Musima chord zither
Jun. 6th, 2022 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellerI promised zither pics, didn't I?
This "Musima" 3-chord zither is a relatively new instrument, built in 1987 in the former GDR. (I'm calling it relatively new because, frankly, not many zithers are being built these days.) You may notice that 3 chords (C, F, G) are not very many. While this immediately invites all kinds of communism jokes (it's the GDR, they couldn't afford more chords... you know, you know), in this particular case it's not that they ran out of tones. Rather, it's an instrument intended for children. It's almost normal-sized (it has to be, considering the length of the strings demanded by physics) and - very unusually - has a full chromatic (!) scale. (Typical chord zithers tend to have ten tones per octave. This one actually has twelve. It's a bit weird, but, okay. I'll have to get used to it.)
Ahem.
Anyway - I got this one not because I expected to receive a good instrument (it's a GDR product, ffs!) but because I liked the design. The flower motif is a classic - this particular combination of flowers (poppy, cornflower, ...) isn't chosen randomly but represents the typical flowers you'd find growing on the edge of a grain field. As a whole, this design represents something like a good harvest or, more generally, prosperity. It's very common in German folk art. It's less common to put it on a bright orange background, though. XD I think the designer chose this a) to make the instrument more appealing to young girls, and b) because orange is associated with autumn and harvest, too, so it's strangely appropriate. I think it's a really cool design!
The sound quality is... Well. I wonder why-oh-why this sounds like a badly made plywood box with some wires. (It's bad plywood, too...) At least it's in good shape - no cracks in the wood, no rust on strings or pins. Of course, I wasn't able to tune it yet (you know how it is with wood instruments: they need to get used to the new room climate for a few weeks first; otherwise, they will be ruined), and actually playing it is going to be difficult because of the weird tuning, but it's a cute instrument for sure! :3
This "Musima" 3-chord zither is a relatively new instrument, built in 1987 in the former GDR. (I'm calling it relatively new because, frankly, not many zithers are being built these days.) You may notice that 3 chords (C, F, G) are not very many. While this immediately invites all kinds of communism jokes (it's the GDR, they couldn't afford more chords... you know, you know), in this particular case it's not that they ran out of tones. Rather, it's an instrument intended for children. It's almost normal-sized (it has to be, considering the length of the strings demanded by physics) and - very unusually - has a full chromatic (!) scale. (Typical chord zithers tend to have ten tones per octave. This one actually has twelve. It's a bit weird, but, okay. I'll have to get used to it.)
Ahem.
Anyway - I got this one not because I expected to receive a good instrument (it's a GDR product, ffs!) but because I liked the design. The flower motif is a classic - this particular combination of flowers (poppy, cornflower, ...) isn't chosen randomly but represents the typical flowers you'd find growing on the edge of a grain field. As a whole, this design represents something like a good harvest or, more generally, prosperity. It's very common in German folk art. It's less common to put it on a bright orange background, though. XD I think the designer chose this a) to make the instrument more appealing to young girls, and b) because orange is associated with autumn and harvest, too, so it's strangely appropriate. I think it's a really cool design!
The sound quality is... Well. I wonder why-oh-why this sounds like a badly made plywood box with some wires. (It's bad plywood, too...) At least it's in good shape - no cracks in the wood, no rust on strings or pins. Of course, I wasn't able to tune it yet (you know how it is with wood instruments: they need to get used to the new room climate for a few weeks first; otherwise, they will be ruined), and actually playing it is going to be difficult because of the weird tuning, but it's a cute instrument for sure! :3
