How is a Psalterion played?
psal·ter·y An ancient stringed instrument played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum.
What country is Psalterion instrument?
psalterion, salteire; Ger. Psalterium; Ital. salterio, istrumento di porco), an ancient stringed instrument twanged by fingers or plectrum, and mentioned many times in the English Bible; a favourite instrument also during the middle ages in England, France and Italy. It is.
What is the use of harp instrument?
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, including standing or sitting and in orchestras or concerts.
What is Psalterion harp?
psaltery, (from Greek psaltērion: “harp”), musical instrument having plucked strings of gut, horsehair, or metal stretched across a flat soundboard, often trapezoidal but also rectangular, triangular, or wing-shaped. The strings are open, none being stopped to produce different notes.
How old is the psaltery?
The psaltery first appeared in Europe in the 11th century and consists of a wooden resonating box with a varied number of wire strings stretched across it. Historically, wire strings were made of brass, iron, silver or gold.
What kind of instrument is harp?
stringed instrument
harp, stringed instrument in which the resonator, or belly, is perpendicular, or nearly so, to the plane of the strings. Each string produces one note, the gradation of string length from short to long corresponding to that from high to low pitch. The resonator is usually of wood or skin.
How many different types of harps are there?
What type of harp? There are two main types of harp – lever harps and pedal harps. Lever harps are diatonic and have levers on the strings which can raise the string by a semitone.
What is the classification of Psalterion?
Psalteries are members of the zither family, instruments having strings extended across an armless, neckless frame or holder; non-Western psalteries are thus sometimes referred to as zithers. The dulcimer is a psaltery having strings that are struck with hammers rather than plucked.
What type of instrument is a cittern?
plucked stringed musical
cittern, plucked stringed musical instrument that was popular in the 16th–18th century. It had a shallow, pear-shaped body with an asymmetrical neck that was thicker under the treble strings.
Who invented the psaltery?
The psaltery appears to have been invented in Southwest Asia in the 9th century BCE. Early biblical images show King David (c1040–970 BCE) holding one (also a harp or a lyre—see biographies for these instruments here and coming soon) so we know that it made its way to the Middle East.
Is the psalterion a dulcimer or a harp?
In the sometimes confusing nomenclature of early instruments, the psalterion was not a psaltery, but the name for a nearly triangular harp in classical Greece and, by the time Mersenne was writing, a hammer dulcimer (which is unrelated to the modern Appalachian or lap dulcimer).
What kind of string instrument is a psaltery?
A psaltery (or sawtry [archaic]) is a stringed instrument of the zither family.
What was the name of the harp in ancient Greece?
A psaltery ( Greek: ψαλτήρι) (or sawtry [archaic]) is a stringed instrument of the zither family. The psaltery of Ancient Greece ( epigonion) was a harp -like stringed instrument.
What kind of strings did medieval harps use?
The strings of the medieval instrument were usually made of metal, unlike the finger plucked harp made with gut strings. There are many illustrations that show the instrument being played with a plectrum.