Martin Jonas
Jun-09-2006, 2:31pm
Last week, I received a waldzither I won on Ebay Germany for a very good price. It's a gorgeous instrument in great condition -- the seller has played it regularly for many years and has looked after it well.
Really nice woods and nice workmanship, straight neck, perfect action. Scale length is 43cm (17 inches). There's a top crack, but it has been repaired and doesn't look like it needs attention. The top is also slightly depressed around the bridge. The seller assured me that it had been like that for all the years he has had it and that there has been no additional sinkage. I'll keep an eye on it.
As waldzithers go, this one is the Vogtland type. Waldzithers come in three types: Thuringian, Hamburg and Vogtland. The most authentic ones are the Thuringian type, which are basically renaissance citterns coming out of a time warp. In the 1890s, Hamburg instrument maker Boehm started copying them, changing the headstock to the Portuguese-type tuners one sees on Fado instruments. They were built in vast numbers, and are probably what people think of when they hear "waldzither" (if they don't think "what on earth is that"...). Quite a few Irish session players have Boehm waldzithers, after Andy Irvine introduced it to Ireland. The Vogtland region of Saxony (around Markneukirchen) was the centre of craft-based German instrument-making in the late 19th/early 20th century. Most old German mandolins come from here, and most Vogtland waldzithers look much like overgrown German semi-roundback mandolins (what they call "Portuguese" style), with slotted headstocks and multi-stave backs. They were typically made in small local workshops by master luthiers, and then sold to a handful of large music dealers who labelled them up with their own label.
This one is no exception, bearing the label of Julius Heinrich Zimmermann and the year 1925. At the time, Zimmermann were Europe's largest music dealers (they still exist now), so the Zimmermann label gives little indication of the actual maker. It's untypical, though, in that it doesn't have a slotted headstock and in that it has a flat two-piece back.
It came strung up with fairly new waldzither strings, tuned to an open C chord: CGCEG, with the single bass string being one octave below middle C. It may sound nice with its traditional tuning, but I can't play it, so I've measured the gauges, calculated the string tensions from the pitch, and reckoned that I could string it GDAEB instead, extending the range at both ends. The low string is five semitones down from C to G, and the high string is four semitones up from G to B.
With that tuning, I match the original overall tension almost exactly if I use a set of medium mandolin strings for the four double courses DAEB. I chose Newtone mediums phosphore bronze, which are .010 to .037. For the single bass string, I calculated that a .056 guitar string would exactly match the original .044 string for tension. The local shop only sold guitar singles in .058 and .052. The heavier of these was impossible muted, but the .052 works pretty well. Not the world's strongest bass, but that's not surprising for that body size and that scale length for a pitch one octave down from the mandolin G, but perfectly serviceable on chord playing if a bit weedy for melodies. They only had steel-wound single guitar strings at that gauge, so I guess I should look for a phosphor bronze one instead.
With these strings, this is a very nice 5-course cittern, tuned like an octave mandolin with an extremely handy additional top string which extends the first position up to the E, which one would need to play on the 12th fret of the OM.
It really is a nice tone, too. Not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting a lower version of the somewhat boomy tone of the German semi-round back mandolins, but this one is much more mellow than that, very complex, and more reminiscent of an old English cittern. I love it.
Martin
Really nice woods and nice workmanship, straight neck, perfect action. Scale length is 43cm (17 inches). There's a top crack, but it has been repaired and doesn't look like it needs attention. The top is also slightly depressed around the bridge. The seller assured me that it had been like that for all the years he has had it and that there has been no additional sinkage. I'll keep an eye on it.
As waldzithers go, this one is the Vogtland type. Waldzithers come in three types: Thuringian, Hamburg and Vogtland. The most authentic ones are the Thuringian type, which are basically renaissance citterns coming out of a time warp. In the 1890s, Hamburg instrument maker Boehm started copying them, changing the headstock to the Portuguese-type tuners one sees on Fado instruments. They were built in vast numbers, and are probably what people think of when they hear "waldzither" (if they don't think "what on earth is that"...). Quite a few Irish session players have Boehm waldzithers, after Andy Irvine introduced it to Ireland. The Vogtland region of Saxony (around Markneukirchen) was the centre of craft-based German instrument-making in the late 19th/early 20th century. Most old German mandolins come from here, and most Vogtland waldzithers look much like overgrown German semi-roundback mandolins (what they call "Portuguese" style), with slotted headstocks and multi-stave backs. They were typically made in small local workshops by master luthiers, and then sold to a handful of large music dealers who labelled them up with their own label.
This one is no exception, bearing the label of Julius Heinrich Zimmermann and the year 1925. At the time, Zimmermann were Europe's largest music dealers (they still exist now), so the Zimmermann label gives little indication of the actual maker. It's untypical, though, in that it doesn't have a slotted headstock and in that it has a flat two-piece back.
It came strung up with fairly new waldzither strings, tuned to an open C chord: CGCEG, with the single bass string being one octave below middle C. It may sound nice with its traditional tuning, but I can't play it, so I've measured the gauges, calculated the string tensions from the pitch, and reckoned that I could string it GDAEB instead, extending the range at both ends. The low string is five semitones down from C to G, and the high string is four semitones up from G to B.
With that tuning, I match the original overall tension almost exactly if I use a set of medium mandolin strings for the four double courses DAEB. I chose Newtone mediums phosphore bronze, which are .010 to .037. For the single bass string, I calculated that a .056 guitar string would exactly match the original .044 string for tension. The local shop only sold guitar singles in .058 and .052. The heavier of these was impossible muted, but the .052 works pretty well. Not the world's strongest bass, but that's not surprising for that body size and that scale length for a pitch one octave down from the mandolin G, but perfectly serviceable on chord playing if a bit weedy for melodies. They only had steel-wound single guitar strings at that gauge, so I guess I should look for a phosphor bronze one instead.
With these strings, this is a very nice 5-course cittern, tuned like an octave mandolin with an extremely handy additional top string which extends the first position up to the E, which one would need to play on the 12th fret of the OM.
It really is a nice tone, too. Not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting a lower version of the somewhat boomy tone of the German semi-round back mandolins, but this one is much more mellow than that, very complex, and more reminiscent of an old English cittern. I love it.
Martin