Re: Cimbalom

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Owen Davidson <owend (at) crocker(dot)com> wrote:

Just some minor comments:
> 
> The thing that sets the cimbalom apart from other hammer dulcimers is is
> tuning and string layout.  The big concert cymbalom was developed by Schunda
> in Budapest and incorporates piano technology, including a cast-iron frame.
> Not very portable.

Schunda instruments used a cast "A-frame" inside; Bohak instruments 
used two cold-rolled bars between two bearing plates.

  The Greek santouri, which is santur in Turkish, is
> similar to the portable cymbalom but has differences in layout.  Further to
> the East, in Iran, the name santur applies to a much smaller instrument
> which may be the archetypal instrument.  The name santur, I believe, is
> Persian, and means "one hundred strings."

_santur_ derives from Aramaic "psantrin" which in turn derives from
the Greek _psalterion_.  Note, however, that the 14th-century santir
was held vertically in front of the player and the strings plucked.  
The earliest Persian illustrations of the instrument that I've found
are from the late 16th century and the player plucks the strings.  
Thus it is likely that the Arabic santir was the ancestor of the
western European psaltery (but not dulcimer).

  The instrument has far fewer:
> it's strung in two arrays of double courses, each encompassing a diatonic
> octave.  The bridge pieces are placed to play an octave higher on the left
> of the treble strings.  This is very different than the European bridge
> placement, which gives fifths across the bridges.  Furher east yet, in the
> north of India, the santir is a somewhat larger instrument with many more
> strings.

Most Iranian santurs have four strings per course, but you've pointed
out the significant difference with the intervals.  The 
Kashmiri/Indian ones are larger, but are made with two strings per 
course (I've got one, but I confess I haven't looked at it in a 
while). 

> At one Klezcamp, I sat in on a comparison of three different hammer dulcimer
> types.  Stuart Brotman had a Romanian cymbalom, Judy Barlas had a Greek
> santouri, and Kurt Bjorling had an instrument he had designed, which used a
> much simplfied tuning system.  I think, questions of tradition aside, that
> Kurt's system has a lot to recommend it.  It involves placing the bridges in
> the topmost courses to give fourths rather than fifths across them.  I hope
> this isn't as hopelessly confusing as it's beginning to sound to me.
> 
I'm not familiar with Kurt Bjorling's system, but the traditional 
tuning systems from Vitebsk (Jewish), Romania, southeastern Poland, 
and Greece, all carry up the higher courses (after the c#/f# course) 
in intervals of minor seconds, major seconds, or minor thirds.  For
historical reasons, klezmorim obviously developed this curious, but
widespread pattern.  In the western Ukraine (and western Canada), 
it's fifths all the way up.  I play the cimbalom and have dabbled 
with a santouri (as well as santur and Ukrainian cymbaly), but prefer 
to follow tradition rather than to start from a clean slate.  They 
all work!

Paul Gifford