Jouhikko

The jouhikko is a traditional, two- or three-stringed bowed lyre, from Finland and Karelia. Its strings are traditionally of horsehair. The playing of this instrument died out in the early 20th century but has been revived and there are now a number of musicians playing it.

The Jouhikko is also called jouhikannel or jouhikantele, meaning a bowed kantele. In English, the usual modern designation is 'bowed lyre' though the earlier preferred term 'bowed harp' is also met with. There are many different names for the instrument and for its close relatives in neighbouring regions.

The early history of the jouhikko is obscure, not least because of the many related instruments from neighbouring regions. Perhaps the earliest definite depiction of this kind of instrument is the stone carving from Trondheim Cathedral, Norway, dating from the second quarter of the 14th century.

18th-century writers in Latin mention instruments that seem to be a jouhikko, but the first illustration comes from c. 1830 CE. Folk music collectors in the late 19th and early 20th century visited players in Finland and Karelia, and collected instruments, noted tunes, made field recordings and took photographs.

The jouhikko repertory was mostly collected in the field by A. O. Väisänen from 1913 to 1961. The jouhikko was used for playing dance music, and the collected tunes are very short, and were largely improvised. The scale of the jouhikko is only 6 notes, with a constantly sounding drone.

In a three-string jouhikko, the middle string, or in a two-string instrument, the lower or left hand string, is the drone string. Absolute pitch is not fixed, but in Nieminen's charts this is given the note d. The upper or right hand string, passing over the finger-hole, is fingered to give a scale, and this scale typically runs upwards from the note a 4th above the drone, or in Nieminen's charts, g a b c d e. The third or left hand string can be tuned down to a lower drone, or up to provide one of the melody notes.

The strings are stopped by touching them with the back of the fingers (the knuckles or nails), as there is no fingerboard to press the strings against. This fingering method is rather similar to the igil or the sarangi which also lack fingerboards. To touch the melody string the hand is inserted through a hole in the flat wooden board that makes up the top third of the instrument.

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Wikipedia