[3] Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

One widespread group who still have some members using the bamboo-tube zither today were the Austronesian peoples, inhabiting an area that includes Madagascar, Southeast Asia, Oceania and Taiwan.

Among the historical trends in the background of the bamboo tube zither, traders from India sailed east and "passed the Malay peninsula" by the 6th century b.c.

The Khmer empire (802-1431 a.d.) was founded in the 9th century a.d. Wars among countries (including the Khmer Empire, Champa) (192–1832) and Đại Việt caused people to migrate overland, including a defeated tribe from the Tonkin plains in modern Vietnam moving overland eastward to Assam near North India.

[5] In contrast, parallel-string zithers have strings arranged in parallel, often only one pair for the tube and linked together so that they sound together.

The bamboo-tube zither exists in the 21st century in pockets from Madagascar, to India, Southeast Asia and the Philippine Islands of Northern Luzon and Mindanao.

[2] Historically, it was found in India and China, where in the 21st century the Rudra veena and non-bamboo guzheng are modern relations.

[6] The tube zither, called valiha, arrived in Madagascar in the 15th century a.d. with the Hova people, from Indonesian Archipelago.

[8]  Starting in the 20th century, the bamboo strips were replaced by metal strings, changing the instrument's sound.

Off the coast of Burma and Thailand, the Moken people played their kating ga-un with a bow.

[14] Early knowledge of Indonesian musical instruments comes from artwork and literature of the Hindu-Javanese civilization, which began with Hindu colonists in the fifth century AD.

[19] These may also be played with a combination of thumbnail and stick, the player moving back and forth between plucked and hammered notes.

"[24] The kendang drum is imitated by hitting the open end of the tube with the palm of the musician's hand.

[5] The ends may be partially open or the instrument may have added holes or be deliberately cracked to help resonance.

[27] Parallel-stringed tube zithers are used on Mindanao by the Maranao, Tiruray, and Manobo, and on North Luzon by the Isneg.

[5] The player uses thumbs on two strings and his middle and index fingers for the other four, plucking alternately with each side to sustain a melody.

[5] The Ilongglot have a way for two people to play one instrument, the man holding the five-string kollewing in his hands, the woman beating percussion on the strings with bamboo sticks.

[5] For some entertainment, such as dancing, some groups pair the tube-zither with 2-string kudlong lute, including the Bilaan, T'boli, Vukidnon Matigsalug.

[32] The more mainstream view shows stick-zithers with gourds (looking much like the Rudra Veena as possibly a pre-bamboo tube form) went from India to Java.

One method was to attach a gourd to rest the instrument on the ground or lap, or press against the musician's chest.

[33] Kurt Sachs pointed out that bamboo large enough to form the body of a guzheng only grew in the far south.

The Japanese koto belongs to the Asian zither family that also comprises the Chinese zheng (ancestral to the other zithers in the family), the Kazakh jetigen, the Korean gayageum, daejaeng and ajaeng, the Mongolian yatga, the Sundanese kacapi and the Vietnamese dan tranh.

[37] The bamboo half-tube zither found in the Philippines among the Ifugao is called tadcheng, tedcheng, gacheng, or ayudding.

It has two to four strings which, depending on the style of playing, are plucked with the fingers or struck with small bamboo sticks.

[5][40] The Moken people, who live in the Mergui Archipelago in the southern end of Burma, have a two-string bamboo-tube zither, the kating ga-un which they pluck and bow.

[2] The Moken have modernized their instrument, using nylon fishing line in place of the plant or gut strings.

[2] The musician raises and lowers tension on the strings, changing the pitch of the notes, in a roughly "four-tone scale.

[2] The two strings represent ancestral couples, and the musician, by playing the instrument, has "dialogue with the entities of the mythical past.

[41] The tuning peg tightened the fiddle string to "C# below middle C."[41] It may have been played as well by the Yakutat people (part of the Tlingit of the northwest coast of North America.

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