Monochord

[eller]

For anyone who thought the Scheitholt looked a bit too complicated... This is a monochord, the simplest imaginable zither. Dad built that a few years ago.



I didn't even know about its existence because it was in Dad's collection of homemade musical instruments. (He said it was stored "right next to his selfmade xylophone", which is an instrument I don't touch. Ever.) Maybe, at some point, we should make a proper inventary within the family, considering I own some instruments that surprised Dad, and clearly, he didn't always inform me about his crafting projects... LOL. (Granted, we own a sh*tload of questionable instruments, most of which aren't considered instruments by civilized people in the first place, so, it's hard to keep track...)

Comments

[yhlee]

Yesssssss, this is awesome. And hey, the Mongolian "horse-headed fiddle" (morin khuur [Wikipedia]) only has two strings, so here's to minimalist folk instruments! :D

Honestly I would love to see your family's collection of instruments someday, just out of musical interest. XD

[eller]

Heh, maybe next weekend I'll take some photos... :D Photographing everything all at one will generate some logistical issues due to, uh, limited living-room space, but I'm sure Dad will be happy to show off his favorite instruments. I grew up thinking it's perfectly normal to have so many things!that!make!noise - due to an unfortunate lack of musical talent (as in: I am the family failure when it comes to music), my own collection is comparatively small, but. Uh. Four pianos and some stuff...

[yhlee]

The only people I've ever known who owned more than one piano were private piano instructors who had multiple pianos at their home studios for their students to practice at! :D I find it hilarious that after I bought ONE digital piano (easier to keep in tune!), I kept getting ads for MORE PIANOS as if I were some kind of piano hoarder. XD Someday I might upgrade to one of the fancy digital pianos that lets you change the "instrument" (e.g. from a Yamaha sound to a Bösendorfer or whatever) but for the moment my basic instrument serves my needs.

I was something of an instrument hoarder when I was younger, before the flood decimated my collection...classical guitar, a couple ocarinas, multiple harmonicas, soprano recorder (that survived), alto recorder (that didn't), viola, panpipes (unfortunately a crucial pipe was cracked and unplayable and I never found out if a repair was possible), mandolin...the only thing stopping me from resuming my INSTRUMENT HOARDING WAYS is the knowledge that my husband will complain. XD

[eller]

I think I still have a mandolin... Somewhere in the musical chaos. XD

My grandfather was an active musician - not professionally, but he played at village festivals and such. Also, he was extremely good. Wasn't able to read notation or anything, but, you know, the kind of person who could play any musical instrument after five minutes of getting acquainted with it. (Piano lessons? Who needs piano lessons? All you need to remember is that the deep tones are on the left and the higher ones on the right...) Dad and his brother inherited a bit of that. I didn't. XDD But, anyway, this resulted in a household that had at least one of everything... We still have an old accordion and a trumpet that none of us can play. Also, more percussion than should be legally allowed.

[yhlee]

I love that. I once had an argument with my husband as to whether people can compose without knowing music notation - the answer is obviously OF COURSE THEY CAN MUSIC PREDATES NOTATION but for some reason he thought you had to know music notation to compose?! (Counterexample: HANS ZIMMER. Only one of the most successful living film composers...) :D :D

My parents refused to let me learn percussion and I still have regrets - it would have been so helpful in later writing percussion lines for my compositions. I just wing it. XD

[eller]

Also, music notation is culture-specific, and - very obviously - not only Europeans and Americans managed to successfully compose music. ^^ Some kind of notation is helpful to keep track of stuff, but... Uh. It's not like little dots on lines are a necessary prerequisite... (And if you play instruments that use different notations, the whole thing becomes more confusing than helpful, anyway.)

I was encouraged to learn any and all instruments I wanted, it's just that I... wasn't very interested?!? I actually did okay with piano and percussion, and I can sort-of play harp, zither, clarinet, guitar, drums, and some unmentionable folk instruments - but I think Dad deeply regretted letting me have flutes. Oh, the infernal noise... XDD

[yhlee]

Yep! I actually have a book on Korean musicology and Korean music notation looks WILDLY different, ditto Chinese notation for the guqin (probably others).

Here's an example of Korean notation for a piece of ritual music, from Lee Hye-ku's Esasays on Korean Traditional Music, trans. Robert C. Provine:



And an example of guqin notation from Standards of the Guqin 4th ed., Juni L. Yeung and the Toronto Guqin Society:



:D

[eller]

Cool! :D I mean, obviously, I have no idea how to read that, but I'm entirely unsurprised they developed their own notations.

[yhlee]

I can't either - I'm guessing you "only" need to know a limited set of Chinese characters (= hanja in the Korean example) but the guqin textbook has like a dozen pages of required characters and their meanings that you just have to memorize - of course you have to do the same with Italian terminology in classical Western music anyway. XD I would not be surprised if the Korean notation was at least somewhat based on the Chinese example, but I don't actually know that for sure.

[eller]

I'm afraid reading about the guqin has only convinced me I never want to be anywhere near a guqin... It's super scary! XDDD

[yhlee]

Also the cost. A new one goes from like $300 for a beginner instrument on up (and up and up, I'm sure). But yeah, those people are so deadly serious about the guqin I would be terrified to try.

I also discovered that for some reason, if you search "chord zither" on eBay, along with a bunch of German chord zithers, you also get a ton of hits for...the Korean gayageum - which is a zither, but it's much more similar to a koto or guzheng or guqin.

[eller]

"A new one goes from like $300 for a beginner instrument on up (and up and up, I'm sure)."

That sounds perfectly reasonable, actually. It's not as if other instruments are cheaper, unless you really make do with firewood.

"those people are so deadly serious about the guqin I would be terrified to try"

Same. I'm not actually a bad zither player - as in, yes, I'm perfectly aware of the different types of touch with which you can achieve different sounds, I can do that - but, these guys have different names for each of those methods and are deadly serious about when and how you're allowed to use them?!? Scary. I'm quite sure an actual guqin player would wish me dead after hearing, like, three notes. (Or less.)