Re: Tsimbls and their kin

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Hi Judith,

although, sadly I didn't get a chance to follow the earlier
correspondence on this list about tsimbls (if anybody can send me the
discussion I'd be really interested in hearing what's been going on) I
just wanted to chip in about the comment that The Greek Sandouri below.
I assumed you meant the Greek form rather than the Iranian, Indian or
Bukharan santours when you write *santour*:

While there are similarities in tuning between the Greek Sandouri, the
now-seldom-used-southern-Romanian, the Galitsian-Jewish-and-Gypsy and
the Ukrainian-Jewish tunings, there are some typical differences, which
mainly are found in the following parts of the instrument:

1) The highest octave, which have different arrangements of the
chromatic notes due to the specific placement of provisional (often
moveable) bridges

2) The relationship of the right discant side to the adjacent bass (i.e
the area around middle c, which you strike on the right side of the
middle bridge in relation to the bass strings which you find if you move
directly to your right)

3) The arrangement of the lowest bass strings

Although there were typical regional tendencies, there were also often
personal adjustments which players made to suit their own personal
needs. 

One curiosity of the Jewish tsimbls (both Galitsian and Ukrainain) and
the Romanian southern tuning is the placement of the  G#/C# string BELOW
the G/C string on the discant area, which created the following tuning:
 
                     
     c#  |  f#
                     
      c   |  f
                    
      b   |  e
                     
     a#  |  d#
                     
      a   |  d
                    
      g   |  c
                     
     g#  |  c#
               

Paul Gifford has heard from players of this tuning that it is used to
facilitate the use of the A major chord in accompaniment, which seems to
be a very good explanation, and might show us a lot about when the most
common key in klezmer music shifted from G (for string-oriented music,
because the violin's lowest string is G) to D (a key which most
instrumental groups feel comfortable in) The A major chord, as the
dominant chord of D, is good at establishing D as the tonal center, and
is used also in Jewish modes.

Most sandouris, however, use a linear chromatic, as follows:
    
     c#  |  f#
                     
      c   |  f
                    
      b   |  e
                     
     a#  |  d#
                     
      a   |  d
           
     g#  |  c#         
      
        g   |  c
                     
     
In Sandouris the bass note most commonly found directly to the right of
the first C (middle C) is either G or F (just like the Hungarian and
typical Romanian tunings.

In the Jewish tsimbl(s) and often in Ukrainian and Galitsian models, you
commonly find a D or an E.

These are tendencies, not rules, however. My own tsimbl uses an octave
tuning, meaning, to the right of my discant middle C is the bass C. This
is perhaps more closely related to the Iranian system of tuning, though
in terms of tension, it is optimal (sensitive tsimbl makers have been
trying for centuries to get an even distribution of tension in every
range of the instrument. Of course all that depends on the shape of the
instrument as well as the materials of the strings, their density and
elasticity, etc. etc. 
               
Remember also, that probably before 1850, most tsimbls were tuned
diatonically i.e. modally. My tuning on the CD, Bessarabian Symphony was
a tuning which I developed according to the Jewish modes. I wanted to
see what happened musically if I did that and the choices it gives you
are indeed different than those you get with a chromatic tuning, which I
use most of the time now.

I always recommend to people that they play a Hungarian/Romanian modern
chromatic tuning, mainly because it's the most widespread tuning of the
western world, but I prefer the Sandouri/Jewish family of tunings, but
only because that's what I play. One of the cellist's of Budowitz, my
group, is a virtouso on the Cymbalom as well. At first he had a good
laugh when he tried my tuning, but now every time I unpack it and set it
up, he can be found sitting quietly at it and gazing into it with a look
of concentration while he slowly tries out different stickings, and
every once in awhile you hear a *Ha!* coming from him, and I know he
just found a possibility which was murder on his instrument, but butter
on mine.

As to what the other Jewish tsimblists of the modern age are using: Zev
Feldman uses a sandouri tuning, Kurt Bjorling uses a basic Jewish tuning
with the G bass note to the right of the middle C, and Stuart Brotman
uses a standard Hungarian/Romanian. Cor Van Sliedregt in Holland uses
also a Sandouri tuning. Tim Meyen in Australia uses a
Hungarian/Romanian. Joseph Moskowitz seemed to have used a
Hungarian/Romanian, but I think the accompanists you hear on the early
78's typically used Jewish chromatic tunings popular back then. 

If anyone is interested in having them made for them in Eastern Europe,
I can arrange for it. There are 2 good craftsmen in Budapest, one of
whom has made 3 instruments for me (including Cor Van Sliedregt's
instrument). Export is difficult but not impossible. By the way, Kurt
Björling makes excellent instruments in the US. And if you want to
contact one of the world's most knowledgable people on tsimbl questions,
contact Paul Gifford. I won't give his email out here, only because it
breaks etiquette, but if you don't have it already, I can provide it. 

To sum it up - there are no rules to what the best tuning is, because
the body adapts to what it's given, but you're better off getting a
chromatic tuning so you can play everything, but since you've already
done that, feel free to ignore everything I've written to his point.

To the list, concerning the Juglio question: Why not use an old
ethnologists trick when you don't know whether your informant's giving
straight answers: ask one of his girlfriends. 

Josh Horowitz

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