Swing zither

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A swinging zither pictured in AJ Hipkins (1888), believed to have been built by John Simcock in the 1760s. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Schwungzither , English Bell harp , is a historical long rectangular box zither , which according to popular belief was first introduced in England around 1700, but probably not until the middle of the 18th century under the name English harp and in a simplified form - called fairy bells - in the middle Served English and French street musicians for popular music from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. While plucking the strings, the player waved this type of fretboard-free psaltery back and forth in a sideways motion, creating an atmospheric, floating sound. The version in the 18th century had 14 to 24, typically 16 three or four-course strings, the later version in the 19th century was reduced to 8 to 17 individual strings.

Dissemination of the psalteries

The shape of the stringed instruments called psaltērion in ancient Greece is unclear, it could have been lyres , harps or zithers; what is known is that their strings were plucked with bare fingers and not plucked with a pick. Its form cannot be deduced from the early Christian Latin translations of the Bible with psalterium for the Hebrew name nevel . Like the kinnor, the nevel , plucked with the fingers, was probably a lyre, even if Curt Sachs (1940) was of the opinion that the psalterion / psalterium of the ancient and early Christian authors was a vertical angle harp.

From the late Middle Ages, the psalterium was understood to be a box zither that was plucked or struck with bobbins, the models of which, with the Arab box zither kanun and the Persian dulcimer santur, presumably come from the Orient. Psalteries appear in various sizes and shapes on medieval Christian representations. In the 14th century, a wing-shaped type with the addition of ala bohemica (" Bohemian wing") was distinguished from a helmet-shaped type called husle in Eastern European countries . There were also numerous variants that - like the Finnish kantele - established themselves in regional folk music. In contrast, in Western Europe the medieval psalteries of classical music were on the decline in the 16th century. Sebastian Virdung noted in 1511 that a triangular psaltery was still in use, while Michael Praetorius in 1619 no longer knew the psaltery from his own experience.

Instead, well-known stringed instruments emerged from the music of minstrels as early as the Middle Ages and represented mixed forms in terms of instrumental science : the Welsh lyre with fingerboard crwth , which among other things became the model for the Swedish bowed lyre talharpa , and which has been used since the 12th century . Century occupied pointed harp (Italian arpanetta , German Harpett ), which revived in the 17th and 18th centuries. The pointed harp, which is placed vertically on a table, is, according to its body, a box zither, which is strung on both sides with strings to form a "harp zither". A folk musical instrument with an unusual tone generation is the tambourin de Béarn , a long rectangular dulcimer , used from the 14th to the 19th century and still used today by the Basques ( ttun-ttun ) , the strings of which are struck with a stick so that the street musician provides a rhythmic drone accompaniment to the one-handed flute held with the other hand .

origin

Do-do in Basque folk music

The swinging zither filled a similar niche in popular music with its equally peculiar sound generation and, with the tambourin de Béarn , the Icelandic bowed box zither fiðla or the French drone zither épinette des Vosges, belonged to the rectangular psalteries developed in folk music.

The English soldier John Simcock from Bath is considered to be the inventor of the swing zither, who , according to an older view , is said to have introduced an instrument initially called the English harp around 1700 . Harp ("harp") for a box zither is classifically incorrect and could at best refer to the fine tones of the strings. It is speculative why this instrument was given the name Bell harp . Perhaps one officer called Bell in Simcocks should be honored regiment or resulting from the sideways movement sound reminiscent of a vibrating bell (English bell ). Perhaps the shape of the box also appeared like the cross section of a bell. The latter comes from the description of the English composer and hymn poet William Tans'ur (1706–1783), who in The Elements of Music Displayed (1772) mentions the triangular dulcimer, the swinging zither and the Aeolian harp in one section . Accordingly, the swing zither had the shape of a bell and the strings were plucked with picks on both thumbs. The simultaneous movement should have resulted in a sound that was quite pleasant to hear. Francis W. Galpin (1910) considers the association with the ringing of bells to be probably eponymous. The arrangement of the strings and the order in which they are plucked could also have been related to the alternating chimes practiced in England .

