Other types of zither also existed in Germany, mostly drone zithers like the scheitholt (which was mentioned by Praetorius) or hummel, but these generally have their own individual regional names and may have been in use before the introduction into the lexicon of 'cythara' and its German derivative cognate. It is not fully understood how 'zitter' or 'zither' came to be applied to the instruments in this article as well as German varieties of the cittern. The German scholar Michael Praetorius mentions an Englishman who came to Germany with a small cittern, einem kleinen Citterlein, in his treatise Syntagma Musicum, published during the early 17th century. The word 'zither' is derived from Latin cythara, which was used in this form for the title covers on many 16th and 17th century German printed manuscript books originally for the 'cittern' – from the Greek word kithara, an instrument used in Ancient Greece. These variants all use metal strings, similar to the cittern. Chord zithers similar to the instrument in the photograph also became popular in North America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Emigration from these areas during the 19th century introduced the concert and Alpine zither to North and South America. Concert and Alpine zithers are traditionally found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, France, north-western Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, Alpine Europe, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In modern common usage the term "zither" refers to three specific instruments: the concert zither (German: Konzertzither), its variant the Alpine zither (each of which uses a fretted fingerboard), and the chord zither (more recently described as a fretless zither or "guitar zither"). The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty. Like an acoustic guitar or lute, a zither's body serves as a resonating chamber ( sound box), but, unlike guitars and lutes, a zither lacks a distinctly separate neck assembly. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, the term refers to a larger family of similarly shaped instruments that also includes the hammered dulcimer family and piano and a few rare bowed instruments like the bowed psaltery, bowed dulcimer, and streichmelodion. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum. This article describes the latter variety. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body.
Zithers ( / ˈ z ɪ ð ər, ˈ z ɪ θ-/ German:, from the Greek word cithara) are a class of stringed instruments. Problems playing this file? See media help.
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