Tube zither


The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it modifies the sound and transfers it to the open air. The instruments are among the oldest of chordophones, being "a very early stage" in the development of chordophones, and predate some of the oldest chordophones, such as the Chinese Se, zithers built on a tube split in half. Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Tube zithers made from other materials have been found in Europe and the United States, made from materials such as cornstalks and cactus.
There are both round and half tube zithers, as well as tube zithers with the strings cut out of the bamboo body, idiochordic, or, rarely, have separate strings, heterochordic.

Cultural connections

The areas where the bamboo tube zither has been used was connected by trade and migrations of people. One widespread group who still have some members using the bamboo-tube zither today were the Austronesian peoples, inhabiting an area that includes Madagascar, Southeast Asia, Oceania and Taiwan.
Musicologists use iconography, linguistics, and literature to look for clues about existence and traits of musical instruments in the past, as well as modern instrument and variations among them. From these clues they create a history, basing their story of the instrument on the clues they have uncovered. Existing instruments, names in different languages, methods of manufacture and playing, music theory and tonal systems all offer clues to instrument origins. Among the historical trends in the background of the bamboo tube zither, traders from India sailed east and "passed the Malay peninsula" by the 6th century b.c. Indonesians sailed west to Madagascar by the 1st century A.D. By the 3rd century a.d, Buddhists were making statues in Java, and by the 7th century A.D. the "Indianized" Srivijaya empire was founded in Sumatra. The Khmer empire was founded in the 9th century a.d. Wars among countries and Đại Việt caused people to migrate overland, including a defeated tribe from the Tonkin plains in modern Vietnam moving overland eastward to Assam near North India.
Currently known evidence in pictures for the tube zither and bar zither dates to between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. The history of the tube zithers is interconnected with that of bar-zithers. It may not always be possible to tell from the artwork if a stick or a thin bamboo tube is being depicted on a relief artwork.

Basic divisions

Tube zithers can be divided by the materials used to create the tube and strings. They can be divided by the method used to get sound from the strings. They can be divided by the way the strings are arranged on the tube, which can interact with the way the strings are sounded. They can be divided by whether the tube is a whole tube or a half tube.
Most tube zithers are made from bamboo, a material that is naturally hollow. Other plants have been adapted to make tubes, including cactus and breadfruit trees. Half zithers are made of both bamboo and of curved-wood boards, as much a board zither as a tube zither.
After addressing the device used to stretch the strings, a tube as opposed to a stick for a bar-zither, Hornbostel-Sachs divides the tube zithers into two types, based on the types of strings they use: idiochord and heterochord. Idiochord tube zithers have "strings" which are made from the material of the tube itself. With bamboo, the surface of the tube is cut and peeled into strips, leaving both ends still attached to the tube. Small pieces of bamboo are put under the strip to make it tight. The tight strip of bamboo acts as a string and can be plucked, hammered or bowed. Heterochord tube zithers use a separate material for strings, such as wire, fishing line or guitar strings. The strings are secured to the tube on each end, and tension is placed on them. Some resemble the idiochord zithers, the string put through holes in the tube, secured there and bamboo put underneath to make them taut. Another version secures one end through a hole in the tube, the other end wrapped around a peg that can be tightened.
Another way of looking at the instruments is the way strings are arranged on the tube. Polychordal tube zithers circle the tube with string-rows. In contrast, parallel-string zithers have strings arranged in parallel, often only one pair for the tube and linked together so that they sound together.
Tube zithers may be plucked chordophones, tapped or struck percussion chordophones or bowed chordophones.

Bamboo

The bamboo-tube zither exists in the 21st century in pockets from Madagascar, to India, Southeast Asia and the Philippine Islands of Northern Luzon and Mindanao. Historically, it was found in India and China, where in the 21st century the Rudra veena and non-bamboo guzheng are modern relations. The basic instruments were constructed by cutting strips into the outer edges, raising the strips with wedges to create tension and make idiochord strings. They could be tuned by the positioning of the wedges, tightening and loosening the bamboo-strip strings. Beneath the strips, the holes started below the strips of bamboo were expanded downward, until they went all the way through the side of the tube. Modern instrument makers in Madagascar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam have taken advantage of modern materials. Fishing line, wire and other modern string materials have been repurposed as musical instrument strings, with pegs to tune the instruments. There is less fall-off of the note with the new materials and the sound of the instruments are different.
The instruments are connected with gongs in cultures in Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. When hammered, the zithers with bamboo strings have a gong or bell-like tone which rings and falls off. In Indonesia, there have been gong-ensembles made entirely of bamboo instruments, and some groups use a word for gong in the instruments' names.<--verify--> Where gongs are a public instrument, the polychord bamboo-zithers can be used privately in the home. Furthermore, with a tube-zither, a musician can play music that normally takes an entire group of gongs. Kolitong and kulibaw mimic the cyclic sequence of the gangsa. For this, the six strings of the kolitong are tuned exactly to the pitch of the gongs.
  • Cambodia: Kong
  • Indonesia: Kolintang gong) Kolitong zither
  • Tagalog: Agong
  • Sumatra: Ogoeng
  • Vietnam: Goong

