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: 20th c.
Region: Lesser Poland (Subcarpathia)
Country: Poland
Owner: The State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw
Inventory number: PME 48169/1-3
Description: over a trapezoidal body 18 of 4-string courses are stretched; melody strings and bass strings are streched by turn, 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 round resonance holes; mallets with holes for fingers, stylized zoomorphic form with a volute motive
Decoration: every resonance hole covered with four transverse strips of wood
Measurements: 920 x 620 x 352 x 66 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 the Vilnius area; dulcimers from east Lesser Poland are usually bigger and louder than those from Vilnius
Catalog card by: Teresa Lewińska / Zbigniew J. Przerembski


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