A musical stringed instrument having a top pickup for producing variable tones and pitches. The top pickup is mounted on top of the strings. Present pickups are all mounted beneath the strings. The top pickup can be permanently mounted, slidably mounted and it can be made to swing into or out of the zone of the string vibration. The top pickup can be used independently or in combination with a bottom pickup or bottom pickups. The latter provide more variety of tones and pitches not achievable when the pickups are used independent of each other.