Re: Information about tzimbls

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

Both can be classified loosely as forms of the zither.  To quote Anthony Baines
in _Musical Instruments Through the Ages_, "The term "zither" can well be
employed in our present context generically for instruments with strings
stretched over a flat or flattish sound-box without a neck."  Baines goes on to
define both the kanun and the many forms of the hammer-dulcimer as modern
refinements of the psaltery (psalterion), which he defines as a "zitherized
harp."

The name kanun points to a Greek or Byzantine origin, originally kanon or
"rule."  As the leader's instrument, it sets the makam.

The "beaten psaltery," according to Baines, may be of Persian origin.  Certainly
the name of the eastern variant of the instrument, santur, points to Persia,
where the instrument survives in a simple and elegant form. Is this the
ancestral form of the instrument?

Convergent or divergent evolution?   Or just a really good idea, which was bound
to crop up invarious spots.  I used to see a black street musician  by a subway
station in the East Village, playing an autoharp with a pair of chopsticks.
What would you call that?

As to the question of actually playing the thing, I'll quote from Nikos
Kazantzakis' converstion with Alexis Zorba:

"Married?"

"Aren't I a man?" he said angrily.  "Aren't I a man?  I mean blind. Like
everyone else before me, I fell headlong into the ditch.  I married.  I took the
road downhill.  I became head of a family, I built a house, I had children -
trouble.  But thank God for the santuri!"

"You played to forget your cares, did you?"

"Look, I can see you don't play any instruments.  Whatever are you talking
about?  In the house there are all your worries.  The wife.  The children.  What
are we going to eat?  How shall we manage for clothes?  What will become of us?
Hell!  No, for the santouri, you must be in good form, you must be pure.  If my
wife says one word too many, how could I possibly be in the mood to play the
santuri?  If your children are hungry and screaming at you, you just try to
play!  To play the santuri, you have to give everything up to it, d'you
understand?"

Owen

Eliezer Kaplan wrote:

> Could it be that the 'tsimbl' and kanun are related? Maybe some common
> ancestor?
>                 EK
>
> At 03:47 PM 4/30/99 EDT, Paul Gifford wrote:
> >Warschauer (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
> >
> >> You friend should contact Kurt Bjorling in Chicago (muziker (at) 
> >> aol(dot)com).
> Kurt
> >> builds tsimbls.  Amazing, considering his musical, scholarly and teaching
> >> activities, but true.
> >
> >I'm not familiar with his instruments, but just wanted to say that at
> >one level, there is no such thing as a "Jewish" dulcimer or cimbal
> >(tsimbl), but at another level, all the traditions of the cimbalom
> >family go back to Jewish tradition.  This includes the Hungarian
> >cimbalom (originally part of a Central European variety, also
> >including Bohemian and German instruments), which Gypsies adopted from
> >Jews during the 18th century,
> >Belarusian/Ukrainian/Lithuanian/Galician variety (which can be broken
> >down into subtypes), and the Romanian tzambal mic.  There are some
> >tuning similarities between the Eastern European variety stretching
> >between Vitebsk, Belarus, Rzeszowskie, in Poland, and southern
> >Romania, and similarities in design and structure which suggest that
> >a lot of features from about 1700 were retained into this century.
> >
> >Thus Jewish players who were active c.1900 in places like Daugavpils,
> >Latvia; Vitebsk, Belarus; Rzeszowskie, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine;
> >Koloszvar, Hungary; and Galatz, Romania (all documented), would have
> >used instruments of the same style as players of Gypsy or peasant
> >background. Today I would think one would either use what the person
> >happened to have or acquire or find a Ukrainian-Canadian or small
> >Romanian instrument. For the latter, avoid the "Doina" factory
> >instruments and see if the music store on Calea Victoriei in
> >Bucharest has an older one for sale.  Traditional Belarusian
> >instruments would be very difficult to acquire (but not "modern" ones
> >made in the Minsk factory).  My father had one in the late '30s he
> >bought from a klezmer in New York City that was probably Moldavian.
> >
> >Paul Gifford
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

--
Owen Davidson
Amherst  Mass
The Wholesale Klezmer Band

The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth
Go Love without the help of any King on Earth

Wm. Blake


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