Atlas of Plucked Instruments

[Paul Statman]

Interesting site I came upon today. I thought it share-worthy, anyway:

Atlas of Plucked Instruments

[multidon]

Fascinating ! Thank you for sharing!

[Randi Gormley]

that's pretty cool. thanks!

[catmandu2]

Nice--though woefully inadequate and guitar-centric: conspicuously absent is a standard harp (and all its varieties)...seems like it should at least be among the "miscellaneouses"... not to mention the mandolin/CBOM section ... seems like they acquired all their mandolin examples from the local econo retailer--all the biggies are there : Ozark, Hora, ...


Aha, now I see -- "of lute, guitar, banjo and mandolin type" -- although they have bandura, kora, autoharp...


They even have a pic of a pedal steel I had--the Fender 800

[journeybear]

Perplexed is what I was on my first visit. In Europe South, where I expected to see molto mandolini in the Italian entry, I saw niente - solamente "chitarra battente". Back on the front page I saw links to instrument types, and under mandolin there is plenty. Circling back to introductory pages of geographical sections I saw phrases like: The other not mentioned countries in this area just have the normal guitars, lutes, banjos and mandolins, which can be found on the general instrument pages [Europe - West] and In Canada and USA (including Hawaii) we find mainly the instruments already mentioned in the general historical chapters : (acoustic and electric) guitars, mandolins, banjos, dulcimers, etc. and In the United States plucked stringed instruments are quite popular and are used in typical American style music :

bluegrass :
steel string guitar, 5 string banjo, mandolin, dobro, (plus standing bass and fiddle) [North America].

So yes, our beloved instrument has not been ignored - indeed, perhaps some acknowledgment of its prevalence has been made. I suppose the website was set up this way to reduce duplication, as the most popular instruments appear in many geographical areas, and also to emphasize the presence of instruments whose popularity is somewhat regional in nature.

I mention all this in a (possibly vain) attempt to reduce the number of WTF reactions and posts this is sure to inspire.