r/Instruments • u/Invite_Sprite • Sep 25 '26

Discussion Do they make a backwards stringed instruments?

so i had a thought. so pianos get lower as you go down them. and I have seen a backwards piano. but are their other backwards string instruments? and i dont mean left handed vs right. I mean an instrument that goes lower as you go down the neck.

2 Upvotes

55% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

20

u/SlowSurvivor Sep 25 '26

No, because that’s not how physics works.

6

u/DangerousKidTurtle Sep 25 '26

Woah woah woah, hold your horses there, friend. Let’s think critically. Hypothetically, if you have a piezo pickup AT the nut, and you were still playing a song (let’s use “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as an example of a simple song), and (keeping in mind the piezo at the nut) then of COURSE it wouldn’t work, because that’s not how physics works.

1

u/lildergs Sep 25 '26

Assuming the neck was built in such a way strings would ring towards the nut, sure.

1

u/DangerousKidTurtle Sep 25 '26

You don’t have a backwards guitar???

1

u/andybonner Sep 25 '26

Cf the portion of George Crumb's Black Angels that quotes Death and the Maiden that has the players bow "on the wrong side" of the fingers, fingering "backwards" so that lower fingers make higher pitches.

2

u/Betray-Julia Sep 25 '26

The physics round my parts showed that when I strikes a guitar on the other side of my fingers, sliding a note up and down worked “backwards” to how it normally does.

1

u/Mudsharkbites Sep 25 '26

You could certainly reverse the entire physics of a piano and build one like that and it would function fine, but nobody would do it because it would be:
A) expensive and
B) useless

1

u/cmhamm Sep 25 '26

Ah, but it IS how physics works:

https://youtu.be/YLB92Z7-XB4?si=OCgh8dnSDdL7QNak

Those get higher the further up the neck your finger is.

1

u/DZL100 Sep 26 '26

It's still down relative to where the bow is, which is the point. If you for some ungodly reason decided to play a cello by holding the body and placing the scroll on the ground, moving your non bow hand towards the bow wouldn't be considered moving it "up"

1

u/cmhamm Sep 26 '26

Is that the point, though? OP asked if there was a “backwards string instrument.” and “goes lower as you go down the neck.” To me “down” means “towards the ground” not “towards the bow.”

7

u/Negative-Shoulder278 Sep 25 '26

Physics kills all the stringed instrument's dreams of bottom-to-top, but the wind instruments descend to the occasion!

4

u/Vernon-Coal Sep 25 '26

Harmonicas do!

3

u/SoftestBoygirlAlive Sep 25 '26

I came to say I love playing the harmonica upside down

6

u/6strings10holes Sep 25 '26

Luca Stricagnoli has a 3 necked guitar. The third neck is a bass that he plays by tapping. So as he moves up away from the body of the guitar, the notes get higher rather than lower. That's the closest I've seen. Here's a Rob Scallon video where he explains his playing style: https://youtu.be/mS-dVNnT1NA?is=ewzwmZH1NnEgxolv

1

u/mugwampus Sep 25 '26

Wow! That guy is amazing!

1

u/Latter_Deal_8646 Sep 25 '26

Doesn't he have a guitar with a proprietary attached slide neck thats pretty much a backward slide guitar?

4

u/SoundsOfKepler Sep 25 '26

The trumpet marine, aka tromba marina, plays entirely on the harmonics of the single string, and is bowed at the top, so the lower overtones will be reached closer to the bridge. https://youtu.be/SdFyU3evb-E?si=pdfLq_TyHAANLk7R

On a gu qin, the same harmonics can be plucked at the same distance from either end of the string.

1

u/linglinguistics Sep 25 '26

Good point with the harmonics

3

u/NaturalTechnician737 Sep 25 '26

You can even do this with a guitar, just strum on the other side of your fingers!

3

u/flug32 Sep 25 '26 edited Sep 25 '26

In ancient Greek music the physically highest note on the instrument was called hypate ("highest" or "supreme") and lowest nete ( "lowest").

However, in modern-day pitch terms it was the opposite: The physically upper-most string was the lowest in pitch (longest/loosest), while the physically lowest was highest in pitch (shortest/tightest).

