Re: Information about tzimbls

[Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel...>]

Thanks, Owen. After my post I also started thinking about the Santoor- you
associate it with Persia, though it also seems to also be prominent in
Indian music nowadays. As for me, after a rough day of work, I've found
there's nothing like spending an hour or two pounding on a trap set or a
dumbek. Maybe not a crystal clean autoharp sound, and certainly not the
trappings of a pure person, but thank God for the catharsis!
                EK



At 02:01 AM 5/9/99 +0000, you wrote:
>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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