THE KORA is held with all its strings facing the player directly. Holding the two wooden poles either side of the double-sided bridge the player then plucks the strings with the forefingers and thumbs of both hands.
The strings on the kora are laid out so that a continuous scale is produced by alternating from strings on one side of the bridge to the other, which allows for rapid ascending and descending passages within the music. It is one of the only instruments in the world to have two parallel sets of strings either side of the bridge.
