dulcimer = yangqin

Oh pity my ignorant soul!

I watched this youtube video (below), and was shocked to my socks (even though I'm not wearing any now, not having progressed so far in age that I'm wearing socks. in the tropics. at home. in the middle of the night. while typing at my comp.) that the dulcimer in the video looked totally like a yangqin to me.



I'd always known a dulcimer was some sort of medieval instrument, always thought it was English, always thought it was somewhat guitar-like. Bless me poor soul, I was actually thinking Appalachian dulcimer (thank goodness for Wikipedia). The HAMMERED dulcimer is totally different, and apparently the yangqin (according to Wikipedia again) is (probably) an imported Persian dulcimer. (so not all dulcimers are English then)



I've always been impressed by the yangqin, largely because it looks as if you need ultra-good eyesight and super-fast hands to play it. I've also been fascinated by traditional Chinese music (yet another topic I'm totally ignorant about dammit). I'd love to learn more, and even better, to learn how to play a Chinese instrument, but woe is me, I don't think I'll ever get around to it. *sigh* I really want to learn the guzheng (along with a million other things).



I really love the 'voice' (I can't think of another word) of the guzheng. Here I'm especially looking at the way you can control the sounding of the notes. (ok, I really really don't know anything about the guzheng, and I don't know whether anyone understands what I'm saying, but this is what I like, and I'm saying it in the only way I know how, so suck it up.)

I've been looking at a lot of Celtic songs and forums (because somehow when you're searching for folk songs online you end up smack in the middle of Celtic land) and the orientation tends to be nationalist. While I have no problem with the nationalism, and in fact, think the national history (myth or otherwise) contributes to the appeal of the music, it also saddens me that along with the nationalism comes a lot of xenophobia and tonnes of flaming.