 A musician playing a diatonic hammered dulcimer | |
| String instrument | |
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| Classification | Percussion instrument (chordophone),string instrument |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | 314.122-4 (Simplechordophone sounded by hammers) |
| Developed | Antiquity |
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| Sound sample | |
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Thehammered dulcimer (also called thehammer dulcimer) is apercussion-string instrument which consists ofstrings typically stretched over atrapezoidal resonantsound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more traditional styles may sit cross-legged on the floor, or in a more modern style may stand or sit at a wooden support with legs. The player holds a small spoon-shapedmallet orhammer in each hand to strike the strings. TheGraeco-Roman worddulcimer ('sweet song') derives from theLatindulcis ('sweet') and theGreekmelos (μέλος, 'song'). The dulcimer, in which the strings are beaten with small hammers, originated from thepsaltery, in which the strings are plucked.[1]
Hammered dulcimers and other similar instruments are traditionally played in Iraq, India, Iran, Southwest Asia, China, Korea, and parts of Southeast Asia, Central Europe (Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland [particularlyAppenzell], Austria and Bavaria), the Balkans, Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Belarus), and Scandinavia. The instrument is also played in the United Kingdom (Wales,East Anglia,Northumbria), and the United States, where its traditional use infolk music saw a revival in the late 20th century.[2]
Thesantur, a type of hammered dulcimer, originates from the Middle East. The earliest evidence comes fromAssyrian andBabylonian stone carvings dated to 669 BC, showing the instrument being played while hanging from the player's neck. This instrument was traded and travelled to different parts of the Middle East. Musicians modified the original design over the centuries, yielding a wide array of musical scales and tunings. The original santur was likely made with wood and stone and strung with goat intestines. The Babylonian santur was the ancestor of the harp,yangqin, harpsichord,qanun,cimbalom and hammered dulcimers.[4]
In Western Europe, a hammered dulcimer first appears in textual and iconographic sources from the early 15th century.[5] The hammered dulcimer was extensively used during the Middle Ages in England, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain.
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A dulcimer usually has twobridges, a bass bridge near the right and a treble bridge on the left side. The bass bridge holds up bass strings, which are played to the left of the bridge. The treble strings can be played on either side of the treble bridge. In the usual construction, playing them on the left side gives a note a fifth higher than playing them on the right of the bridge.
The dulcimer comes in various sizes, identified by the number of strings that cross each of the bridges. A 15/14, for example, has 15 strings crossing the treble bridge and 14 crossing the bass bridge, and can span threeoctaves. The strings of a hammered dulcimer are usually found in pairs, two strings for each note (though some instruments have three or four strings per note). Each set of strings is tuned inunison and is called acourse. As with apiano, the purpose of using multiple strings per course is to make the instrument louder, although as the courses are rarely in perfect unison, achorus effect usually results like amandolin. The strings of the hammered dulcimer are wound around tuning pins with square heads (ordinarily, 5 mm "zither pins" are used, similar to, but smaller in diameter than piano tuning pins, which come in various sizes ranging upwards from "1/0" or 7 mm), and tuning requires awrench as for anautoharp, harp, or piano.
The strings of the hammered dulcimer are often tuned according to acircle of fifths pattern.[6][7] Typically, the lowest note (often a G or D) is struck at the lower right-hand of the instrument, just to the left of the right-hand (bass) bridge. As a player strikes the courses above in sequence, they ascend following a repeating sequence of two whole steps and a half step. With this tuning, adiatonic scale is broken into twotetrachords, or groups of four notes. For example, on an instrument with D as the lowest note, the Dmajor scale is played starting in the lower-right corner and ascending the bass bridge: D – E – F♯ – G. This is the lower tetrachord of the D major scale. At this point the player returns to the bottom of the instrument and shifts to the treble strings to the right of the treble bridge to play the higher tetrachord: A – B – C♯ – D. The player can continue up the scale on the right side of the treble bridge with E – F♯ – G – A – B, but the next note will be C, not C♯, so he or she must switch to the left side of the treble bridge (and closer to the player) to continue the D major scale. See the drawing on the left above, in which "DO" would correspond to D (seeMovable do solfège).
The shift from the bass bridge to the treble bridge is required because the bass bridge's fourth string G is the start of the lower tetrachord of the G scale. The player could go on up a couple notes (G – A – B), but the next note will be a flatted seventh (C natural in this case), because this note is drawn from the G tetrachord. This D major scale with a flatted seventh is themixolydian mode in D.
The same thing happens as the player goes up the treble bridge – after getting toLa (B in this case), one has to go to the left of the treble bridge. Moving from the left side of the bass bridge to the right side of the treble bridge is analogous to moving from the right side of the treble bridge to the left side of the treble bridge.
The whole pattern can be shifted up by three courses, so that instead of a D-major scale one would have a G-major scale, and so on. This transposes oneequally tempered scale to another. Shifting down three courses transposes the D-major scale to A-major, but of course the first Do-Re-Mi would be shifted off the instrument.
This tuning results in most, but not all, notes of thechromatic scale being available. To fill in the gaps, many modern dulcimer builders include extra short bridges at the top and bottom of the soundboard, where extra strings are tuned to some or all of the missing pitches. Such instruments are often called "chromatic dulcimers" as opposed to the more traditional "diatonic dulcimers".
The tetrachord markers found on the bridges of most hammered dulcimers in theEnglish-speaking world were introduced by the American player and makerSam Rizzetta in the 1960s.[8]
In theAlps there are also chromatic dulcimers with crossed strings, which are in a whole tone distance in every row. This chromaticSalzburger hackbrett was developed in the mid 1930s from the diatonic hammered dulcimer by Tobi Reizer and his son along with Franz Peyer and Heinrich Bandzauner. In the postwar period it was one of the instruments taught in state-sponsored music schools.[9]
Hammered dulcimers of non-European descent may have other tuning patterns, and builders of European-style dulcimers sometimes experiment with alternate tuning patterns.
The instrument is referred to as "hammered" in reference to the smallmallets (referred to ashammers) that players use to strike the strings. Hammers are usually made of wood (most likelyhardwoods such as maple, cherry, padauk, oak, walnut, or any other hardwood), but can also be made from any material, including metal and plastic. In the Western hemisphere, hammers are usually stiff, but in Asia, flexible hammers are often used. The head of the hammer can be left bare for a sharpattack sound, or can be covered with adhesive tape, leather, or fabric for a softer sound. Two-sided hammers are also available. The heads of two-sided hammers are usually oval or round. Most of the time, one side is left as bare wood while the other side may be covered in leather or a softer material such aspiano felt.[citation needed]
Several traditional players have used hammers that differ substantially from those in common use today.Paul Van Arsdale (1920–2018), a player from upstate New York, used flexible hammers made fromhacksaw blades, with leather-covered wooden blocks attached to the ends (these were modeled after the hammers used by his grandfather, Jesse Martin). The Irish playerJohn Rea (1915–1983) used hammers made of thick steel wire, which he made himself from old bicycle wheel spokes wrapped with wool.Billy Bennington (1900–1986), a player fromNorfolk, England, usedcane hammers bound with wool.
The piano, like the dulcimer, uses a hammering action to strike the strings.
Versions of the hammered dulcimer, each of which has its own distinct manner of construction and playing style, are used throughout the world:
[caption on painting] Angels with trombone, dulcimer and pipe; detail from the fresco 'The Assumption of the Virgin' (late 15th century) by Filippino Lippi in the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva...Rome
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