Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and UniqueHipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
History
Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique
Hipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
Musical instruments
A Zulu harmonicon in two views, the back and front. There are ten
bars, each with a gourd resonator attached to it. It is played with
drumsticks, one in each hand. This Marimba was presented to me by Mr.
John Robertson, of Durban, Natal, and he has furnished the following
details respecting it.
The Zulu name, Marimba, is varied by Izambilo; the former is the
better known. This instrument is made by the Mindonga tribe, whose
country marches with the Portuguese settlement of Inhambane on the
East Coast. The wood of the bars is called Intzari. The resonators
are the shell of a fruit known as Strychnos M'Kenii, or the Kafir
orange. The balls of the drumsticks are of native rubber. The
Marimba is played either resting upon the ground or suspended from
the performer's neck by a cord. Native gum is employed to bind the
larger and smaller shells forming each resonator. The cord used is
the intestine of the aulacodus, or cane rat. As I have remarked in
describing the Siamese instruments, harmonicons of wood and metal
are very widely spread--throughout the Indian archipelago, in Siam
and Burma, among the hill tribes of India and the Kafirs of Africa.
The natives of the little American Republic of Costa Rica regard the
Marimba as their national musical instrument. The tuning follows the
equal heptatonic division, which allows of the mean or neuter thirds,
ruling in Siam, and appreciated by many Eastern ears. In Java,
however, it is not so; and, as far as could be judged, by examining
the instruments played on by the native Javese at the London Aquarium
in 1882 (other instruments apparently gave different results), there
are two distinct Javese tunings,--the one, called Salendro, an
ideally equal pentatonic, or five interval scale in the octave, the
other, called Pelog, a heptatonic, or seven interval scale in the
octave, the law of which has not been determined. From the latter are
selected sets of five notes to form pentatonic scales, presenting
remarkable differences.
INDEX
INTRODUCTION. PLATE.
AFRANIO, Inventor xxxix.
Alard, Delphin, Violinist xiv. xxviii.
"Alard" Stradivarius Violin x. xxvi.
Al F[=a]r[=a]bi, on Arab Music xv.
Anna Ghárpure (Mahrátti), on the Sitár xl.
Archlute xvi. xxi.
BACH, J.S. iv. xix. xxx. xxxii.
Bach, C.P.E. xxxii.
Bagpipe, Calabrian xv. iv.
Bagpipe, Highland xvi.
Bagpipe, Irish xv. v.
Bagpipe, Lowland xv. v.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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