Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1011060231360.12339@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: yet another strange instrument
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2010 02:32:15 -0400 (EDT)
yet another strange instrument this time a bass zither, probably american, maybe made by washburn/lyon and healy, has that sort of purfling. the fingerboard is troublesome, two of the five strings are shot. the bass strings really _are_ bass strings; the chord strings are also deep. the instrument is huge for a concert zither with a thick top and bottom. i'm still trying to get it to hold tune. http://www.alansondheim.org/bz1.mp3 and http://www.alansondheim.org/bz2.mp3 which sounds slightly like pipa. after i reset the action and it sounds duller, but that might be the result of the contact mic/amp combination; the mic is sandwiched between two pieces of cork beneath the instrument. there's no label. it's worth listening to these for the tone color, strangeness, something like five octaves to play around with, and strange fingering technique. lao tzu would say sounds leap out of sounds. that's how these pieces were intended (that's how they were meant to be).