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Hammered Dulcimer Means ‘Sweet Melody’ |
| by Hope Grietzer |
This fall, the Black Rose Acoustic Society will be offering hammered dulcimer lessons under the guidance of former National Hammered Dulcimer Champion Randy Zombola as part of our group lesson program at Meeker Music. We’re pleased to have the opportunity to help spread the magical sounds of this vibrant and historical instrument. Click here for lesson details.
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So just what is this odd looking instrument? It’s been lovingly called an “industrial cheese slicer,” “the poor man’s piano,” and “the world’s largest dust collector.” The Latin translation of the word dulcimer is “sweet melody.” A century ago the hammered dulcimer was nearly as commonplace in the musical community as the guitar is today. But today most people could not identify the dulcimer either by sight or sound. The hammered dulcimer is trapezoidal in shape, with strings arranged in groups of two to six each. The strings of each group, or course, are tuned to the same pitch. The dulcimer is played with small wooden hammers or mallets. The heads of the hammers are usually spherical or hemispherical in shape, and can be covered with different materials to create different sounds: felt or yarn produces a soft sound, while leather gives a loud bright tone. |
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The dulcimer can be both a lead and backing instrument. Chords are produced by sequentially striking a series of arpeggios or by simultaneously striking two harmonic notes in the chord. A roll can be produced by the rapid, controlled bouncing of a hammer on a string, kind of the same effect you get when you trap a ping-pong ball between a paddle and the ping-pong table.
The hammered dulcimer was originally brought to North America by early colonists from Europe, and migrated west as the country was settled. The areas composing the American frontier from 1810 to 1840 were western New York, Ohio, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. For families preparing to make the perilous journey west in the early 1800s, every inch of space was needed for the necessities of the trip and for survival on the new frontier. So, as families sorted through their belongings to pack for the trip, the piano was often left behind.
In this new frontier, the role that the piano had played in social gatherings was filled by its much more portable cousin, the hammered dulcimer. It’s no coincidence that these frontier locations were the areas that the dulcimer had its greatest popularity, and where the strongest remnants of its use survive today. Records exist of the dulcimer being used not only at dances and parties, but in church services as well. Thousands were produced in homes, small wood-working shops, and factories. In the latter part of the century they could even be obtained mail-order through Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and Montgomery Ward catalogs.
The dulcimer was most commonly used for playing reels, jigs, hornpipes, schottisches and waltzes, usually with the accompaniment of a fiddle and guitar or bass. As the instrument gained in popularity throughout rural and small-town America, the upper classes of society became interested in it, and a parlor version of the instrument, complete with a veneered rectangular body, carved wooden legs, and a hinged cover, was developed. With the cover closed, the instrument appeared almost as an oddly-shaped piano.
The dulcimer remained most popular with the common people, and never quite reached the same level of social prestige as the piano. With the construction of the railroads in the mid 1800’s, transportation concerns were no longer an issue, and the piano once again began to be accessible in even the remotest regions of the country. Music educators at the time believed that studies of European classical music would be the best way to promote taste and refinement on the new frontier, so studies of the violin and piano were encouraged, while indigenous folk music was frowned upon. All of these factors contributed to the decline in popularity of the dulcimer. Skills were not passed down to succeeding generations, and the instrument survived only in isolated pockets.
In the 1920s and 1930s there was a brief resurgence of the hammered dulcimer, fueled (pardon the pun) by automobile producer Henry Ford. Ford believed that old-fashioned music and dancing promoted old-fashioned morality, and formed the Henry Ford Early American Orchestra in 1924. Among other instruments, the group contained a fiddle, double bass, and hammered dulcimer. They played on several radio shows and regularly performed at square dances at the company’s headquarters. The band was active until Ford’s death in 1947.
Today the hammered dulcimer is once again gaining in popularity. Many artists are experimenting with expanding the repertoire of the instrument to explore the potential of its unique shimmering yet percussive sound. The National Hammered Dulcimer competition at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas attracts competitors from across the nation and showcases the wide variety of musical forms that this instrument can encompass.
Bibliography:
Groce, Nancy. The Hammered Dulcimer in America,” Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.
Pickow, Peter. Hammered Dulcimer. Oak Publications, 1979.
The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sadie, Macmillan Press, NY, 1984.
