Instrument in this video

Subject: Instrument in this video
From: RunrigFan
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 12:55 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14XyL_sK8-A

It appears about 30 secs

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: michaelr
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 01:27 AM

bass hammered dulcimer?

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 01:40 AM

I love Waulking songs. Really believe I must have been born in the wrong time and place. Or maybe in past life I was in Scotland.

If you read the comments under the video there is some speculation about the instrument. See quote below.

"That's Jim Sutherland & either he has discovered the ancient Gaelic Tiompán, or it is it simply an ancient Chinese instrument, like a Zhu?

But seriously, I've written to Jim to find out more, so watch this space! ;-)"

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: doc.tom
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 03:53 AM

Koto

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:03 AM

Koto

Mmm... the Koto is a plucked, not hammered, instrument, with a higher range than the one in the video, and an instrument whose strings have moveable bridges. I don't think this is what's in the video - bass hammered dulcimer is as good as anything.

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:11 AM

Its a Chinese instrument called a Guzheng - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:12 AM

Not a koto - I think michaelr's bass hammered dulcimer is a more accurate description of this (home made?) instrument. What it's doing in this context is anyone's guess. I still love the old School of Scottish Studies recordings of Waulking Songs (Music of the Western Isles), but we seem to drifting into the realm of Celtic Woman here - but then again Alan Stivell was popping them up on Journee a la Maison many decades ago, Clannad likewise, so why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3pDSPsl4M

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 04:39 AM

Yangqin (揚琴) - hammered dulcimer of varying strings struck using two bamboo hammers ===

I found this listed by googling Wiki: Chinese Musical Instruments.

I would think this to be the one on the video.

♪~Michael~♪

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:04 AM

It's nothing like a Yangqin (Foriegn Instrument), or a Guzheng for that matter. This is something newly invented for the purpose, though it makes sense to apply the hammer dulcimer split-string thing to a lower register. I'm sure they've got their own name for it, but you might as well call it a bass hammered dulcimer as anything I suppose, though not as sophicticated as some of the others I've seen.

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:15 AM

No, indeed; having Wiki'd 'yangqin' separately and seen a picture, I agree it is nothing like that trapezoidal instrument.

In fact it doesn't look much like any sort of hammered dulcimer ~~ they don't have bridges, do they?; and have many more strings; and the one in the video is being played with sticks, clearly, not hammers.

More like a hammered expanded double bass, I should say.

~M~

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:48 AM

A hammered dulcimer actually has 2 bridges per string - so you can get three notes from one string by playing in different areas. The "sticks" they play with are actually like little curved spoons.

The instrument in the video - as far as one can tell - looks very much built on the principle of a hammered dulcimer, but with thicker and fewer strings. Like Suibhne, I suspect it's been invented for the player!

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 05:52 AM

Picture of hammered dulcimer: Hammered dulcimer photo

and in action: Horizonto

Subject: RE: Instrument in this video
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:17 AM

I'm going through one of my intermittent Hammered Dulcimer Dreaming phases right now, largely on account of the playing of the ever youthful Esmail Vasseghi from the Clemencic Consort which has enchanted me now for 35 years or more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozMFw1EOid8

Esmail plays the santur, which has the strings divided into two parts, so each string gives two notes, which is the same principle as the instrument in the waulking song video, only there the instrument looks like one of Harry Partch's cast offs!