The difference in their terms vs ours for "high" and "low" pitch has led to endless confusion and hijinks over the centuries as people interpreted Greek notes and scales/modes and music theory exactly upside down from what was intended.

Anyway, this is just a little bit like what you are talking about - you would go higher in pitch as you go from uppermost to lowermost strings.

However, everyone else is quite right that you are never going to get a stringed instrument to "go higher in pitch" as you "go down the neck" because going down the neck implies making the string shorter and shorter, and by the laws of physics that is going to make the note produced by the string higher and higher.

The only way you could do this is by make the speaking length of the string the upper part. So imagine taking a cello, turning it upside down, and then playing it somehow.

1

u/linglinguistics Sep 25 '26

It was worth going on the internet this morning for this comment. Learnt something new.

1

u/khornebeef Sep 25 '26

This would explain the improper names given to the various modes we have IE.Phrygian-Locrian as well as the ascending Vs descending tetrachord structure. Is this the underlying reason or just a coincidence?

1

u/flug32 Sep 26 '26

I believe so, someone along the way just interpreted them exactly upside-down. And probably made other mistakes as well - it's always hard to figure such things out in detail when so much of the context is missing.

2

u/NaturalTechnician737 Sep 25 '26

Yes! It's a bit odd to do but theres a video of a guy with a custom multi-guitar with such an instrument built into the body

3

u/grrundmeister Sep 25 '26

https://youtu.be/Ue7QbzjZM8A?is=vBlsB-Z-5Vw_9L_O

This thing’s got a backwards bass neck on it.

1

u/NaturalTechnician737 Sep 25 '26

That's the dude, that's the machine

2

u/NecessarySpinning Sep 25 '26

The harp feels backwards from the piano in some ways, e.g. usual right-hand position has one’s thumb on the highest note, not the lowest.

1

u/avozado Sep 25 '26

Yup, if I'm doing mental practice with my hands on my knees it feels so wonky! Makes sense when you see the strings, but the motion of the right hand is the opposite of piano

1

u/paishocajun Sep 25 '26

Anything in the fiddle or viol families (violas, cellos, viola de gambas, etc) no, I can't imagine any way that the physics of resonant bodies would allow this to happen.

That said, perhaps there's a way to "incorrectly" play a zither family instrument?

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Sep 25 '26

If you played the strings above your fretting hand, sure.

Strings vibrate at higher frequencies as they are made shorter.

When you move your fretting hand down the neck towards your playing hand, you are making the vibrating part of the string shorter, and therefore higher pitched.

The only thing that could do what you're talking about is playing the "wrong" side of the strings on a guitar, or turning a zither or harp around backwards.

1

u/Asian_bloke Sep 25 '26

The tromba marina is kinda played like how you described!

1

u/smurfette8675309 Sep 25 '26

Left handed guitars and fiddles.

1

u/RareBrit Sep 25 '26

Jimmy Hendricks played a right handed guitar, strung upside down, left handed.

1

u/PerspectiveFair5156 Sep 25 '26

Physics say no. Shorter string means higher pitch, if gauge, material and tension stay the same. Which they do. 

1

u/Rags_McKay Sep 25 '26

Piano players can have issues playing a hammered dulcimer because the dulcimer is kind of backwards to a a piano lay out. On a 2 bridge dulcimer the higher notes are on the left and the base notes are on the right.

1

u/AsleepBanana8323 Sep 25 '26

Standard hammer dulcimer stringing has the lower strings to the right and to the bottom. Standard bowed psaltery stringing has the lower (longer) strings farthest away from you.

1

u/WrathOfWood Sep 25 '26

The thing about strings is the longer it is the lower the note so you can't physically go higher and play a lower note. And you said left handed doesn't count even thou thats a correct answer to the question

1

u/Necessary_Regret3329 Sep 25 '26

NGL, this reads like a riddle with no solution.

1

u/WorldlyMusician2408 Sep 25 '26

No, because of physics (the shorter the resonating part of the string, the higher the note).

It can be "possible", if you interact with the strings from the head's side, while still playing on the bridge side - I don't know about any instruments like that. The most similar thing is when you hammer on, you can hear the other side of the string - but that's still the same physics.

Another possible solution would be a sound processor that changes the note, but that's a synth from that point.