Re: Jews with tsimbls in Greece -forward -Reply

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

Tim Meyen <tim (at) topic(dot)com(dot)au> wrote:
 
> I'd like to know what you mean by "near-identity" of  tuning though.  The 
> Greek
> instruments I know of differ considerably in tuning to Romanian ones. To
> oversimplify, they progress in semitones up the central (treble) bridge, 
> whereas
> the Romanian instruments...um...don't. They are tuned roughly like the 
> Hungarian
> kiscimbalom. I have not seen Greek instruments which utilize two bridges under
> one course of strings (to produce 3 tones), either.

Players on the Romanian tambal mic tune it mostly to "Hungarian" 
tuning, which is similar to the standard Hungarian cimbalom tuning.
However, the usual tuning in Wallachia and Moldavia used to be
the "Romanian" tuning. This actually is somewhat similar to Greek
and traditional Ukrainian, Polish, and Byelorussian tunings (include
"Jewish" in that, too). One characteristic is that the lowest treble 
course is g#/c#, then g/c, a/d, a#/d#, b/e, c/f, c#/f#, then the next
courses are divided into major seconds or minor thirds. The usual 
santouri tuning merely starts at g/c, then goes up in half steps to 
c#/f#, then into minor thirds, if I recall (though this might vary).  
So Zev meant the old "Romanian" tuning.

The same g#/c# preceding the g/c, which seems crazy, is found on 
traditional Ukrainian, Polish, and Byelorussian tunings (and Jewish 
tunings like that of the Lepyansky family of Vitebsk). The system 
where the upper course(s) are divided into seconds or thirds is also 
found in those places, but is not universal. Note that I mean 
traditional, not the tuning of factory-made instruments taught in 
schools.

The Hungarian system is actually part of a larger central European 
grouping (including parts of Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia), of which 
only the Hungarian cimbalom has survived (well, there's a Moravian 
survivor in Texas).

In Romania, the tuning used in the pre-1918 Hungarian area is the 
Hungarian tuning, and as the big cimbalom has increased in popularity 
in the Regat, the old tuning has gradually disappeared. Nicolae 
Feraru, who learned on his father's instrument with Romanian tuning, 
switched to Hungarian tuning when he was 12. Apparently now the large 
ones are considered standard and the small ones are portable 
substitutes.  But the old Romanian tuning, as well as the 
construction design, shows that the instrument there is more 
closely related to the Lithuanian/Galician/Ukrainian variety, though 
it has Hungarian influence (padded hammers, lower left bass bridge, 
six-hole soundhole, etc.).  The Greek variety has the padded hammers, 
six-hole soundhole, lower left bass bridge, too, at least in many 
examples.

Jewish content:  compare and contrast the traditional range of the 
instrument with the geography of the Russian Pale.

Paul Gifford


















> Are you referring to some older sanduri tuning (or an older tambal tuning) 
> that I
> don't know about? Or are the differences  considered only cosmetic (also
> understandable, since there are undeniable similarities between the two 
> systems
> too. Still, a player familiar with one tuning could not, I think, instantly
> translate to the other)?
> 
 

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+