hammered dulcimer

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 31 Simple chordophones or zithers / 314 Board zithers / 314.1 True board zithers / 314.12 With resonator / 314.122 With resonator box (box zither) / 314.122-4 True board zithers with resonator box (box zither) sounded by hammers or beaters
Maker: Unknown
Date: 19th c.
Region: Lesser Poland (Subcarpathia)
Country: Poland
Owner: The State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw
Inventory number: PME 42992
Description: over a trapezoidal body 17 of 4-string courses (it is possible to pull on 6-string courses as there are this many hooks and pins) are stretched; melody strings and bass strings are streched by turns, with the former being supported by the left bridge (dividing them in 5th) and the latter by the right bridge; the top plate has two resonance holes carved in a wooden board; mallets with round holes for fingers
Decoration: resonance openings in the top plate covered with decorative rosettes with floral motives
Measurements: 950 x 720 x 48 mm, mallets 190 mm
Materials: wood, metal
Sound compass, tuning: variable, usually the lower tone G – d, scale from two, sometimes incomplete, to over four octaves
Performance practice: formerly an instrument of Jewish musicians, later folk musicians; it was played solo or in bands, particularly in the area of Rzeszów, in Subcarpathia, and in Vilnius area; dulcimers from east Lesser Poland are usually bigger and louder than those from Vilnius
Catalog card by: Teresa Lewińska / Zbigniew J. Przerembski


<< Back