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Both traditional and modern types of Kantele as well as the whole class of Baltic Psalterium belong to the category of horizontal harp. This means that strings are placed in horizontal dimension unlike for instance in the case of Classic Harp, and a tone of each string is different because of different length of strings and not because of their different thickness. Unlike modern versions of Kantele, traditional instruments were always made of a single piece of wood with a quite simple instruments. There are plenty of types and local varieties in construction of traditional Kantele. The main difference is between Kantele which are roughly triangular in outline (pic. 1) and Kantele which have a kind of a wing-like extension called lapa (pic. 2). Triangular shape is more characteristic for Suomi people and also was common among Vatja people. Among Karjala people both types of instruments were widespread. Kantele with lapa were more peculiar for Vepsad, Setu, Isora people. The main construction element of the instrument is a resonator box. It is formed by carving a pit-like cavity into a body of an instrument. In many cases (but not at all always) it was covered with a kind of a deck. The way a resonator was carved was different. In many cases it was carved from a bottom side. In this case a resonator box was always left open. Sometimes resonator was carved from a long side and rarely from a short side of an instrument. In this case a hole was usually covered with a long thin board. Many of the instruments have a resonator box carved from a top side which was always covered with a desk. Strings of the instrument were usually made of steel or sometimes bronze and only rare items have remains of strings made of horse hair or tendon. The usual number of strings is five. Only few items have less strings. It seems to be that these instruments with a small number of strings were made not for the usual playing because most of the traditional melodies require at least five tones. More often number of strings exceeded five and could have been as large as twelve and sometimes up to twenty strings were attached to an instrument. |
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