In Musical Myths and Facts (1876), the German-British musicologist Carl Engel describes a swinging zither that John Simcock invented in Bath around 1700 with the inscription: "Bath, John Simcock, inventor and maker". AJ Hipkins quotes in Musical Instruments. Historic, Rare and Unique (1888) for the swinging zither shown in Plate XXX, the label of an instrument from the collection of the Englishwoman Ellen Ann Wilmott of Warley Place in Essex , member of the Royal Horticultural Society :

“John Simcock, in the Right Honorable the Earl of Ancram's regiment of Dragoons, and in Captain Bell's troop, makes, mends, and sells the English harp; although instructs gentlemen in the best mode of playing that instrument. "

Hipkins adds to the person of the Earl of Ancram that it was Robert, the third Earl of Ancram, later Marquis of Lothian, who had been appointed Colonel of the 7th Dragoon Regiment in 1696. This provenance information has been carried over from relevant literature in the 20th century including the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians through the current 2001 edition. Although the time seems reliably determined, Eric Halfpenny (1978) questions it. According to him, there was never a Captain Bell in that seventh regiment, but he found a Captain David Bell, who was accepted into the eleventh regiment on April 8, 1755. The eleventh regiment had commanded an earl named William Henry (1710-1775) since 1752. Since Captain Bell was expelled in early 1761, Halfpenny concludes, Simcock can only have served under him between 1755 and 1761. During this time, however, there is no indication that the Dragoon Regiment could have been stationed in Bath. Economic activity in Bath was published in the Bath Journal at that time . According to Halfpenny, Simcock can only be read in the edition of October 3, 1763, when he praised the instrument he made and recommended himself as a musical teacher for the same. This proves for Halfpenny that Simcock introduced his swing zither after the middle of the 18th century and not at the beginning of the century. Simcock always called his invention English harp and not Bell harp . This dating was used by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for the description of a specimen in their collection, which was purchased from the possession of Carl Engel in 1882.

Halfpenny's dating is confirmed by Ian Woodfield in a brief 1980 note citing an earlier advertisement in the Bath Journal dated October 29, 1760 , which Halfpenny overlooked . This shows that John Simcock, formerly a drummer in the 11th Dragoon Regiment, invented a new type of "English Harp". Woodfield also finds a musical connection between the later name bell harp and the ringing of bells, as the announcement can be read in the Bath Journal of May 4, 1761:

"Mr. Simcock (the Inventor and Maker of the English Harp) at the Desire of several Ladies and Gentlement proposes playing on St. Michael's Bells in this City, on Thursday next Inst. At Twelve o'Clock. "

This shows that Simcock was also active as a bell ringer. In addition to the apparently confirmed combination of momentum zither and change ringing Woodfield quoted the note a certain Parson James Woodforde in Weston Longeville ( Norfolk ) to which each came in the years 1778, 1785 and 1789 a few days after Christmas, a musician in the house and with ten hand bells a Demonstrated alternating bells. In 1790, however, the same musician brought a swing zither with him for the first time. In later years the musician performed several times with his swinging zither. Possibly this is an indication of a cultural niche in rural England where the swinging zither could have survived into the 19th century. This very English tradition may explain the original name English harp .

Design and style of play

Fairy bells, called the ten-string zither, after the revival of the instrument in the 19th century. Manufacturer Richard Cook & Co, London, around 1880.

The swing zither is known from numerous museum specimens and book images. The specimens preserved from the 18th century are box zithers with a long rectangular or trapezoidal body that takes on a wing-shaped shape at the distant, wider end. The strings run lengthways through the inside of the body - not exactly parallel, but rather widening somewhat according to the shape of the body. They are only exposed in a window at the top of the near, narrower end, where they are tied to three or four rows of tuning screws. The musician holds the instrument with both hands at this end and plucks the strings with the picks clamped to the thumbs. In order to be able to hold the instrument more securely, wooden pegs protruding to the side are attached to the hands. These slightly curved pegs reinforce the association of the instrument with a bell, in that they appear as the resting bracket of a church bell when moving accordingly . The instrument shown by Hipkins (1888) is made of mahogany and has 14 four-course brass strings. The total length is 53 centimeters, the width increases from 16.5 centimeters to 34 centimeters at the end of the wing. Hipkins mentions that Simcock also made swing zithers with a larger number of strings in three choirs each, with the lowest string simply being present. According to Francis W. Galpin (1910), the swing zither generally had 16 three-chord strings, the d 3 -c ♯ 3 -b 2 -a 2 -g 2 -f ♯ 2 -e 2 -d 2 -d 1 for the right thumb and for the left thumb c ♯ 2 -c 2 -b 1 -a 1 -g 1 -f ♯ 1 -e 1 are tuned. Later instruments with up to 24 strings were built.

The tone scale is usually diatonic with a range of around two octaves . Between the strings for the left and right thumb, a separator runs through the middle of the box. The shortest, highest strings are in the middle and the lowest strings are attached to the sides. While the musician plucks the strings, he swings the entire box sideways by an arm's length. This pivoting movement will probably not have taken place at the musician's head, as is often assumed. To point out that the swing zither might have been moved in a completely different way, Halfpenny quotes the story of a man who, in his youth in the last decades of the 19th century, heard and saw his grandfather play the swing zither with his brother. The two of them swung their instruments gently like pendulums and later, during the crescendo , they turned wildly in a clockwise direction. Their instrument was a simpler version of Simrock's swing zither with only eight individual strings in a small rectangular body. The string tuning is marked with C – D – E – F and C – B – A – G on the body. In the way of playing described here, the instrument is held down with outstretched arms and moved sideways at knee height of the player. This posture makes sense because the audience is shown not the unsightly underside, but the upper side made with decking boards and playing with the thumbs.

