Zither

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Categories: Box zithers | Folk musical instruments | String instruments | Zithers

Concert zither, with a fretted fingerboard

The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly in German-speaking Alpine Europe and East Asian cultures. The term "zither" is also used more broadly, to describe the entire family of stringed instruments in which the strings do not extend beyond the sounding box, including the hammered dulcimer, psaltery, Appalachian dulcimer, kantele, guzheng, kanun, autoharp, Persian, piano, santur, swarmandal, and others, see list of zithers.

1 Etymology and instrument family
2 History and development
3 German zither
4 See also
5 Sources
6 External links

Etymology and instrument family

The word "zither" is derived from the Greek word kithara, an instrument from classical times used in Ancient Greece and later throughout the Roman Empire and in the Arab world (Arabic قيثارة); the word "guitar" derives from "kithara" as well.

History and development

The earliest known instrument of the zither family is a Chinese guqin found in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng dating from 433 BC, featuring tuning pegs, a bridge and goose-like feet.^[1]

In modern entertainment, the zither is perhaps most famous for its role in the soundtrack, especially in the opening scene, of the classic film noir The Third Man. The instrument has a prominent solo in one of Johann Strauss II's most famous waltzes, "Tales from the Vienna Woods". It is also used by multi-instrumentalist Laraaji on the third release of Brian Eno's ambient music series, Ambient 3: Day of Radiance. In more popular music, Australian-born singer Shirley Abicair popularised the zither when she used it widely as accompaniment in her popular TV shows, live performances and recordings in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. More recently, Jerusalem-based multi-instrumentalist Bradley Fish has used zithers in a multitude of styles on the soundtracks of various Sony Digital Pictures films.

German zither

Like many other stringed instruments, acoustic and electric forms exist; in the acoustic version, the strings are stretched across the length of the soundbox, and neither version has a neck. They can be divided into two classes: fretted and fretless. A musician that plays the instrument is called zitherist or zither player.

Image:Zither1 David Dupplaw.jpg

A fretless Musima Guitar Zither, with 45 strings (21 melody, 24 chord)