Please see this YouTube video of traditional Baltic instruments being played...https://youtu.be/hMrumB7xMWE   Established authoritarian Musicologists have long held that "There were no bowed musical instruments in Europe before Byzantine versions were introduced in the 10th century AD."! The Bladder Fiddle Family represents a long tradition of playing a bowed bass instrument of usually only two strings and often not fingered at all but instead…

 The Bowed Psaltery consists of a scale of individual strings each tuned to a specific pitch and arranged to be played upon one at a time by a bow. Each individual string is a musical instrument in its self called a Monochord. Monochords are the earliest stringed instruments with all other stringed instruments progressing from that first development. Many different Monochords were developed by many cultures through out history. One of these, the Vietnamese Dan Bau, sometimes described as a…

  When you bravely take your Bowed Psaltery out in public you have to be prepared to say, "It's a Bowed Psaltery" while playing and explain about it little, so many people are amazed they have never seen one before and need to know "What is that?" RIGHT NOW! "Do you ever play the strings in the middle?" Is a pretty common question. You get all possible reactions ranging from complete indifference to absolute "Stop that and go away or I will hurt you." But you will find many people are…

 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/arts/music/jean-ritchie-who-revived-appalachian-folk-songs-dies-at-92.html?_r=0  If you look at one of the photos with this article about Jean Ritchie's life you might notice a Bowed Psaltery in the back ground. Jean and I crossed paths at different folk events often enough that she remembered my name and encouraged my Bowed…

  First my disclaimer: I have never built any Bowed Psalteries, I am just an avid BP player and sometimes a luthier groupie! I have however adjusted the pins, strung, and restrung hundreds of Bowed Psalteries new and old. I see older BP's that had wound strings put on them. Often the wound on wire has worn to breaking and unraveling where it goes over the top of the rail pin. If you look at an AutoHarp you will see they have the wrapping stop before the core sting goes over the bridges to…

 It is with a feeling of great loss I call the attention of the world wide Bowed Psaltery community to the passing of Pete Shutler of the English folk group the Yetties, September 23,2014. Pete was a multi-instrumentalist and singer but also the most famous Bowed Psaltery player of the 20th century. On the Yetties' albums he played "King of the Fairies",a medley of "Parson"s Farewell and Hundson House he called "Beau Psaltery", "Coventry Carol", and other tunes on the Bowed Psaltery. One…

 If you try to play with a brand new bow with brand new horse hair on a brand new string nothing will happen. No sound whatsoever. Often a luthier will when the hair has been properly a fixed to the bow use prepowdered rosin and work it in thoroughly coating every hair, as besides supplying traction where it meets the string it also acts as weather proofing and preservative, it was part of the mummification process used by the Egyptians. For a normal getting ready to play rosining hold the…

  According to Victorian age musicologist W.F.Flood in his book "History of Irish Music" "The Timpan was, in reality, a small stringed instrument, having from three to eight strings and was played with a bow or plectrum, being also called a Benn Crot,or peaked harp, by an ancient Irish writer. Recent research has almost conclusively proven that the Nabla or Psalterium-a favorite Celtic instrument from the seventh to eleventh century was generally of eight strings, and hence called the…

  Flavius Josephus was one of the most amazingly successful personalities of his time period, (at least he thought so), His incredible life story, A.D. 37 to 100, is available on wikipedia etc. Among the many volumes of books he wrote to explain Jewish traditions, theology,and history to the Roman world, he states in Book #7 Chapter 12 paragraph 3 of  "Antiquities of the Jews": "And now David being free from wars and dangers and enjoying for the future a profound peace, composed of songs and…

 I like to put my Bowed Psaltery on top of my shoulder point straight up with my ear against the back, rotate my body position so that I expose the strings to any breeze or wind blowing by, pick a location on the side of a hill with a nice view and let the wind play my psaltery! Different winds produce resonances that can build in intensity and then fade into soft wispy swirling. If the breeze allows bring your psaltery down to were you can bow along. A word of caution, prolonged exposure to…

 The much profaned Tromba Marina was originally a bowed single monochord used for both sacred and profane music. Classical paintings show a wide range of sizes being played with the bow on top with finger stopping the string from below,sometimes outfitted with a "floating bridge" meant to create special effects, one or two drone strings and later internal sympathetic strings were installed to increase resonance. In the late 1700's a version called the Trumscheit was developed by German folk…

 The "Fischer's Fidola Mandolinette Zither" from the early 1900's is an interesting combination of individual strings available to be bowed or plucked that are also set up with push button springy hammers plus another set of strings arranged in chords to be strummed! One of these has recently shown up on E Bay with excellent close up pictures currently viewable on Google Images.The photos show "D.R.W.No.246857 D.R.Patent a.". Check it out on AntiquityMusic .com. "Zither Girl" has a  video on…

    In Germany and most of Europe the rich town people,the powerful in their castles, cathedrals,and universities had their own diverse entertainments only sparingly experienced by the sometimes prosperous farmers living far from all that on the side of a mountain. These folks played their own music on their home made instruments for their own enjoyment. The Scheitholt (which means long log),Hummel (Bumble Bee!) and other musical instruments  are brought to America by the Pennsylvania Dutch…

  I was at our dulcimer fest here in L.A. last weekend. Besides playing and visiting old friends I had 4 people give me a chance to play a little game I like to play- I ask them to look at their watches before I start showing them how to play. I have a way of turning the psaltery around and holding their right hand with my left hand guiding them up and down,pull push pull push,slide,sharps and flats Twinkle Twinkle, Doe a Deer,Ode to Joy,Yankee Doodle and we're done.OK how long did that…

  Lithuanians call their version of the Kantele a Kankle and claim an ancient history of playing them with one bowed lyre type. Gusle are the bowed group Jeremy mentions with Byzantine connections. However another group of plucked psalteries called Gusli are wide spread. Please Wikipedia and You Tube all these instruments.

 If you look down your horse hair like an arrow the strands should be perfectly straight with no twisting,one hair might be doing this-clip it.Find the bad spot on the horse hair and over rosin just there.Some bows you can loosen up and carefully turn the horse hair around.A brand new string has an anti rust coating that can be causing this problem.Try rubbing the string  with 000 steel wool lightly and or a piece of expendable rosin.Check the notch on the zither pin where the string goes…