifth.

All three strings were in the same plane on the bridge, so that one bow could make all the sound at the same time. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings (up to eight) on the soundboard. These made the gudok sound warm and rich.

gusli

It is the oldest plucked string instrument. Its exact history is unknown, but it may have derived from a Byzantine form of the Greek kythare, which in turn derives from the ancient lyre. He has his relatives all over the world - kantele in Finland, Kannel in Estonia, Kankles and kokle in Lithuania and Latvia.

In addition, we can find kanun in Arab countries and the harp in the US. It is also related to such ancient instruments as the Chinese Zheng Gu, which has a thousand-year history and its Japanese koto relationship.

Russian guitar

It is a seven-string acoustic guitar that arrived in Russia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, probably as an evolution of the zither, Kobza, and torban. It is known in Russia as the semistrunnaya gitara, which translates to "seven strings."