hammered dulcimer

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 31 Simple chordophones or zithers / 314 Board zithers / 314.1 True board zithers / 314.12 With resonator / 314.122 With resonator box (box zither) / 314.122-4 True board zithers with resonator box (box zither) sounded by hammers or beaters
Maker: Hołubowski Jan
Date: 1989
Village / Town: Braniewo
Region: Varmia and Masuria
Country: Poland
Owner: Museum of Folk Musical Instruments in Szydłowiec
Inventory number: MLIM/MS/998
Description: over a trapezoidal body 16 of 5-string courses are stretched; melody strings and bass strings are streched by turns, with the former being supported by the left bridge (dividing them in 5th) and the latter by the right bridge; plates of the hitch- and tuning pins strengthened with metal sheets, bridges made from metal rods; the top plate has two round openwork resonance holes (small round holes) bordered with a painted line; the instrument is relatively big for the so-called Vilnius dulcimer
Decoration: the longer sides of the top plate are embellished with an inlaid geometrical pattern; the longer sides of the body feature the same painted pattern
Measurements: 810-967 x 410 x 63 mm
Materials: wood, metal
Sound compass, tuning: variable, usually the lower tone G – d, scale from two, sometimes incomplete, to over four octaves
Performance practice: formerly an instrument of Jewish and Gypsy musicians, later folk musicians; it was played solo or in bands, particularly in the area of Rzeszów, in Subcarpathia, and the Vilnius area; dulcimers from east Lesser Poland are usually bigger and louder than those from Vilnius
Catalog card by: Maria Jost-Prześlakowska / Zbigniew J. Przerembski


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