# What is a cimbalom and how does it work

> The cimbalom is a struck string instrument with over a hundred strings, played with two mallets. How its sound is made, how it is built, and how it differs from a piano.

- Category: The instrument
- Published: 14 August 2026
- Canonical version: https://cimbal.sk/en/articles/what-is-a-cimbalom/
- Source: cimbal.sk, an independent guide to the cimbalom

The cimbalom is a **struck string instrument**: the player holds two mallets
with heads wrapped in felt or cotton and strikes the strings directly, where
they run across a trapezoidal soundbox. It is this direct contact between
mallet and string that gives the cimbalom its character: metallic yet soft,
with a long ring that floats above the whole band.

## How the sound is made

The principle is the same as in a piano, only without the middleman. On a
piano you press a key and the action throws a hammer at the string; on a
cimbalom, you are the hammer. The stroke sets the string vibrating, the
vibration travels through the bridges into the soundboard, and the soundboard
amplifies it. The player controls force, colour and striking point directly,
which is why the same instrument sounds different under every cimbalist.

Modern concert instruments have a **damper pedal**. Until the player presses
it, the strings ring freely and notes bleed into one another; the pedal damps
the ring, rather like a piano's sustain pedal but working in reverse.

## How it is built

- **Body:** a trapezoidal hardwood case, standing on four legs on concert
  instruments. It can easily weigh more than 70 kg.
- **Strings:** steel, grouped into courses of three to four strings per note.
  A concert instrument with a range of C–a3 has 133 of them.
- **Bridges:** they divide the strings into speaking sections; some strings
  sound on both sides of a bridge, each section at a different pitch.
- **Tuning pins:** one per string, turned with a tuning key.
- **Mallets:** wooden, with heads wrapped in felt, cotton or leather. The
  hardness of the wrapping changes the tone colour dramatically.

## Where it came from

The cimbalom's ancestors, board zithers played with mallets, are known from
medieval Europe and from Asia alike. The small portable folk cimbalom was part
of village bands for centuries. The turning point came in 1874, when the
Budapest maker **József Schunda** built a large pedal cimbalom with stable
tuning and a chromatic range, an instrument that could walk onto a concert
stage. The [workshops of Slovakia and Czechia](/en/directory/) still build
concert cimbaloms in that tradition today.

The instrument now lives in two worlds at once: in folk music as the heart of
the cimbalom band, and in classical music as a solo and orchestral voice.
Stravinsky, Kodály and Kurtág all wrote for it.

## Read next

- [How much does a cimbalom cost](/en/articles/how-much-does-a-cimbalom-cost/): new and second-hand prices
- [How a cimbalom is tuned](/en/articles/how-to-tune-a-cimbalom/)
- [Where to learn to play the cimbalom](/en/articles/where-to-learn-to-play-the-cimbalom/)

## Frequently asked questions

### How many strings does a cimbalom have?

A large concert cimbalom with a range of C–a3 has 133 strings, grouped into courses of three or four strings tuned to the same pitch. Smaller folk and portable instruments have fewer.

### Is the cimbalom a string instrument or a percussion instrument?

Both. Organology classifies it as a struck chordophone. The sound is produced by a mallet striking a string, much as in a piano, but without the keyboard mechanism.

### What is the cimbalom called in other languages?

Cimbalom in Hungarian and internationally, cimbal in Slovak, cimbál in Czech, Hackbrett in German, hammered dulcimer in English. Related instruments include the Persian santur and the Chinese yangqin.