JEW'S HARP     


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The jew's harp

         The jew's harp is one of the most earliest musical instruments made by people. It is widely spread all over the world and it is used by many nations. They usually reveal two basic types of jew's harps: a tabular one and an arched one. A tabular instrument is made of an entire lamella of bone, wood and metal. Such jew's harps as a rule are to be pressed not to teeth but to lips. So they produce a sound pulling a special string or the edge of the instrument.


         The second type, the arched one is supposed to be more perfect. It consists of two parts of a frame and a reed. There are the following names of parts of the frame: the ring - the incurved part of the frame from which two straight arms branch. The arms have got flat faces which are called cheeks in Yakutiya. These flat faces form the edge combining with each other. This edge is placed with a small gap near the edge of the reed. The reed has got the basic part, the bend, the knee and the loop if to search it from the fastened end to the loose one.
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© Vladimir Markov 2009, this article translated by Natalia Ivanitsa