(As far as I can Ascertain)
By Phillip Mason
It is, of course, a foolish venture to take any ancient folk instrument and place its exact origins to a specific date and personage. Stringed instruments have been around for thousands of years, and during their evolution have been both plucked and struck, in fretted and unfretted forms, from times dating back into antiquity.
The history of the dulcimer (the prefix “hammered” or “hammer” has only been around for the past few years to distinguish it from another popular instrument, the Appalachian Mountain plucked dulcimer) is very often misrepresented, as is the Appalachian dulcimer, by performers, writers, and scholars who have not done their research properly and have relied on vague contemporary information often based on a fanciful oral interpretation… For example, many people believe that the dulcimer was a popular instrument many centuries before the birth of Christ and point to Old Testament Biblical references to ‘dulcimer’ to authenticate their claims. Well, the fact is that English biblical translators back during the Elizabethan era were simply using the word to describe an ancient Hebrew musical instrument which they knew nothing about. Some authorities feel the bagpipe was actually the instrument in question, and it certainly was much in vogue during that period of history.
Yet another claim to place the dulcimer’s appearance during the period before the birth of Christ are references to an Assyrian bas-relief stone carving of about 667 B.C. found near Nineveh depicting an Assyrian King celebrating a triumphal procession. In this carving an instrument of many strings is suspended from the neck of the player and is apparently being struck with a stick in his right hand, while the palm of the left hand seems to be checking the tone. This carving may, or may not, depict the first known hammered instrument, but it clearly is not a dulcimer, nor does it even closely resemble one. Even the Persians claim that their dulcimer (santur) was not invented until the 9th century A.D. by Abu Nasre Farabi (a Persion philosopher and musician). At any rate, if the pre-Christian Persians had invented and popularized the dulcimer, there is no recorded history of it in existence, nor is there a speck of solid historical evidence of any dulcimer (as we know it today) until its appearance in Europe a thousand or more years after the birth of Christ – almost two thousand years after the Assyrians supposedly invented it….. quite a gap indeed.
What do we really know about the history of the dulcimer for certain? Well, no one can say for certain just when the hammering or beating of strings to produce music first began. Many cultures, widely scattered around the globe, have an ancient musical heritage pointing to stringed musical instruments which are plucked or struck in one fashion or another. The dulcimer, as we know it today, is undoubtedly the direct offspring of the plucked psaltery.
The psaltery is a very old instrument physically similar to the dulcimer in many ways – the main distinction being that the strings of the psaltery are plucked with either the fingers or plectrum, while the dulcimer is played primarily with a pair of hammers as the implements to activate the strings. From its origins in Asia Minor, the many-stringed psaltery slowly spread westward into Europe, becoming fairly well known there during the Middle Age. Exactly when musicians began striking, instead of plucking, the strings of the psaltery is not certain, but it is not difficult to imagine a psaltery player discovering the unique qualities gained from this instrument by striking the strings long before the instrument and its players evolved it into a definite form designed to be struck with hammers rather than plucked. Also quite hazy is exactly when the dulcimer as it is now known throughout most of the northern hemisphere came into being.
The dulcimer first appeared in Western European art and literature sometime during the early 15th century. One early documentation of the dulcimer comes from a carving incorporated into the Cathedral at Manchester, England, built around 1450. This carving depicts an angel playing the dulcimer. In any case, several more centuries were yet to pass before the instrument gained a widespread popularity and began a rapid spread in its new form back into the Arabic world and the Far East, the traditional homes of the psaltery. The dulcimer was first found in China in the early 1800s and Korea claims an early association with it beginning in the early 1700s.
The piano is a descendant of the dulcimer, and indeed when Christoph Schröter unveiled his first piano in Dresden in 1717, he named it the Pantaleon after his friend and colleague Pantaleon Hebenstreit, whose dulcimers were his direct inspiration to invent his pianoforte. An earlier piano was invented in 1709 by the Italian, Bartolommeo Christofori, although his inspiration for coming up with the idea is not known as far as I can determine. By pressing the damper pedal of a piano you will allow the tones to continue to sound after the fingers have left the keys, thus pretty much imitating the sound of the dulcimer played with felt padded hammers.
The dulcimer seems to have come to America early on with the first English settlers, although Germans and other groups besides the English have maintained hammer dulcimer traditions in this country since the early days. During the mid 1800s the dulcimer became so popular in America that many factories began mass producing them. Most of these factories were located in the northeastern and midwest states. One firm’s dulcimers, Lyon & Healy of Chicago, were even sold through mail order catalogs at the turn of the 20th century.
For some reason, the period following the turn of the century saw a rapid decline in the popularity of the dulcimer and brought the piano to the forefront. Pockets of dulcimer players and makers survived however, and again brought the instrument back to the attention of the people during the wave of interest in old-time music which has been taking place for the past 10 or 15 years. Even in this late and lively revival of folk music the dulcimer has been slow to surface.
