Re: klez accordion & tsimbl

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

Ernie Gruner / Cathy Dowden <erniegru (at) mira(dot)net> wrote:
> 
> Would it be a reasonable guess to say that something like a diatonic button
> accordion started replacing the tsimbl in europe in the early 1800's? I
> can't remember the tsimbl queries but when did it decline?

I would guess that the diatonic button accordion didn't start making 
inroads until the late 19th century and early 20th century. 

In much of Eastern Europe, the cimbal was growing in the late 19th 
century----that is, peasants in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and 
Poland were adopting it from Jewish tradition.  In southeastern 
Romania, Gypsies didn't start using it until 1880-1900, and in 
Moldova, the early 20th century.  There are reports of Jews playing 
it, around 1900-1910, in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia); "old people 
in Poland," 1908, although it had been in decline there.  I've seen  
a Belarus-style instrument from New York, and my father bought a 
Romanian one in the Lower East Side in the late '30s, so there were 
obviously ones brought by Jewish immigrants to America, and there 
were three or four Jewish players in the 1937 Local 802 directory I 
have.  Findeizen's 1926 article on the Lepyansky ensemble (father and 
three sons, playing 1st, 2nd violin parts, middle, and bass, all on 
cimbals) says that around Vitebsk in the late 19th century, there had 
been a growth in (Jewish) interest in it.  But Beregovski says in the 
'30s that he couldn't find much evidence for it in Ukraine recently.  
So it would depend on the region.

The Ukrainians who went to western Canada used tsymbaly a lot, and 
still do----violin, accordion, tsymbaly, and drum set, maybe with an 
electric bass or guitar----is common, although there are some groups 
closer to the troista muzyka sound, with violin, tsymbaly, and drum 
set (like the Johnny Makichuk Trio, of Windsor, Ontario, if he's 
still around).  There are many players in Alberta and Manitoba.

The piano accordion may be replacing it in Romania, and also the 
electonic keyboards, but it is still in demand there.

 > Does anyone know a maker/seller of a portable tsimbl?
> 
Do you know Tim Meyen?  He's in Australia and on this list, I think. 

I've been studying this a lot recently, but have been interested in 
the instrument for many years.  There are structural similarities and 
tuning similarities between traditional instruments from places as 
distant as Belarus and Romania, but I don't think there is a "Jewish,"
as opposed to a Belarusian, or Rzeszow, or Galician, or Romanian 
variety.  I think, if you divided regional varieties into subtypes, 
there are "Lithuanian" (Latvian/Lithuanian/Belarus) instruments; 
"Galician" (southeastern Poland and western Ukraine) instruments; and 
Romanian instruments (Greek santouris might be added to this type).  
There are some curious elements that have lasted 200 years or more, in 
these areas, like the six-holed soundhole and the g#/c# which 
precedes the g/c course, however, which must have been present in 
Jewish tradition by the 1700s, because of the spread of these things.
Each of the three varieties has a distinct sound, so you'd have to 
decide what you'd want.

Paul Gifford

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