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Repairing a Zither
Just a quick one about a very unusual instrument that came by the Jim Fleeting Guitars workshop, for repair.
This is a zither. It is a folk instrument, played with hammers, and is a precursor to the piano. Other zithers include, amongst others, the hammer dulcimer.
My job was to clean it, replace the missing strings, and tune it. Tuning it is much like tuning a piano. You have a key that turns very stiff friction pegs that tighten the strings to pitch.
First, I attached a clip-on pickup to the soundboard:
Next I connected my pickup to my strobe tuner, and set to work.
There are 74 strings on this zither, and getting all 74 perfectly in tune was a long job. Especially since it came to me not tuned up to pitch, so that bringing it up to full tension meant it had to be tuned twice.
There were 6 chords of four strings each, then 2 octaves of single note strings each one paired. For anyone clever enough to know that makes 72 strings, there is a pair of high C strings, making it 74.
Fortunately, painted on the top of the zither was the tuning, which worked out to be very handy.
3 Responses to “Repairing a Zither”
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what strings do you replace them with, guitar?
Hey, I just bought one of these and it’s missing a couple of strings, any suggestions what to replace them with?
Hey.
Standard 5 string Banjo strings work well. Rotosound make a set that they call “Swannee” which are affordable, and of a good quality. They have a good tension on a normal scale length if you are tuning to standard G tuning.