You may be familiar with musical instruments such as the ... It's quite a large instrument and the musician usually has to sit down to play it. It looks a bit like a guitar, but where a guitar ...

Ukelin-type instruments were usually sold by door-to-door commission salesmen, often on a time-payment plan, and were intended for home music-making by persons without a formal musical education.

The sound is “sweet” and “flexible,” according to Ken Slowik, the curator of musical instruments at the National Museum of American History. The violin—which came to the Smithsonian on ...