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Psaltery History
To quote Grove's Dictionary of Musical Instruments, a psaltery is "an instrument of the zither family consisting of a raised wooden board, or a wooden box with soundholes, with strings stretched parallel to the soundboard and attached at either side by wooden pegs or metal pins.
Usually the strings are plucked, by the fingers or by plectra."
As the definition above indicates, throughout most of its history, the psaltery has been a plucked instrument. While we can be sure that at different times in the past, various musicians experimented with bowing it, it does not appear that this was a common technique until well into the twentieth century. The present form of the bowed psaltery was developed in Germany as a teaching aid for young music students. The instrument not only handles easily but
replicates the piano keyboard, facilitating the translation of musical ideas.
The bowed psaltery is primarily a melody instrument and I believe that it sounds best when used to play a slow melody line with other instruments providing a chordal back-up. It can also be used to play recorder music (the range is similar to an alto recorder) and works well in duet. You can also learn to play some harmony by laying the instrument in your lap and using two bows. The easiest way to do this is by playing third harmonies with your melody.
Relax, enjoy, and make music.The term psaltery has been used for hundreds of years to describe a wide variety of musical instruments. While it is impossible to determine the exact
instrument mentioned in the Bible, it was most likely a harp-shaped instrument. The term psaltery probably began to refer to box shaped zithers sometime in the third century.
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