Semantron
Semantron , Greek σημαντρον , also semanterion, sēmantēr, simandron , σημαντήριον, Romanian toacă , Bulgarian bilo (made of wood) and klepàlo (made of iron), Arabic naqus , Latin tabula , “hour drum ”, which is usually a long wooden pickguard used in the Orthodox Churches and in the Catholic Church instead of or next to the bells . It is played with one or two hammers or with a hook stick. The idiophone surcharge probably developed in the 8th century from the weck hammer used in monasteries.
The simplest form is a freely suspended wooden beam that is struck with wooden hammers, or a piece of metal that is stimulated to rhythmic clinking by metal hammers. By striking the semantron in different places, different sounds and pitches can be achieved.
Beyond the church use, the Toacă game in Romania has also found access to international music festivals, whereby the traditional rhythms are processed experimentally.
A comparable baton set made of cast iron to replace church bells was the stick bells introduced in Germany and England in the 19th century . In the Buddhist monasteries of Myanmar , monks use the bronze plate kyizi as a signal transmitter.
literature
- Geoffrey Chew: Sēmantron. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Volume 4, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, pp. 466f
- Curt Sachs : Real Lexicon of Musical Instruments, at the same time a polyglossary for the entire field of instruments . Julius Bard, Berlin 1913, p. 342 ( at Internet Archive )
