Hammered dulcimer
String instrument whose strings are struck with mallets.
What it means
The hammered dulcimer (German Hackbrett) is a string instrument whose strings are struck with two mallets. Many strings run over bridges and are arranged in courses over a flat, usually trapezoid resonating box. Players hold a light wooden mallet in each hand and strike the strings with them.
Musical use
The hammered dulcimer is widespread in the folk music of the Alpine region, Eastern Europe, and other regions and is related to similar instruments of other cultures, such as the Persian santur. In Hungary the large concert form with dampers and pedals is called cimbalom; it is used, for instance, in Zoltán Kodály's Háry János Suite. Its sound is bright and glittering and can be strongly graded by the stroke.
The hammered dulcimer should be distinguished from the zither in the narrower sense, which is plucked, and from the piano, in which the strings are struck by hammers via a keyboard mechanism. The hammered dulcimer has no keys and is played directly with the mallets; it is regarded as a forerunner of the piano.
Performance practice
Hold the mallets loosely and let them rebound at once after the stroke so the string rings freely. Practise alternating strokes of both hands and damp with one hand when a note is not to ring on.