In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners.
Musicians play some string instruments, like guitars, by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow, like violins. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string.
