The Rickert Arch-Dulcimer (unfinished post)
Never heard of an Arch-Dulcimer? Of course you haven't, as Dr. Don Rickert of Don Rickert Research & Design (owns Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments) invented it...sort of...explanation below.
In short, the Arch-Dulcimer is a double-fingerboard lap or Appalachian Dulcimer. One fingerboard is tuned like a standard dulcimer (d-a-d, for instance). The other is tuned either as a "baritone dulcimer" (a fifth lower) or as a "bass dulcimer" (an octave lower). We have not finished all of the design research, but we're looking at about a 26.5" string length for the higher part and about 29" for lower part).Experimenting with optimal rib height in order to find the the "sweet spot" between pure bass-infused power and a clear melody projection on the high notes.
We call it an Arch-Dulcimer because it is related to of the same idea as an Arch-Lute (often played by Sting these days), which has a shorter standard set of string courses and a set of really long bass/drone strings. Courses are sets of strings that are always played together...for example, a mandolin has 8 strings grouped into 4 courses.
Now, you might ask, haven't double-fingerboard dulcimers, such as the "Courting Dulcimer" been around for a long time? The answer is yes, but Courting Dulcimers are played by 2 people, sitting facing each other. The players are really close to each other, hence the term Courting Dulcimer. Lure has it that courting couples in the Appalachians used to play these things as part of the courting ritual, for lack of a better phrase...don't know about that, but a cool story nevertheless. There are some images of some Courting Dulcimers below:
Click on an image for a larger view.
If you look closely at the photos above, you will see that the fingerboards run in opposite directions (even the one with the peg boxes at the same end), as would be appropriate for their use. Generally, each half of courting dulcimer is tuned the same.
The Arch-Dulcimer is a different beast, as showing in the visual conceptual mock up below:
So, what are we looking at?
At one level, it is simply a wide dulcimer with a standard length fingerboard and a second baritone/bass fingerboard. Here's another way of looking at...a dulcimer that allows a single player more flexibility than single dulcimer and MUCH MORE. When you play either of the fingerboards, particularly in the traditional manner using a noter, the strings on the fingerboard you ARE NOT playing vibrate sympathetically to whatever you are are playing on the other fingerboard. This, of course, depends on the two fingerboards being really well-tuned and in the right keys. The intended baritone (a fifth lower) or bass (octave lower) tunings would be the right keys.
This phenomenon is demonstrated to some extent (if you have really a really good sound system hooked up to your computer) on the double neck violins played by several notable Indian (as in India) musicians. See Radhakrishna's site at www.doubleviolin.com.
Here's something you can try at home.
You need a fiddle, ability to tune and play the fiddle and a mandolin for this, so you might have to engage your friends to help out with the playing skills and/or their instruments.
Thanks it for now. Have fun.
D.R.
Arch Dulcimer, bass, baritone, Don Rickert, Don Rickert Research & Design, Rickert & Ringholz, courting dulcimer, double fingerboard, sympathetic, vibrate
If you have to ask why, see the YouTube video of a Medieval Vielle performance (Barry Hall playing).
Yes, there is a difference between a Renaissance vielle and and Renaissance fiddle...we'll talk about this in a bit, but first, what is a vielle?
Vielles were one of the instruments from the Middle Ages that evolved to the point that it can be
considered one of several instruments that inspired the modern violin. About all one can find on the market today are reproductions of one of several noteworthy medieval vielles that appeared in famous paintings. The images below show some of these. The YouTube video (at the beginning of this post) conveys the sound of a very well-made Medieval vielle in the hands of a master player. Trust me, they don't all sound this good!
Click on any of the images for a larger view.
Medieval vielles, at least in their earliest forms, were carved from a single block of wood, which was hollowed out to form the back and the ribs...a flat top was glued on.
The Renaissance Vielle was a highly evolved Medieval Vielle, usually with a much thinner waist (more like a violin). The later (15th Century) Renaissance vielles tended to be made pretty much like small guitars, with a separate back and heat-bent ribs, linings, etc. The bracing was pretty much like a guitar with struts running laterally, top and back. Sometimes the tops, instead of lateral guitar-style bracing, had a SINGLE bass bar running down the middle of the instrument; in other words, not under one of the bridge feet. This supposedly contributed to the bassy, but hollow (and sometimes raspy) period sound. Vielles were occasionally fretted, but apparently not usually.
What differentiated a Renaissance Fiddle from a Renaissance Vielle was a bassbar under the bass side bridge foot and a soundpost. Interestingly, a properly set up Renaissance Fiddle is always fretted, usually with frets of tied gut, with the fret knot on the bass side of the neck. The frets could be moved a bit to adjust the intonation, much like a modern Indian sitar.
