The cobza is a traditional strings instrument. The
sound is produced by the picking of the strings. It was
played by the romanian people from the old kingdom.
It was a main accompaniment instrument in the
traditional music from the inter-war age of the last
century. Nowadays there are only few cobza players
and they only perform with folk ensembles. Cobza’s
body is big in size as opposed to the other parts. It has
the shapes of a pear cut from the middle. It is made of
wood hoops. The resonant lamella is made of spruce
wood and is much more flexible when the bridge is
taking vibrations. The neck is short and broad with its
end left without a bar for strings. The tunning keys are
set on the headstock.
The dulcimer is another well known string instrument
having european origins. Since twenty century it has
become known in other cultures, too. Mostly known as
a folklore intrument, it can be also heard in the cult
music of Zoltán Kodály. The dulcimer is also known in
different varieties adapted to certain cultures:
cymbalum, cymbalom, cimbalom, timbalî, timbl,
santouri, santur and so on. The instrument is played
with special drumsticks and the sounds produced are
rather unusual. You can ameliorate the sound of it if it
is too dull or inorganic.
The accordion is a manual instrument and is
composed of a pleated tube attached to a rectangular
shape with buttons or piano keys attached to it. By
expanding and pushing the pleated tube the air is
flown through metalic pipes called „tubuşoare” that
vibrate producing the sounds. In 1854 the accordion
was patented by Anthony Faas from Pennsylvania.
The small tubes and the buttons for the low notes are
placed on the left side of the accordion, while the right
side is for the high notes. There are two types of
accordion, with simple and double action. For the
first type, each button produces two notes while for
the second type, each key or button produces the same
note when expanding and pushing. The second one is
well known. The piano-accordion has only piano-like
keys instead of the right side buttons.