Cymbala ?

Subject: Cymbala ?
From: chip a
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 10:12 AM

I saw Gypsy men playing these things on t.v. last night. They look like a hammered dulcimer except they're hung from the neck with a strap. Anyone know anything about these?

Subject: RE: Cymbala ?
From: chip a
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 11:51 AM

My wife said she thought Cymbala was the name. Maybe not. At any rate, they are shaped like and strung like (to my untrained eye) a hammered dulcimer. They were playing them with hammers, not plucking them. I'd love to know more about them. Where did "our" hammered dulcimer come from?

Thanks all,

Chip A.

Subject: RE: Cymbala ?
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 12:12 PM

It is a form of Hammered Dulcimer. The HD has been around for 1500-2000 years and a form of the instrument has developed in almost every culture. Another Balkan form, the Cymbalom, is perhaps the most advanced state the instrument ever achieved. It is a very large HD and has pedals like a piano for sustain and dampening.

The instruments probably always got their starts when someone struck a board zither with a stick and said, "Far out!" (:<)) Santirs and other forms developed in the middle east and similar instruments came from the far east, often with movable bridges to accomodate the different scales in Eastern music.

The instrument we know was almost totally lost with the advent of the smaller and more portable pianos, but was kept alive mainly by the Irish. It was still around when the folk scare of the 60's and Jean Ritchie brought the Appalachian Dulcimer to prominence. The App shares only a name with the HD and for many years the Hammered was known only as the Dulcimer. This still results in confusion. In any case, the instrument was rediscovered as were many others and enjoys some popularity again. The stringing arrangement is so ingenious as to be simply elegant and most listeners are struck by it's sweet sound.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Cymbala ?
From: chip a
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 01:58 PM

Thanks Spaw, I told Tish I bet you'd have some info for us. And three paragraphs without cussing! Give yourself two gold stars.

Chip & Tish A.