Alcie;

Thanks for the links. The Japanese model seems to be a little different as mine is 6 strings, plus two drones. So, I guess it is the indian banjo or bulbul tarang (love the sound of the name)

Here is something I found on it at another site just a few minutes ago.

Still have not found out how to tune it, but your Japanese link will help. Interesting that it came from japan, as the harmonium came from England.

Love that harmonium, now if I can find someone to tune it---it is about 2 cents sharp across the board.

richard

Bulbul Tarang.

This instrument is also known in India by the model name of one company which makes them: Banjo. Despite this fact the Bulbul Tarang is nothing whatsoever like the American folk instrument most people think of when they hear the term "banjo". Think of a cross between an autoharp, the slide guitar used in American blues, and a typewriter equipped with a few drone strings and you start to get the idea of what the Bulbul Tarang is really like. This two-foot long, hand made instrument is essentially a rectangular box with 5 strings that are used to play the melody, plus two more that are fixed (open), and can either serve as sympathetic strings, be used rhythmically for droning- or both.The strings are strummed just in front of the bridge while the instrument is sitting flat on a stand/table or in the player's lap, much like a "lap steel" slide guitar. Instead of fretting notes with a slide or bar, however, the left hand strikes keys identical in size to those found on an old manual typewriter. Each keystroke presses a thin, metal arm across the fretboard of the "banjo", creating a single chord per keystroke (although I've found that "bouncing" the key by pressing it a bit harder gives you a sort of pitch bend, and jiggling the key side to side simulates a mild, slide guitar-style vibrato).

Producer's Notes

I have utilized the Bulbul Tarang to add a sitar-like Eastern feel to a song, but with a much tighter sound. The keystrokes produce a natural percussive quality, and each note dampens the last so there's very little of the dissonant resonance of the sitar. Also, unlike the sitar or saroud, anyone who has a little experience using a keyboard, lap steel, or...yes! a typewriter!...can get sounds out of the tarang with very little practice. The keys are numbered one through seven, corresponding to the steps in a scale, with black keys bearing sharp symbols for the in-between notes, so it's extremely easy to adapt to the instrument in terms of finding chords and tuning. In the recording studio the tarang is a breeze to set up, and likewise to mic. Throw 57 over the sound hole, place a condenser by the bridge, and you're off. On one occasion I propped the two ends of the instrument up on crates so that most of the bottom was exposed, then taped a PZM mic underneath, dead center. For a different session I propped the tarang up the same way, but this time duct taped the cup of a headphone underneath. I tuned the whole tarang to root notes and fifths, then piped a guitar track into the phone mix and mic'ed the top hole of the instrument to catch the resonance, sent that to a reverb and mixed it back into the original guitar track to add a bit of mystery to the take.