RE: The Diatonic Cheng, Bukharian Hammered Dulcimer

[Gifford, Paul <pgifford...>]

Pete Rushefsky [mailto:klezbanjo (at) yahoo(dot)com] wrote: 

Paul, if I remember correctly from your book, the Chang came Westward
into Central Asia from China.  Your theory was that English sailors
had introduced the Chang there-- if so, is this the orgin for a
diatonic tuning?  Or is it more a function of adaption to playing
Eastern pentatonic melodies?  Obviously the diatonic Chang couldn't
have been great for playing the maqam/dastgahs of Bukhara (except for
a limited selection of them)
[Gifford, Paul] 

 The chang was always a mystery to me, in that in wasn't anything like
an Iranian santur, so it obviously didn't come from Iran. I had even
considered that klezmorim entering Turkestan after the Russian
conquest could have introduced it. But I'm sure it came from China,
since the instrument described in 1933 had seven courses over the
treble bridge, just like the Chinese yangqin of the 19th century.
Also, in Xinjiang, the yangqin is played there and called "chang." The
yangqin ("Western qin") was introduced to Canton, China, from Europe
(by sea)---definitely not from Persia, as is sometimes still
recited---but was already in Sichuan by  the 18th century.  It
apparently didn't reach Uzbekistan until the 1890s. I don't know
anything about the muqam of Central Asia, so I don't know about their
intervals---but you're probably right about the limited number it
could play. Thanks for the reference to the LP. There is a Melodiya LP
of instrumental music from Uzbekistan (from about 1980) which has it,
and also a Monitor LP has it in a group of Uzbek musicians playing a
Korean song. Years ago in northern Afghanistan I asked Uzbek musicians
about the "chang," but they didn't  know of the instrument.  Obviously
if it had been introduced in the 1890s, it hadn't been established
long. 

 

Paul Gifford