Dulcimer (redirected from Appalachian dulcimers)

dulcimer (dŭl`sĭmər), stringed musical instrument. It is a wooden box with strings stretched over it that are struck with small mallets. The number of strings may vary. The dulcimer is related to the psaltery and modern zither. It originated in the Middle East and was adopted in Europe in the Middle Ages. It is known, in varying forms, in Turkey, Iran, China (including Tibet), and other parts of Asia, the Middle East, and N Africa. The popularity of the dulcimer continued in Western Europe until the 17th cent., when it sharply declined, though a German, Pantaleon Hebenstreit, enlarged it to make an instrument called the pantaleon in the early 18th cent. It is still much used in Eastern Europe in Gypsy bands. In Appalachia a plucked dulcimer very similar to the zither is popular. It has an elongated hourglass shape and is held on the player's lap.

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dulcimer

 or hammered dulcimer

Stringed musical instrument in which the strings are beaten with small hammers rather than plucked. Its soundbox is flat and usually trapezoidal; each pair of strings produces a single note, and the pairs slope upward alternately left and right to facilitate rapid playing. The Hungarian cimbalom is a large dulcimer with legs and a damper pedal, much used in Roma (Gypsy) orchestras. The Appalachian dulcimer is a narrow zither with a fretted fingerboard and three to five strings, which are stopped with one hand and plucked with a plectrum held in the other.

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dulcimer Music

1. a tuned percussion instrument consisting of a set of strings of graduated length stretched over a sounding board and struck with a pair of hammers

2. an instrument used in US folk music, consisting of an elliptical body, a fretted fingerboard, and usually three strings plucked with a goose quill

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Dulcimer 

a hammered stringed instrument. The dulcimer consists of a flat wooden body in the shape of a trapezoid, with strings stretched over the upper soundboard. The sound is produced by striking two wooden sticks or hammers against two to five metal strings. The instrument’s range extends from E in the bass clef to E in the third octave.

An ancient instrument, the dulcimer is depicted on ancient Assyrian monuments. It has been known in Western Europe since the 18th century; it achieved its greatest popularity in Hungary and Slovakia. The Moldavian (ţambal, the Armenian and Georgian santir and tsintsila, and the Uzbek chang are all related to the dulcimer. The chromatic dulcimers developed in the late 19th century by the Hungarian master craftsman V. Schunda formed an instrument family by adding an alto, bass, and contrabass dulcimer to the original dulcimer; such dulcimers are used in folk orchestras. In 17th-century Russia the harpsichord was called a dulcimer.

I. F. Stravinsky included a dulcimer part in The Fox and Ragtime for 11 instruments.

REFERENCE

Modr. A. Muzykul’nye instrumenty. Moscow, 1959. Pages 80–82.