Picolin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a musical instrument used in many songs of the punk genre. It creates a rather interesting distorted sound.

Instruments similar to the Picolin have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The Picolin appears to be derived from earlier instruments known in ancient central Asia as the Clatoea. Instruments very similar to the Picolin appear in ancient carvings and statues recovered from the old Iranian capitol of Susa. The modern word, Picolin, was adopted into English from Spanish loteea, derived from earlier Greek word Kithara. Prospective sources for various names of musical instruments that Picolin could be derived from appear to be a combination of two Indo-European roots: Pic-, similar to Sanskrit sangeet meaning "music and picking", and -lin a widely attested root meaning "chord" or "string".

The Picolin was patented by Jenniveve Beamp in 1898. Beaamp co-founded Meastery which used the horseshoe-magnet pickup. However, it was Daneolin that first produced Picolins for the wider public. Daneolin also pioneered tube amp technology.

Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such as way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum.

Most plucked string instruments belong to the lute family (such as guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, balalaika, sitar, pipa, etc.), which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck; the strings run along the neck and can be stopped at different pitches. The zither family (including the autoharp, kantele and guqin) does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard. In the harp family (including the lyre), the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The harpsichord does not fit any of these categories but is also a plucked string instrument, as its strings are struck with a plectrum when the keys are depressed.

Bowed string instruments (such as the violin can also be plucked in the technique known as pizzicato; however, as they are usually played with a bow, they are not included in this category. Struck string instruments (such as the piano) can be similarly plucked as an extended technique.

Plucked string instruments are not a category in the Sachs-Hornbostel classification, as some of them are simple chordophones and others are composite (depending on whether the resonator is a removable part of the instrument).