Re: OT: Chinese zither

At 03:02 PM 9/17/03 -0700, Padraic wrote:
>--- Isidora Zamora <isidora@...> wrote:
>
> > How difficult is it to make an instrument like
> > this?
>
>Easy, but difficult. That just about sums up
>instrument building in general! The principle is
>easy, the execution can be excruciating.
Back when I was in school, a good friend of mine, who was a violin
performance major, introduced me to a friend of hers who was also studying
at the School of Music.  He was learing to make violins, etc.  I learned
just how excruciating some of the steps could be.  I don't remember what it
was that they used for varnish, but I seem to remember that they had to
keep it heated up and do the entire proceedure out of doors.  (Now that
must have looked strange to passers-by.)

>Find yourself Paddington Press's "Musical
>Instruments". It's essentially a catalogue of
>instruments divided by sound production
>technique.
I shall find it.  If I can't find it at my local library, then chances are
that Amazon carries it.

> > The culture that I would like to have
> > strings is a pretty technologically unadvanced
> > one.
>
>That shouldn't stop them from developping an
>amazing array of string (and other!!) musical
>instruments.
Good!  They sing a lot, so I think that it would make sense if they played
instruments.

> > They do not have metalurgy.
>
>Not needed. Strings can very satisfactorily made
>from hair (horse is a favourite,
Well, they don't have horses.  I haven't made the final decision yet
whether they keep donkeys.  It's a question of whether they could keep
enough donkeys around to form a large enough breeding population for it to
work.

>  human would
>work)
Well, they all wear their hair quite long :-)

>, gut, tendons,
I thought that these would work.

>  plant fibres or bamboo
>strips.
This is new to me.  Could you really make, for example, linen instrument
strings?  They do have bamboo now, but 500 years ago, I don't think they
did.  (They were driven out of their previous lands.)  Or will bamboo grow
in just any climate?

>  Tuning pins will need to become larger
>wooden tuning pegs. All of that could be made
>with stone tools.
Which is all that they had until they came in contact with other cultures
who had metal, and that was probably 1000 years ago or more.  So they could
have had stringed instruments in the period predating that.  That's good.

> > (Which means that they make
> > excellent stone weapons.)  They
> > don't manufacture metal items themselves, but
> > they do buy steel knives,
> > iron nails, and other metal items from the
> > people who live to the south of them.
>
>Oh I didn't know! Nails can easily be used for
>hitch pins; steel knives can carve wood very
>easily; and who's to say they couldn't barter for
>bronze or steel strings!
Believe me, every Cwendaso who can afford a steel knife owns one and takes
good care of it.  Many households own steel knives specially designed for
fileting fish -- these people won't serve any animal roasted whole:
butchering should be accomplished before the meal is served, not during the
meal, in their opinion.  There is not really a lack of metal implements,
they just never bothered to learn to work metal themselves because they
could obtain metal articles in trade.  For whatever reason, though, metal
arrowheads have never caught on.  Metal spear-heads have only partially
caught on.

I do suspect that the culture to the south of them (same one that drove
them out of their previous lands) has enough technical expertise to make
metal strings.  (How do you make metal wire, anyway?)  I hadn't thought of
it until now, but metal strings should be well within their technical
capabilities.

> > For musical instruments, I already know
> > that they have flutes and drums.
>
>What kinds of flutes?
Bamboo.  Though if they didn't have access to bamboo 500 years ago, then it
would have to have been some other material, perhaps bone.  What else can
you make them out of?  The flutes are made as either single instruments or
in pairs or trios.  The members of a pair or trio are carefully tuned to
each other in order to be played in ensemble.

Sorry, forgot to give the more pertintant details to your question of "what
kind?"  Transverse flutes.  Not end-blown or pan-pipes.

>  Drums?
Wood body, skin head.  They hunt just about anything that moves, so they
have no lack of skins.  (I've actually been wondering what they *do* with
all that leather.  Most of their meat comes from hunting, but most of their
clothing is make of wool from the sheep they keep.)  I don't know many
details on the drums, really.  I don't think that they make giant ones for
musical purposes.  OTOH, perhaps they do make giant ones for non-musical
purposes, such as summoning people together, much as we would use a
bell.  That sort of drum would have a body made out of a section of the
trunk of a large tree, hollowed out, with the skin of a large animal
(aurochs, perhaps) stretched over the top of it.  Musical drums would be
much smaller.  Perhaps they pitch their drums, or have the drumhead
attatched in such a way that the pitch can be altered at will; I know
that's possible.

>  Any reed
>instruments?
Never thought about it until you asked.  How difficult is a reed
instrument.  I know very little about them, other than that there are
single-reed and double-reed, and I understand the method of sound
production.  I suppose that the book you mentioned would show me types of
primitive reed instruments.

> > What is the minimum amount of technology needed
> > to make stringed
> > instruments of any sort, plucked or bowed, with
> > or without resonators?
>
>Practically none. They can make stone tools -
>that's really all the technology that's required.
Ok, great.  This would mean that they could have had stringed instruments
since the beginning of their history.

> > What sort of stringed
> > instrument(s) would be likely in a
> > culure like this?
>
>Turtle shell harps? Skull resonator harps. Any
>number of lyres and zithers. Fiddles. Just about
>anything. They could make a fine bumbass.
What's a bumbass?

These people have access to bison and aurochs horns.  What can be done with
these musically?  I know that you ought to be able to turn them into war
horns (as well as drinking vessels), but how musical can you get with
something like this.

I think that I would like these people to have more instrumental music than
I have given them so far.  They are fairly low in materal culture, but in
spite of all appearances, they are not really a primitive people.  *They*
consider themselves to be more civilized than their southern neighbors who
have all the technology.  Of course, the sotherners with their vastly
superior material culture see things the other way round :)

>I've got a couple Mongolian horse hair fiddles.
>One is a carved wooden body with (horse?)hide
>resonator and horse hair string. The other one is
>more like a modern cello in size and construction
>and has two horse hair strings.
>
>I'm looking into a Bulgarian fiddle and also own
>a hurdy gurdy.
Cool.  I have a bamboo flute (of domestic make), a gourd-resonator marimba
(also of domestic make), and a clay ocarina that I bought in Prague.  And I
dearly wish that I had bought those (obviously ethnic) pan-pipes that I saw
in a store window in Roskilde, Denmark.

BTW, PVC piping, found at any plumbing store, actually makes a homemade
flute or panpipes with decent sound quality; tuning's the problem with the
flute.

Isidora

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