Something different .
A friend is closing down her Indian Furniture & Artifacts business and asked me if I would like anything .
I replied " Something musical " expecting a drum or hunting horn or singing bowl , but she gave me this ;
It has 21 strings ; 4 main strings played with a bow , and 17 sympathetic strings .
One-piece tun wood body .
Goatskin head like a banjo .
Camel bone bridge and nut .
Brass “frets”.
I shall re-string as soon as I have found a source for 20 metres of 0.012 gauge for the sympathetics .
…66cm nut-to-bridge .
Now I have ordered a bow for my NS Design NXT EUB which I am trying to learn ( pictured here for scale ) , so it looks like this winter will be a time of much tuning and learning how to bow …
Hmmm, maybe if I fitted a piezo and stood it in front of a monitor I could use it like a tunable spring reverb …
It is an amazing piece of instrument-maker’s craft . The intricate bridge with it’s 17 holes is a work of art .
How does it sound ?
Well , I don’t know yet , 2 of the 4 main strings and some of the sympathetic strings are broken , plus I am waiting for a double bass bow . But the goatskin is intact , so plucking shows that it sounds like a banjo at the moment.
I also will have to make one of the small posts that each sympathetic string diverts over . They look like bone too , so I’ll get a selection of bone from my nephew who is a butcher and find the best match .
The sympathetic ( Tarif ) strings resonate undamped like a drone tuned to the mode you choose , so apparently it can sound like bagpipes
Here is the best tuning chart I have found so far with the notes in Western naming ; Quick Guide to the Stringing and Tuning of the Small Dilruba or Esraj however it is for a dilruba with 15 Tarif strings and a further 5 Jawari strings .
Mine has 17 Tarif and no Jawari .
As you can see it is tuned to a C sharp major scale but with added Flattened 7th and Flattened 3rd on top and the Flattened 5th in the middle .
The 4 main strings are G sharp , C sharp , C sharp an octave above that you never play , and the main string that is played the most is tuned to F sharp .
The frets are only a guide ( all movable ) and are not meant to be used as frets ; the player slides along the string without pushing down onto the frets , so the spot on the playing string where the seventh fret / harmonic would be on a guitar feels like " home " tonality .
Here is an Afghani teacher demonstrating the dilruba ; Dilruba - YouTube
He is playing one with additional Jawari strings , so here is one similar to mine ; - YouTube
Finally I found this vid of a guy in his home studio playing the dilruba after 59 secs of singing ; - YouTube
Will post a recording when it is finished … and tuned .
Wow! Looks fantastic. Got to confess I read the thread title and thought you were joking about a medical complaint. Nearly bought the electric stand up you’ve got…how is it? I’m saving for the Yamaha version(going to take a while).
Could indeed be a medical complaint , the name means " Stealer ( or Ravisher ) of the Heart " ; the sound is said to steal the heart away
The electric upright bass ( EUB ) is the 4-string passive bottom of the NS Design range . I’m very pleased with it , but I’m not really qualified to compare with other EUBs , I’ve only been learning it a few months and fretless electric bass about a year now . The random occasions when I play something in tune are just rewarding enough to make me want to persevere . All the bass players who have tried it in the studio were impressed . I understand from searching the web that some owners swap the tuners and use a preamp but I haven’t found the need yet .
Does your Motu Ethno Instrument include a Dilruba and , if so , what sort of articulations are available ?
Don’t think so but I’ll check and get back to you.
Oops! Just looked under Indian instruments in Ethno2 and there it is at the top of the list! The range it gives me spans from A below middle C to G (nearly) two octaves above. The attack is quite slow and the timbre is something like a violin mixed in with the acoustics of a wurlitzer. Haunting - I get the option of an articulation something like a downward mordent but that’s probably just a traditional figure for the instrument rather than all it can do. You’re going to have a lot of fun with that.
Nearly bought the electric stand up you’ve got…how is it? I’m saving for the Yamaha version(going to take a while).
Could indeed be a medical complaint , the name means " Stealer ( or Ravisher ) of the Heart " ; the sound is said to steal the heart away 