Dulcimer

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Dulcimer

Two types of dulcimer: An Appalachian dulcimer... ...and a hammered dulcimer.
String instrument
Classification	Plucked string instruments Struck string instruments
Developed	Antiquity
Musicians
List of Appalachian dulcimer players List of hammered dulcimer players

The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments.

Hammered dulcimers

The word dulcimer originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of this instrument are found in many cultures, including:

• Hammered dulcimer (England, Scotland, United States)
• Hackbrett (southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
• Tsymbaly (Ukraine), tsimbl (Ashkenazi Jewish), țambal (Romania) and cimbalom (Hungary) may refer to either a relatively small folk instrument or a larger classical instrument ("cimbál" in the Czech Republic). The santouri (Greece) (called "santur" in the Ottoman Empire) is almost identical to the Jewish and Romanian folk instruments.
• Santur (Iran and Iraq)
• Santoor (northern India and Pakistan) is constructed and tuned differently from the santur of Iran and Iraq
• Khim (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand)
• Yangqin (China), Đàn tam thập lục (Vietnam), yanggeum (Korea)

Appalachian mountain dulcimer and derivatives

In the Appalachian region of the U.S. in the nineteenth century, hammered dulcimers were rare. There, the word dulcimer, familiar from the King James Version of the Bible, referred to a three- or four-stringed fretted instrument, generally played on the lap by strumming.

Variants include:

• The original Appalachian dulcimer
• Various twentieth century derivatives, including
  • Banjo dulcimer, with banjo-like resonating membrane
  • Resonator dulcimer, with inset conical resonator
  • Bowed dulcimer, teardrop-shaped and played upright with a bow
  • Electric dulcimer, various types of dulcimer which use a pickup to amplify the sound

References

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