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  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by NewGuise View Post
    A quick Google search led to the youtube source: it's "The Rakes of Kildare,"
    Rakes of Kildare sounds a lot like Muckin o Geordies Byre
    I note that it appears that one tune is Irish, one is Scottish.

  2. #22
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    There are two native Appalachian instruments called "dulcimers", one hammer, one lap. Both seem to derive from instruments brought into Northern Appalachia by the so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch", their provenance being German, not "Scotch-Irish".

    It's odd, therefore, to see both instruments being often associated with Irish traditional music in the USA.

    I think it was started when Derek Bell, on The Chieftans 5, played in addition to harp, a Romanian folk instrument called the cimbalon. Rather than calling it what it was, the The Chieftans called it "a reconstruction of the ancient Irish tiompan." Tiompan is one of many words for musical instruments that occur in old Irish writings; too bad that we don't know what these words actually refer to. So The Chieftans calling Derek's cimbalon a tiompan was all about marketing and not so much about historical accuracy.

    Anyhow The Chieftans go on to do concerts in the USA and everyone sees Derek playing this thing that sort of looks like an Appalachian hammer dulcimer and sounds very much like it, and Americans make the leap that the Appalachian dulcimer is Irish.

    Nowadays many if not most hammer dulcimers are made specifically for the USA Irish music scene and many have Celtic decorations on them etc.

    Likewise the Appalachian lap dulcimer has made this odd leap and I've seen them covered with Celtic decoration etc... what an odd fate for a German zither!

  3. #23
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    Depends on who you talk to. I once visited with a Persian (This was back during the hostage crisis so he didn't want to be called Iranian) who told me of a middle east legend that King David played an instrument similar to the hammered dulcimer, as well as the harp. They are certainly shown on carvings on some egyptian sites. Many cultures have this kind of instrument in their heritage - clear into the far eastern orient. The German 'Hackbrett" was developed from something else. Many cultures have names for it.

    They have spread so far and wide you really cannot say the Celtic people didn't have them a long time ago.

    As far as the lap dulcimer, that is controversial also. Some insist it was first made in the Appalachians. It's somewhat similar to the Swedish 'Hummel'.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
    There are two native Appalachian instruments called "dulcimers", one hammer, one lap. Both seem to derive from instruments brought into Northern Appalachia by the so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch", their provenance being German, not "Scotch-Irish".
    according to the Smithsonian, the dulcimer came to America from England. http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_Si/nmah/hdhist.htm
    "Dulcimers were reasonably common domestic and concert instruments in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. No doubt they were first brought to the colonies from England where they were used in the street music of the time."

  5. #25
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    Well, the people at the Smithsonian are wrong about other stuff too- they think each Native American language is an isolate, and don't recognise any larger groupings (the nasty Greenberg v Smithsonian controversy).

    If it came from England, or Ireland, where is the evidence? Where are the examples? These phrases like "no doubt..." are red flags warning the reader that the writer has no evidence.

    These people need to read a bit on the subject.

    The first systematic examination of existing Appalachian dulcimers was undertaken by L Allen Smith in A Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers, which I have in front of me now.

    In it he writes:

    "That the Appalachian dulimer evolved from the Pennsylvania German Zither is the most widely held theory... those who have argued against this theory have postulated two means by which the dulcimer appeared in the Appalachian Mountains: first, that it evolved form another version of the European instrument, and second that it spontaneously appeared in the Appalachian Mountains without reference to previous instruments. The first possibility was endorsed by John Jacob Niles, Jean Thomas, and, on the lack of any other evidence, by Henry Mercer, all of whom claim that the dulcimer is a descendant of an English instrument. This rather untenable postition was fully discussed by Seeger and it need not concern us here. There remains the possibility that fretted zithers were made in the United States by emigrant groups other than the Germans, for example the Scandinavians, but there is no record of Scandinavian migrations into the Upland South on the same scale as the Pennsylvania German migrants, and it has been shown that the fretted zither probably did accompany the Pennsylvania Germans into the Upland South.
    These writers and those who endorse English origin were working with very little data and seem to have been influenced by a reluctance to admit the Pennsylvania German influence and a predisposition for things American and English. The instruments in the Catalogue here show that Pennsylvania German zithers can be found in many areas of the Upland South and were therefore at least a part of the cultural inventory of the inhabitants quite possibly before the dulcimer was developed."

    What the Cataloque has done is to examine all known existing pre-1940 Applachian dulcimers, whether in private hands or museums, establishing for the first time evidence of evolution of the instrument, different schools of makers, and regional variation.
    Last edited by OC Richard; 19th December 09 at 05:09 AM.

  6. #26
    MacBean is offline Oops, it seems this member needs to update their email address
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    Don't miss the video immediately Next!

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