Thanks for all these comments bradrn!
bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:45 pm
As usual, I have some comments:
sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 9:58 am
Since
endi also means woodwind instrument, it’s tantalising if a bit romantic to imagine this idea catching on from a multi-instrumentalist using their flute/whatever to excite the strings of a vyon. Perhaps as a folk-etymology.
This sounds somewhat unlikely to me… even
aeolian harps are pretty quiet, and those have the full force of the wind exciting them!
I mean the
physical body of the flute.
As to how hair came to be added... Possibly there was already a tradition of transverse, haired lyre-bowing in Ereláe, but also a tradition (perhaps more widespread, given how easy a stick is to come across or make compared to a haired bow) of using beaters. Practically, the transverse haired technique became standard by (maybe) renaissance times due to its much greater capacity for resonance in melodic playing, but linguistically the beaten technique won out as a way to describe both, probably because it was more deeply embedded in folk tradition.
Indeed what developed into the modern endi bow may have been seen as a way to achieve both techniques, given that the reverse and tip of a haired bow need be no different from parts of a stick. Beaten (baďul ?) playing may still form a key part of endivyón playing, particularly in folk contexts; bowing with the hair might be referred to as something to do with nüle… (‘curl, lock of hair’), or lir referring to its more melodic character — lirtene? Baďul playing may also be particularly associated with accompanying the voice.
Another alternative: it’s possible to make a bow out of a single rosined stick of wood, without any hair (attested with the yazheng and ajaeng). The hurdy-gurdy uses a similar technique. So the hair may not be needed at all: you might be able to get away with bowing with just a stick.
Yes. Bowing with a stick was implied (in my head at least) as a transitional step. Whilst there are conflicting theories I've come across some reading tonight that argues that this was in fact the case on Earth anyway. Assyrian illustrations show rods being used with lyres; some think that this was a bowing technique from the off, others that bowing developed from inaccurate beating. When hitting a string with a rod, it will be quickly noticed if it slips at all that friction can produce a sound too.
(Others still think that bowing of any sort didn't develop until the 10th century; but I'm a bit suspicious of that.)
This would have ramifications for the design of the modern endi bow, given its more central dual purpose. Its tip might have a slightly bulbous ending for baďul finta (?) ’tip-beating’ … a technique without European equivalent that I can find — would potentially carry quite well, if my experiments are anything to go by
Unless I’m missing something, this sounds pretty much exactly like a
hammered dulcimer (complete with bulbous ending). As it happens, this is also the same technique used by pianos, so if you add a sufficiently good soundbox to the instrument it could carry very well indeed!
I think what you're missing is that the other side of this tool is a haired bow! The
endi bow is a composite tool, with three methods of exciting the string built into one. When I say
baďul ab fintan is a technique without European equivalent, I mean that within the violin/viol family, or any instrument with a fingerboard, there is no tradition (known to me) of hitting the strings with the
end of anything. This actually can produce quite a good sound even in terrestrial instruments that are in no way optimised for it (to experiment I'm using a dried stick I found in the forest, and a 2/4 size battered up old violin that I got for £5 from a charity shop... not instruments created by a master luthier specifically for this purpose!).
Also that the modern endivyón, if it is enough of an analogue of the violin to be translatable as 'violin', doesn't produce notes with a particularly long decay, so being beaten doesn't have the same effect as for a dulcimer. It's not just the soundbox that contributes to this but also the tension and material of the strings, as they are now optimised for the kind of resonance you get from friction from a haired bow, not from beating. Dulcimer strings are played unstopped, too, of course, which means they enjoy their full resonance.
The picture I was trying to paint was basically this: the older vyons generally had longer, less tense, less dense strings, giving them a long decay (though not a great deal of volume); they were thus more suited to being beaten with sticks - and often were, without needing to be called anything other than 'vyon', as this was just one of several ways of playing them. The newer endivyón is still often beaten because that technique (and 'soundworld') is still culturally important, but the modern instrument is less resonant than the older one when so played. This seems a bit paradoxical - the instrument that gets called the 'stick-lyre' is the one that's less resonant when beaten with a stick - until you factor in that during this transition
the way the stick was generally being used (and optimised in design) is simultaneously transitioning from beating to bowing. The two parts of the modern endivyón (bow and fiddle) are thus a bit like the rare specialised hummingbird and its rare specialised flower, optimised for each other. I hope this makes a bit more sense.
[The vyon] was originally an n-frame instrument with no fingerboard.
One clarification: what’s an ‘n-frame’?
Just a frame that looks like a letter 'n'! I wanted to say π-frame. I also wanted to say dolmen-frame. And doorframe(-frame...). What is the right way to refer to this shape?? Π
The strings were plucked with the fingers of the right hand or possibly a plectrum. The fingers of the left hand were used to mute certain strings to produce chords and harmonics; multiple tunings existed, though commonly strings were tuned to the tonic, supertonic and dominant to allow easy production of chords I and V. Pressure could be applied with the flat of the left thumbnail to the side of the outer string, or less effectively the undersides of the others, to allow a skilled player to produce a melody on a single string with a chordal accompaniment.
Hmm, so like an
autoharp? You might consider making two descendants of this: the violin-like vyon, and a more autoharp-like one for harmonic accompaniment.
Yes, like that in that you're muting strings to get the chords you want. Not really like that, though, in any other way (i.e. the mechanical aspect or shape or technique or whatever). But of course, something like the autoharp might also have developed.*
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know this already, there's evidence of the ancient Greek lyres and the Welsh crwth being played in a similar way as I described and it was probably a very common way of playing lyres in the ancient world - you just gently touch the strings that you don't want to sound in the chord (being careful not to touch a harmonic node, I suppose, or press too hard) and they are effectively muted. If your instrument is tuned cleverly enough you can get a bunch of useful chords from
omitting notes this way.
*There are a few nice details in Almeopedia etc about instrument making, including the entry about Kainan, surcont of Solhai in the 3480s, who tinkers with complex mechanics and makes presumably sophisticated musical instruments chiefly out of wood due to a paucity of metals in Solhai. You bringing up the hurdy-gurdy and the autoharp made me think of this.
