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: Pikuła Bronisław
Date: 1981
Village / Town: Czerce
Region: Subcarpathia
Country: Poland
Owner: Franciszek Kotula Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszów
Inventory number: MRE 8134
Description: body in a trapezoid shape with unmoulded sides; two round resonance holes on the top plate; 18 string courses (5 strings in each course, stretched between hitches and pegs (for tuning), supported on two rows of single bridges (9 in each row), each with a metal bar attached on top (the right bridge is shorter and uphold only 5 string courses); melody strings stretched interchangeably with bass strings; melodic strings divided by bridges in a 2:3 ratio, due to which their left sections are pitched a fifth higher than their right sections; undivided bass strings
Decoration: sides and bottom plate coated with dark brown wood stain; front plate coated with yellow wood stain; grooving in the form of two parallel, yellow-painted battens on the sides; bridges painted silver; resonance boxes decorated with rosettes painted silver and gold
Measurements: 730 x 955 x 405 x 70 mm
Materials: wood, metal
Sound compass, tuning: variable, usually the lowest tone G – d, scale: from two (sometimes incomplete) to over four octaves
Performance practice: formerly an instrument of Jewish and Romany musicians, later folk musicians; it was played solo or in bands, particularly in the Vilnius area, Rzeszów area, and in Subcarpathia, where the dulcimer became the musical hallmark of the region after World War II; dulcimers from the eastern part of Lesser Poland are usually bigger and louder than those from the Vilnius area
Catalog card by: Jolanta Pękacz / Zbigniew J. Przerembski


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