Drone zither
A drone is the name given to the design of the zither that has a few (often only one) melody strings, while the other strings are only struck for background music in order to produce a sustaining tone, a drone . The number of strings, the type of strings, the shape of the body , the mechanics, the tuning and other structural characteristics vary between different cultural areas and epochs, as well as within them.
history
The earliest documented form of the drone zither is the Scheitholt (also Scheitholz ), which is mentioned in 1619 by Michael Praetorius in Syntagma Musicum and thereby - called "LumpenInstrumentum" - comes off badly. The Scheitholt consists of an elongated body in the form of a cuboid, at the head end of which there is a simple peg board, similar to the one used on guitars and other plucked instruments. It is strung with three or four brass strings. There is no fingerboard in the usual sense, the frets are created by nails driven directly into the ceiling.
In Germany, variants of the Scheitholt with one or two melody strings and several drone strings were widespread. In northern and central Germany they were called bumblebee , in southern Germany as Scherrzither or Raffele and in Switzerland as witchcraft.
In France, the épinette des Vosges soon developed , which does not have a clearly defined shape or cover and has very different shapes. A Hungarian form of the drone zither (also called "horse-headed citera" there) is characterized by several graduated vortex heads on which up to 20 drones are sometimes attached. In Iceland the instrument is known as Langspil and in Norway as Langeleik .
The best known, however, is probably the American form of the Mountain Dulcimer or Appalachian Dulcimer (not to be confused with the Hammered - Dulcimer or the Bowed - Dulcimer ), which developed from the drones of European immigrants from England and Ireland and in American folk music still has its place today.
Web links
- Scheitholt and early forms of the Kratzzither
- Scheitholt and Epinette at the German instrument maker Andreas Sumerauer.
- Dulcimer models and information on Helmut Seibert's Saitenklang.de