Dr. Rickert of Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments has been experimenting, albeit on an erratic basis, with Renaissance Fiddes and modern fiddles with tied frets (15lb fishing line works a lot better than gut) for several decades. After assessing the potential market for early bowed strings, (particularly in our Japanese market), we have decided to introduce 4 related Renaissance instruments, all available with or without tied gut frets (frets standard only with the Fiddle models)
The basic form of all of these instruments is shown in the conceptual sketch below (we will have 3D CAD renderings available very soon, as we are working out the dimensions, soundhole size, etc. right now):
The four models are:
In our posting on our intent to produce, in collaboration with Fiddarci Lutherie (Helena, AL, USA) a true Chanot Violin reproduction in 2009, we alluded to octave violins. Mention was made that our earliest prototypes were based on highly-modified Chanot-type instruments (see photos). In 2009, we are going to add to our high-end collection of octave violins, one based on the authentic Chanot design. Take a look at the all too brief clip of Natalie Haas playing one of our early Octave prototypes (see link below). Also take a look at the various folks who participated in our early design research with a Chanot-type instrument.
VERY short clip from a phone cam of Natalie Haas playing an early Octave Violin prototype
Click on the thumbnails below for larger views.
The instrument you see being played has the same string length as a regular violin, but 38mm. ribs instead of the usual 29 or 30mm...lots more air space.
The Instrument We Intend to Produce in 2009
Externally, it will have about the same form factor as a real Chanot 5 string viola, but with a 14" body and 38mm ribs. It will also use some of the tuned based port technology we learned in mastering the design of small travel fiddles. It will also have one of our signature bass bars, the secret to BIG sound from ALL of our instruments. We have not yet decided on whether ours should be a 4 or 5 string yet. See photos of the real Chanot 5-string at the U.S. Museum of Music below.
Click on any image for a full size view.
We suspect that most people, even most bowed string players do not know what a Chanot violin is, but
maybe our readers and customers do, as they generally seem pretty well-informed.
For instance, our top-end Type II Octave Violin has Chanot-style sound holes, which are more like slits than f-holes. The Chanot-style slits work very well on a octave violin if one is going for a "sharper" tenor/baritone range sound that "cuts" through the sound of the other instruments in an ensemble situation. One of our customers who is best known as a 'cellist uses one of our octave instruments with the "Chanot" sound holes...sho plays it with a 'cello bow, which doesn't hurt when going for sonic power!
The term "Chanot Violin" is so abused by many resellers that any "cornerless" or "guitar-shaped" fiddle is usually called a Chanot violin. A couple of contemporary examples are pictured here, such as the Chinese-made "Bean Blossom" on the right and the "Bradivarius" (a cool name) shown on the left.
The fact is, we have not found anyone except a Singapore-based broker (The Old Violin House) that has something close to a real Chanot violin, which are produced in a number of Chinese workshops (too bad, as we don't deal in Chinese instruments). Much to thier credit, The Old Violin House is quite up-front about the origin of their instruments rather than trying to pass them off as something they are not by use of dishonest phrases like "Italian craftsmanship."
So who was Chanot and what is a Chanot Violin anyway?
In the early 1800s, one Francois Chanot designed a family of violins (violin, viola, 'cello) based on what could be called naive physics, changing the curvature of the top, the pegbox, getting rid of the the "overhang" of the top and back (using guitar-type bindings instead) and doing away with the tail piece, using a guitar-type pin plate instead. There are several notable Chanot's in the U.S. National Museum of Music at the University of South Dakota.
It is noteworthy that Francois Chanot was an instrument inventor/designer and not a luthier in the strict sense of the word. His instruments were generally built by either George Chanot (his brother if I recall) or Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume or both working together. The bowed string snobs often discounted Francois as an amateur. I wonder if Orville Gibson (founder of a little company in Kalamzoo, Michigan that bears his name...he was a designer/inventor rather than maker himself) got the same snub by the mandolin establishment? I don't know...maybe he did, but I think that the mandolin establishment was not as organized as they are now.
Note: Yours truly is primarily an inventor/designer, but Irish (both kinds--Orange and Green) arrogance, aided by the Ph.D. in ergonomics and legitimate Industrial Design credentials seem to keep the self-appointed know-it-alls at bay.
Back to Chanot violins...the images (borrowed from the U.S. National Museum of Music site) below show what we're talking about...it is one wonderfully weird-looking instrument if nothing else!
We had very good success in using cheap cornerless instruments in prototyping the earliest Rickert & Ringholz Octave violins. I was amazed at the depth and power these instruments had, strung as either violins or as octave violins. We are going to build a true Chanot replica (reverse scroll, slit soundholes, no tailpiece and all)...just have to figure out the bracing (if any) for the string pin plate.
