Interesting Session: hammered dulcimer interest

[Bob Womack]

Yesterday on my birthday, I got a call at work from a producer saying, "We've booked you to record a soundtrack starting today at 1:00pm. You'll be recording a "gmnoon" (I didn't get the name of the instrument). Can we bring the instrument down now to acclimate to your studio?" "Sure," sez I.

I looked up the instrument on Wikipedia and it is a descendant of the Egyptian harp. It is called the "Qanun." (Kha-NOON). So here is what arrived:


It is a 60 year old instrument from Egypt, technically called an Arabic Qanun. It has 72 strings, mostly unwound nylon or gut. Except for a couple of bass courses, they run mostly in courses of three. The bridge on the left has feet that rest on four tympanic membranes made of fish skin. It is tuned with the friction pegs on the right using a wrench. Just to the left of the tuning pegs and "nut" is an interesting feature:



There are "mandals," or pivotable sub-bridges at the "nut" end of the instrument, five in a row for each course. They can be pivoted down out of the way during play to alter the string length, allowing the player to alter the tuning of the courses or entire instrument. He can work in Western Equal temperament or go to a half-tone or quarter-tone scales at will.

The instrument is played on the lap. The player wears an adjustable metal band on each of his index fingers that carrys a pick under his index fingertips.


You can see one of the pick arrangements here on his left hand by the water bottle. He can pluck or strum the instrument. HERE is an example of the techniques and sounds of the instrument. Vibrato is achieved by rhythmically pressing behind the mandals or between nut and tuner. One technique you don't hear on the clip is a cascading series of triplet arpeggios that are used. Notice the exquisite fretwork on the sound holes of the instrument. As you can see in the last picture, I placed a pair of AKG C451Bs in X-Y pattern over the soundboard at the bridge end, about eighteen inches up and it gave us a nice spread across the stereo soundstage. We recorded for about three hours as he improvised to picture and will continue for about three more today.

Our very pleasant performer told me he is hoping to travel to Eqypt soon and commission one of the most famous Qanun makers, Ozan Yarman, to build him a Turkish Qanun, something like this,



which allows him seventy-two note divisions per octave. Note the ten mandals per course on this instrument. You cans see this instrument by Mr. yarman in an article at Wikipedia HERE .


Bob

[J.R. Rogers]

Wow - that's the first time I've heard of the Qanun. Very interesting. Thank you!

JR

[riorider]

Nice post, Bob. Interesting tones and visuals on that instrument.

Thanks!

Phil

[Bob1131]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this with us, Bob.