Students of music as well as Festival visitors have the opportunity to hear a number of the world's musical instruments performed here, many of which will be new to them. Of particular interest is the wide variety of stringed instruments. As a group they are called chordophones (from the Greek words for string and sound) to distinguish them from other principal divisions of musical instruments: membranophones (drums with skin heads), idiophones (most other percussion), aerophones (winds and reeds), and electrophones (electronic instruments).

By definition, a chordophone has at least one and usually several strings stretched parallel to each other between two points on the body of the instrument. Often, one or two bridges are used to raise the strings from the instrument, allowing them to vibrate freely. These bridges may be fixed near the ends of the strings, as on the guitar, or are occasionally moveable for tuning purposes, as on the Japanese koto.