jeudi 8 mai 2014

The Origin Of The Psalteries

By Essie Osborn


The psaltery is a very known instrument during the olden times. It is a string instrument that is actually from the same family as the zither or the harp with the only difference is that one would be using a bow to play it like a violin. If one is curious as to how psalteries originated, here is a brief background of this very influential instrument.

Nowadays, this instrument has already become a little bit different as compared to its forefather as it is now bigger and has a triangular shape. Like its forefather, it has a bunch of strings that would make sound but the only difference here is that there are some pins attached to it. Unlike its forefather, the modern one uses a bow to make music.

Now even though the original psaltery was created quite a very long time ago, the bowed version was only invented during the twentieth century. The earliest version was made sometime during the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar from the Bible wherein his servants would use it in order to entertain him. So as one can see, this instrument had a very rich history which began even during the Bible times.

Now other than the Bible, one could actually also find some records of this instrument that would date back to the Medieval period or even the Renaissance period. Of course during this time, this instrument was already slightly modernized in order to sound better. The middle of the psaltery now had a hole so that the sound could echo further and make a solid sound.

It was only during the nineteen twenties that the bowed version was introduced into the modern world. It was created by a German and a patent of it was issued to the German company Clemens Neuber Company which meant that only they could reproduce the instrument during that time. During this time, they were known as violin zithers and it was also during this time that they began to get really popular.

After the creation of this one from the German company, the Americans tried to create something rather similar. They used Hawaiian culture as an inspiration for this type of instrument that they were creating. They called this creation of their the Ukelin and the sounds were actually quite similar to that of the Hawaiian ukulele.

Now the end of the Second World war saw the wide popularity of this thing known as the psaltery. It was first popularized by none other than the musical teacher Edgar Stahmer as he used it when conducting his music classes. German primary school teacher Walter Mittman followed in his footsteps and eventually made the instrument even more popular.

These days, many people still play this instrument as a hobby. Now there have been many innovative ways that were created in order for people to play them. From the traditional hand plucking and strumming method, people were then able to play them with bows and nowadays there are many types of bows that one can play this instrument with.




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