Tambourine de Bearn

Tambourine de Béarn
Cécile Nuñez plays Tambourin de Béarn and one-handed flute (flabuta) in Le Passage, Gascony, 2016.
Cécile Nuñez plays Tambourin de Béarn and one-handed flute (flabuta) in Le Passage, Gascony, 2016.
Other namesstring drum, tambourin de Gascogne, tambourin à cordes, Pyrenean string drum, ttun-ttun, toun-toun, psalterio salmo, chicotén
Classification String instrument
Playing range
Drone (sound)
Related instruments
Hammered dulcimer, Tabor, Psaltery, Zither, Aeolian harp
Sound sample

The string drum or Tambourin de Béarn (in German) is a long rectangular box zither beaten with a mallet. It is paired with a one-handed flute (French: galoubet) with three finger holes, similar to a pipe and tabor.[1] It has also been called tambourin de Gascogne, tambourin à cordes in Catalan, Pyrenean string drum, ttun-ttun in Basque [cunˈcun], salmo in Spanish, and chicotén in Aragonese.[2][1][3] It was known in the middle ages as the choron or chorus.[4]

In specific usage, this name denotes a form of long psaltery-styled instrument that is tuned to provide drone chords when drummed. It can be found in a similar body shape with three to eight strings. The tuning is often held in root, tonic and dominant, or root and fifth. That with one Psaltery-related instrument is easy to play because the strings are struck with a mallet as a whole.

The name salterio or psalterium for the instrument comes from Yebra, Spain. Researcher Violet Alford said that it was a mistake to include the stringed drum under the name of psalterium, the Latin name of a strummed or plucked instrument.[2]

Curt Sachs described the Tambourine de Béarn as being from South France, a "longitudinal zither with thick gut strings tune to tonic and dominant."[5] The effect was two tones at the same time perceived together as a chorus.[4]

It has five or six strings tuned in 5ths.[2]

  1. ^ a b "Musical Instruments". Wood-n-Bone. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 29 January 2008.
  2. ^ a b c Alford, Violet (1935). "Some notes on the Pyrenean Stringed Drum with five musical examples" (PDF). International Journal on Basque Studies. 26 (3). Eusko News & Media: 567–577. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2008.
  3. ^ Blades, James; Cyr, Mary; Kettlewell, David (2001). "Tambourin de Béarn [tambourin de Gascogne, tambourin à cordes] (Fr.)". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.27441. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  4. ^ a b Marcuse, Sibyl (1975). A Survey of Musical Instruments. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 200–202, 559. ISBN 0-06-012776-7.
  5. ^ Sachs, Curt. The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 312.