Re: whither the zither

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

According to whose definition must a "true" zither have frets? As I
understand its definition, a zither is a musical instrument consisting
of strings stretched over a sound box, which would include not only the
fretted concert zither, but the psaltery, kanun, gusli, kankles,
kantele, kuokle, the koto, and any number of other oddments including
the autoharp (which, the good Mr. Oscar Scmidt notwithstanding, is
actually a mechanized gusli and may have been a Russian invention).

Since definitions and classifications have a way of broadening and
overlapping, let me add that the kanun is also a membranophone, in that
its bridges rest not on the soundboard, but on little squares of skin
set into the soundboard.  Thus it bears a certain relation to the tar
and the Persian kemençe, as well as to that well-established klezmer
instrument par deluxe, the banjo.

Owen

Carol Freeman wrote:
> 
> Paul M. Gifford wrote:
> 
> > Joel Bresler <jbresler (at) ma(dot)ultranet(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > > BTW,  a form of the zither, the kanun, was used fairly often in Sephardi 
> > > 78s...
> > >
> > Although "zither" is used as a vague term for any instrument which
> > has a lot of open strings, to my mind it should be defined as a
> > fretted instrument played horizontally, most versions of which have
> > open strings used for accompanying the melody, which is played on
> > the fretted strings. Thus a kanun (or gusli, kankles, etc.) would not
> > qualify as a zither.
> 
> Many people on the list may not know that a kanun is also substantially 
> different
> from a Western zither type instrument because it is constructed so one can 
> play in
> the various Turkish (or Arabic, on the larger, Arabic instruments) maqams or
> microtonal scales.This makes it quite suitable for accompanying Sephardic 
> songs from
> Turkey and the South Balkans, many of which were traditionally sung in maqam. 
>  Carol
> 

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