Wherever we search among the records of early nations we find evidence
that they were familiar with the music obtainable from playing upon
stringed instruments, but we have never been able to discover what
people or what persons first learned that music could be produced with
such instruments.
~THE FIRST STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENT~
The harp was probably the first practical stringed instrument. Its
music was produced by picking the strings with the fingers or with a
piece of bone or metal.
The next step was the psaltery, which was produced in the Middle Ages.
It was a box with strings stretched across it and represented the first
crude attempt at using a sounding board. A larger instrument which came
about the same time and was very like the psaltery, was the dulcimer.
Both were played by picking the strings with the finger or a small
piece of bone or other substance.
Then came the keyboard, first used on stringed instruments in what
is called the _clavicytherium_. This consisted of a box with cat-gut
strings ranged in a semitriangle. On the end of each key was a quill,
which picked the string when the key was operated.
After this came the clavichord. It was built like a small square piano
without legs. The strings were made of brass and on the end of each key
was a wedge-shaped piece of brass which picked the strings. The elder
Bach composed his music on the clavichord, his favorite instrument, and
that is why the music written by Bach is full of soft and melancholy
notes. The clavichord produced only such notes.
The next steps brought the virginal, spinet and harpsichord. The
strings on all three were of brass with quills at the key ends for
picking the strings. The virginal and spinet were very much alike. The
harpsichord was larger and sometimes was made with two keyboards. These
instruments had notes covering four octaves only.
[Illustration: Picture by courtesy Browne & Howell Co.