Stroke Psalter
The bowed psaltery is a bowed instrument that is often incorrectly referred to as a medieval instrument . It is a variant of the Psalter (also called the Psalterium ) that was developed as a music educational tool in the 1930s. As with the normal Psalter, a number of strings are stretched across a wooden resonance box. The strings are not plucked, but rather bowed with a bow .
The string psaltery is, so to speak, a regression (in the sense of simplification) of the violin zither , which developed from the zither family and, in addition to somewhat differently arranged string strings, also had accompanying strings to pluck.
Design
As is customary with psalteries, the strings of a string psaltery are not fingered or otherwise shortened in order to play higher notes, but each string always sounds in the note to which it was tuned. One tone thus corresponds to one playing string. These strings are mostly of the same thickness but different lengths. B steel strings are often used for electric guitars. Some forms of the bowed psaltery also have sympathetic strings that are not bowed, but only passively sound. Because the strings are steel strings, resonate with each other and still linger for a long time after they have been painted, the instrument has a "spherical" sound.
The body is usually triangular or trapezoidal and has a sound opening in the middle of the ceiling , for example in the form of a sound hole or a rosette. The strings are arranged so that they can be struck individually with the bow at the edge of the instrument.
There are different moods; the most common designs today are chromatic , diatonic and pentatonic bowed psalteries. In chromatic bowed psalteries, the main tones are usually arranged on one side of the instrument and the raised / lowered tones on the other side.
There are bowed psalteries in different voices , e.g. B. soprano, alto, tenor or bass.
Bow and playing technique
The bow of a bowed psaltery is comparatively short and usually curved in a convex manner in the traditional design, not concave as in the modern violin bow. The bow is strung with horsehair , which is coated with rosin to increase the frictional resistance between the string and the bow.
Each string is struck diagonally across the body edge. To change the pitch, the bow must be lifted and placed on the next string again. The bowed psaltery can be played with one or two bows. When playing with a bow, one hand holds the instrument in the crook of the arm; the other hand leads the bow - similar to a violin. When playing with two bows, the instrument rests on the player's lap and each hand holds a bow. With this technique, two strings can be bowed at the same time.
The string psaltery is suitable both as a melody and as an accompanying instrument. The strings can also be plucked for special effects.
literature
- Anthony Baines: Lexicon of Musical Instruments. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2006, p. 310, sv "Streichpsalter"