The mentioned simple design describes the forms built after the revival of the instrument in the second half of the 19th century. Two sizes can be distinguished from this. In addition to the small model with eight diatonic strings and a range of one octave, larger models with seventeen individual chromatic strings and a range of one decime were produced. Their strings are tuned to C – C ♯ –D – D ♯ –E – F – F ♯ –G – G ♯ and E – D ♯ –D – C ♯ –C – B – A ♯ –A. Of these late instruments, called fairy bells , two copies of each size have been preserved in different museums, and they are very likely from the same workshop. One of the copies has the original label from Richard Cook & Co, London, with the name "Fairy Bells". The manufacturer mentioned was active from 1864 to 1884 at the address given. The specimens preserved must have been made during these 21 years.

While one of the uses of the swinging zither in England in the second half of the 18th century was possibly as a substitute for the alternating ringing of bells, a century later the simpler instruments were used by amateurs for entertainment or at performances by traveling musicians. The latter shows a postcard probably printed around 1910 with what is apparently the only surviving photograph of musicians playing swinging zither. You can see two men standing stiffly in dark suits, white shirts and white bow ties , holding their instruments from the waist down, ready for use. They are separated by a large frame with 21 tubular bells in the center of the picture and a trapezoidal dulcimer placed in the middle in front of it. There are three vessel flutes on the floor in front of the dulcimer .

literature

  • Eric Halfpenny: The Mythology of the English Harp . In: The Galpin Society Journal, Volume 31, May 1978, pp. 29-35
  • David Kettlewell: Bell harp . In: Grove Music Online, 2001
  • Sibyl Marcuse : Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary. Doubleday, New York 1964, p. 51, sv "Bell harp"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sibyl Marcuse: A Survey of Musical Instruments. Harper & Row, New York 1975, p. 209
  2. ↑ Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments. IV. Instruments. 8. nevel and nevel ʿāśor. In: MGG Online , November 2016
  3. ^ Curt Sachs : The History of Musical Instruments . WW Norton & Company, New York 1940, p. 116
  4. ^ Curt Sachs: Handbook of musical instrumentation. (1930) Georg Olms, Hildesheim 1967, p. 134f; Sibyl Marcuse, 1975, pp. 219f
  5. ↑ Alexander Pilipczuk: Arpanetta . In: Grove Music Online, 2001
  6. ↑ John Henry van der Meer: Zither. In: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in history and present , 1st edition, Volume 14, Bärenreiter, Kassel 1968, Sp. 1340f
  7. ↑ William Tans'ur: The Elements of Musick display'd; or, Its Grammar, or Ground-work Made Easy: Rudimental, Practical, Philosophical, Historical, and Technical. Stanley Crowder, London 1772, p. 104
  8. ^ Francis W. Galpin: Old English Instruments of Music. Their History and Character . Methuen, London 1910, p. 62
  9. ^ Carl Engel: Musical Myths and Facts. Novello, Ewer & Co., London 1876, p. 67
  10. ↑ AJ Hipkins: Musical Instruments. Historic, Rare and Unique. The Selection, Introduction and Descriptive Notes. (1888) A. and C. Black, London 1921, p. 67: “John Simcock, the very honorable one in the regiment of the Dragoons of the Earl of Ancram and in the company of Captain Bell, manufactures, repairs and sells zithers; he also introduces the men to the correct way to play this instrument. "
  11. ↑ Eric Halfpenny, 1978, pp. 29f
  12. ↑ Bell harp. Victoria and Albert Museum London
  13. ^ Ian Woodfield: The Mythology of the English Harp. In: The Galpin Society Journal, Volume 33, March 1980, p. 133: “Mr. Simcock (the inventor and manufacturer of the swinging zither) intends, at the suggestion of several ladies and gentlemen, to ring the bells of St. Michael's Church in this city next Thursday. "
  14. ↑ Eric Halfpenny, 1978, pp. 34f
  15. ↑ AJ Hipkins, 1921, p 67
  16. ^ Francis W. Galpin, 1910, p. 62
  17. ↑ Eric Halfpenny, 1978, p. 32f
  18. ↑ Eric Halfpenny, 1978, pp. 33f
  19. ^ Maurice Byrne: Two Players on the Bell Harp . In: The Galpin Society Journal , Volume 44, March 1991, p. 159