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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;all_fakes, post: 255946, member: 55&quot;]I wouldn&#039;t call the zither in OP&#039;s photo a chorded zither; it has no arrangement at all to play chords, such as the chord bars on an autoharp or several other mechanical arrangements to play chords by damping or otherwise selecting particular strings.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; However, that usage has become common for any zither with some strings grouped to play chords, so call it what you like. There is a specific name for OP&#039;s type of zither, with a fretboard along one edge, in Germany where it was once quite popular, but I do not recall what it was.</p><p>&nbsp; &nbsp; In Tauriel&#039;s photo, all the instruments except the Appalachian or lap dulcimer and the guitar at the bottom are types of zithers, popular in the early part of the last century. It was common for the makers to give them trademarked names that had no real musical meaning; they were marketing terms - the &quot;Mandolin-Harp&quot; has no relation to either a mandolin or a harp....</p><p>To a musicologist, even the Appalachian dulcimer and the guitar are types of zithers.&nbsp;&nbsp; Musicologists recognize two main families of strings:&nbsp; zithers, with strings parallel to the soundboard, and harps, with strings at right angles to the soundboard; some put lutes in their own family, and add lyres, which have no soundboard as such.&nbsp;&nbsp; In that terminology, the guitar, the piano and hammered dulcimer are all zithers.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Ooooh.&nbsp; An excellent band!</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a very pretty tune played on the Appalachian dulcimer by Neal Walters (he also plays autoharp!):&nbsp; his composition &quot;Cheat River Waltz.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]gOJ0_ENkD8s[/MEDIA]</p><p><br /></p><p>Or Ron Wall&#039;s tune &quot;Patty Ann&quot; played by Neal Walters&#039; band Doofus, with Heidi Cerrigione on hammered dulcimer.....Ron Wall is another autoharper; he wrote the tune for his mother-in-law, better known as Mrs. Grandpa Jones, for you fans of Hee-Haw....</p><p><br /></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]QNwNuYsFtA8[/MEDIA]</p><p><br /></p><p>Got any Fairport Convention favorites?</p><p>(Apologies for wandering somewhat OT....kind of a stream-of-consciousness posting style, I&#039;m afraid)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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