8/27/2023 0 Comments Zithers![]() ![]() The soundboard generally features a guitar-like sound-hole, and the top may be either solid wood or of laminated construction. The autoharp body is made of wood, and has a generally rectangular shape, with one corner cut off. In litigation with George Orthey, it was held that Oscar Schmidt could only claim ownership of the stylized graphic representation of autoharp, the word itself having come into generic use.Ĭonstruction Autoharp photographed in 2003 The USPTO registration, however, covers only a “Mark Drawing Code (5) Words, Letters, and/or Numbers in Stylized Form” and has expired. Music Corporation, whose Oscar Schmidt Inc. The word is currently claimed as a trademark by the U.S. As a result, Zimmermann is widely but incorrectly regarded as the inventor of the instrument in its now familiar form.Ī form of the term autoharp in stylized lettering was registered as a trademark in 1926. He labeled them autoharps and included his own name and patent number. In 1885, after returning from a visit to Germany, Zimmermann began production of instruments with the Gütter design. Karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany, built a model that he called a Volkszither, which was more clearly the prototype of the autoharp in its current form. It is not known if Zimmermann ever produced such instruments commercially. He called a zither-sized instrument using this mechanism an “autoharp.” Unlike later designs, the instrument shown in the patent was symmetrical, and the damping mechanism engaged with the strings laterally instead of from above. Zimmermann, a German immigrant in Philadelphia, was awarded a patent in 1882 for a “Harp” fitted with a mechanism that muted strings selectively during play. in 1896–99 (left is a marxophone, right is a dolceola)Ĭharles F. The term autoharp was once a trademark of the Oscar Schmidt company, but has become a generic designation for all such instruments, regardless of manufacturer. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. ZimmermannĪn autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. Not only have we assembled all the individual nki files into one big instrument, but we also recorded a new "finger" articulation, added more features and gave everything a new design.Karl August Gütter, Charles F. With update 2.0, we now have a completely new instrument. The Concert Zither is a perfect supplement to all the other Cinematique Strings instruments: rare and unique. Here you find a great assortment of rare and exceptional FX string sounds.įinally, we included an arpeggiator and a step sequencer to add even more possibilities to this instrument. Besides the principal complex patches, we provide another 4 useful FX patches: glissando (controlled by the mod-wheel), rotary, drive and an octaver. To shape the sound, we added a complex script to achieve many variations of the Concert Zither. These notes were recorded with two different microphones: a large-diaphragm condenser pair and a classic dynamic microphone. In detail, you get five articulations: Finger, Plec, Muted, Reverse, and Bow. We additionally recorded the 31 accompaniment strings in a muted variation. Firstly there are two main patches with all 36 strings recorded in 4 round robin variations and several (up to four) dynamic layers. Finally, we assembled 5 different patches. We handled the Concert Zither harshly: We plucked, stroked and strummed all the strings to get every possible sound, noise and articulation the Zither can produce. The concert Zither has a rough and dirty sound often described as "mellow". The strings are arranged as follows: 5 fretted melody strings, placed above a guitar-like fretboard, then 14 unfretted "accompaniment" strings followed by 11 unfretted "bass" strings and finally 6 "contrabass" strings. The Zither instrument we are presenting is a Concert Zither. The instrument became famous due to the charismatic central theme composed by Anton Karas for the 1949 film noir called "The Third Man". The Zither is commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, northwestern Croatia, and Germany's southern regions. It is played by strumming or plucking the strings with fingers or a plec. The Zither is a stringed instrument, having many strings stretched across a thin, wooden soundbox. ![]()
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