    Africa

The tube zither, called valiha, arrived in Madagascar in the 15th century a.d. with the Hova people, from Indonesian Archipelago.
Two forms exist. The traditional form has as many as 14 strings cut and raised from the bamboo tube. Starting in the 20th century, the bamboo strips were replaced by metal strings, changing the instrument's sound.
Africa also uses the raft zither, in which tube zithers are put together into a single musical instrument. One example of a raft zither is the Totombito zither, from Congo. Other African examples may be found in Nigeria and East Africa.

Southeast Asia

The instruments were used differently, depending on the cultures. In Cambodia, the Kong ring was plucked, used as a substitute for the sound of a circle of gongs, similar to the way a piano can substitute for an orchestra. In the Philippines, the zither strings were plucked but also hammered with a stick, like a drum. Off the coast of Burma and Thailand, the Moken people played their with a bow.
Bamboo-tube-zithers the Kong ring in Cambodia, the Đàn goong in Vietnam. The instruments are also found in Burma and Thailand among the Pa'O, Kayaw, Sgaw Karen, Khamu and Shan peoples.
The Khamu have more than one kind of bamboo-tube zither, with bamboo strings. The bring is a parallel string zither, used fur percussion. Like other parallel-string percussive bamboo zithers, it has two stings cut from the bamboo, the stings linked together with a thin piece of bamboo, a small hole cut into the tube wall below The connector. The bring is different than many tube zithers, having the two ends of the bamboo tube open. One end is held against the musician's body while playing it, closing that end, and the musician uses a hand to cover and uncover the other hole, changing the sound. They also have zithers designed for plucking.

Indonesia, Java, Sumatra

Early knowledge of Indonesian musical instruments comes from artwork and literature of the Hindu-Javanese civilization, which began with Hindu colonists in the fifth century AD. Because bamboo instruments decay, evidence of them comes through iconography, images in art, and literature. It is likely that the instruments pre-date their first representation in imagery. The instrument is found in the Kinddung Sunda, a work in Middle Javanese which was used in about the 14th and 15th centuries. In that work, it was called the guntang, and is still called that in Bali. The instrument is found in the Kinddung Sunda, a work in Middle Javanese which was used in about the 14th and 15th centuries. It is also present in the "entire archipelago" but under different names, including the gumbeng or bumbeng.
Instruments may be created with single strings, pairs of strings, and with three or more strings. The number of strings influences how they are played. Instruments with three or fewer strings are played like drums, the strings beaten with a stick. Instruments with three or more strings may be plucked with the thumbnails. These may also be played with a combination of thumbnail and stick, the player moving back and forth between plucked and hammered notes.

Ensembles, gumbeng and chelempung

The traditional ensemble music of Indonesia centers around gong and gong-chime based ensembles, called gamelans. The music was imitated with other instruments, including bamboo-based ensembles.
The Gumbeng ensemble includes a polychordal bamboo-tube zither with bamboo strings to play melody, a second bamboo-tube zither set up as a parallel-string instrument another string making "kenong beats", a bamboo-tube functioning as "kedang" by beating open ends of the tube with the palms of the hands, a bamboo-tube instrument blown as a gong.
The chelempung ensemble or celempung, found today on Java and in places under Javanese influence, consists normally of rows of "bonang" kettle bells, in rows of 3 or 5 bells. However, instruments may substitute for the kettle bells, including a single celempung metal-stringed zither or a chelempung orchestra consisting of idiochord-bamboo tube zithers. In this last ensemble, instruments may be named for their function in the orchestra: the kendang awi replaces the kendang drum; the ketuk awi replaces the ketuk gong-chime part. Another instrument used with this ensemble is the celempung renteng, which refers to a row of parallel-string tube zithers. This row has tube zithers of different sizes, each playing a different note, like tone-bars on a xylophone. Strings tuned to higher notes imitate the gamelan chimes, and lower note strings imitate gongs.
Another zither used in the chelempung ensemble is a three-string celempung indung. The instrument is polychordal, with strings played individually to make different notes. Bridges can be placed under the strings in the center of two of the strings, allowing even more notes, on either side of the bridge. The lowest note string has been designed to make a "sustained boom" through the use of a flap, over a hole in the bamboo tubing; the flap vibrates with the string and "this sound/energy is transmitted through the length of the tube through the small hole." The kendang drum is imitated by hitting the open end of the tube with the palm of the musician's hand. A player can also influence the pitch of the sound by making the opening on the end of the instrument larger or smaller with the palm of a hand—a completely open hole makes the highest pitch sound, and closing the hole makes the lowest pitched sound.