#string instrument

• Lute — An ancient plucked string musical instrument, having a vaulted pear-shaped resonance box, a short neck bent backwards at a right angle, provided with frets; a lute. It was extremely popular in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, and in the Romanian space, it represented the core instrument of early folk musicians before the widespread adoption of the violin.
• Altgeige — A name borrowed from German for the viola or an alto violin; a stringed musical instrument played with a bow, structurally larger than a classic violin and tuned a fifth lower, having a characteristic deeper, warm, and melancholic timbre.
• Amati — The name of a famous family of Italian luthiers from Cremona, active in the 16th and 17th centuries, who played a foundational role in designing and perfecting the modern violin structure. Its members include Andrea Amati and Nicolò Amati.
• Applicatura — A historical or archaic musical term, used in old instrumental performance treatises to denote fingering, specifically the systematic choice and placement of fingers on a keyboard or the fretboard of a stringed instrument. The structural concept describes how the anatomical position of the hand directly influences note articulation, phrasing fluidity, and the acoustic clarity of virtuoso passages.
• Violin bow — A regional or obsolete variant for the word 'arcuș' (musical bow); a thin rod of flexible wood equipped with horsehair stretched between its ends, used to vibrate the strings of a musical instrument (violin, viola, cello). In an archaic technical sense, the term could also denote a curved device used in primitive carpentry or turning workshops to impart a rotational movement to structurally machined parts.
• Arciliuto — The Italian nomenclature and international neologism for the archlute, a plucked string instrument developed during the Baroque era. This device structurally combines the traditional lute body with an extended neck supporting two separate pegboxes, allowing the tensioning of extra open bass strings used to sustain the basso continuo in seventeenth and eighteenth-century chamber music ensembles.
• Arcimandola — A historical plucked string instrument from the mandolin family, developed in Italy toward the late Baroque and early Classical periods. This device structurally represents an extended variant of the mandola or mandolin, featuring a larger soundbox and an elongated neck equipped with an extension for additional open bass strings, utilized to enrich the lower register in string ensembles of the era.
• Arco — A term used as a direction in instrumental music, instructing performers of stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass) to resume playing the notes with the bow, following a structural section where the strings were plucked with the fingers (pizzicato).
• Violin bow — An essential accessory for bowed string musical instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass), consisting of a thin, slightly curved rod of flexible wood or carbon fiber, between the ends of which a bundle of horsehair is tightly stretched. By rubbing the rosin-treated hairs over the strings, the bow sets them into continuous vibration, generating the sound. In engineering, it denotes a lever or a curved elastic piece used to tension primitive mechanisms.
• Harp variant — An old regional variant or locally adapted phonetic loanword for the word 'harp' (harpă); a premium stringed musical instrument with strings stretched structurally across a large triangular frame, set into vibration by direct plucking with the fingers. In certain western and northern Romanian dialects historically influenced by Germanic or Hungarian musical terminology, the term describes this chordophone used in orchestras or traditional ensembles.