Since there are a number of bowed psaltery players on the forum, I thought folks might be interested in this.
I’m working with Rick Long of Ringing Strings to develop an ‘Irish’ psaltery. It is a soprano voiced instrument with a diatonic layout. That is, all the strings are on the right side and there are no chromatic strings on the left side. It plays the diatonic scale in D with extra strings to play C natural. This gives it the same range and capabilities of a standard D whistle using the OXXOOO fingering for C nat to allow the key of G. It also has three notes below the D for those moments when you need to dip down a little further. The scale looks like this:
B C C# D E F# G a b c c# d e f# g a’ b’
The primary range of [D E F# G a b c c# d e f# g a’ b’] is, of course, the most often used range of the whistle with the C natural stuck in there. Since the strings are all in one row there’s no ‘reaching over’ to get the F# and C# as with a standard psaltery. The instrument is also being built with short sustain in mind for fast tunes. Having only the 17 strings you need for the music, it’s also a lot easier to tune and maintain.
Oh boy. I’ve only accidently found out about bowed psalteries. I’ve read about them on-line, I understand how they work. I have never seen one in real life (darn!). When I read this, I laughed and laughed. There is going to be someone who is going to want a bowed psaltery in every key. And then there is going to be someone who wants a bowed psaltery in every key (tenor & soprano & midrange) that still have the strings on the other side for accidentals. I will try to not tease that person.
You’re not too far off. The guy building mine started the idea by having psalteries in different tonic keys. A standard instrument plays the C scale on one side with the chromatics on the other. He made one to play along with the mountain dulcimer and simply tuned every string up one whole step. The “C” side now plays in D and the C and F naturals fall among the ‘chromatic’ keys on the other side. Kind of like putting a capo on a guitar or using a different key whistle. You play it in one key and it automatically comes out in another. Theoretically, you COULD have a psaltery in every key, and if you set it up like the diatonic model above, they would be the equivalent of a full kit of whistles.
The remarkable thing is that each psaltery would be around $200 or so, about the price of a lot of whistles. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to have a bag full of them. There’s a bunch of us running around here with a grand or so in whistles, right?
And then there would be the side market, like there is with whistles stands and whistle bags. I’m thinking a cart would be needed to haul multiple psalteries.
Well, a full compliment of them would probably weigh in at ninety or a hundred pounds so, yeah. Think of the opportunities. But who would want to have to tune around 400 strings?
