How do you play Finnish kantele?
On the kantele, you can play single notes by plucking single strings with your fingers. For playing chords, you touch the strings you want to mute with your fingertips and then strum over all strings with your fingers or a plectrum. The kantele is a rather simple instrument: there are no frets, no bridge, no nut.
How is a kantele tuned?
The kantele has a distinctive bell-like sound. The Finnish kantele generally has a diatonic tuning, though small kanteles with between 5 and 15 strings are often tuned to a gapped mode, missing a seventh and with the lowest pitched strings tuned to a fourth below the tonic, as a drone.
What is the meaning of kantele?
Definition of kantele : a traditional Finnish zither originally having five strings but now having as many as thirty.
How much does a kantele cost?
The standard 5-string kantele ($165 for an open bottom model, $185 for one with a bottom and a soundhole in the top) is about 22 inches long, 2.5 inches deep at the deepest part, and about 4 inches wide at the widest part.
What key is a kantele in?
Since the kantele is tuned to the key of D, the chord you have played by strumming the first, third and fifth notes of the scale is the D chord. Here is how to make the V chord, the dominant chord, on a five string kantele: lightly touch the first and third strings.
Where was kantele invented?
Finland
The kantele is the national instrument of Finland. Finnish folk poetry recounts that the first kantele was made from the jaw bones of fish and the hair of young maidens. When the first kantele was played, the sound was so beautiful that all living things started to cry.
What is a Finnish kantele?
The kantele is a traditional instrument of the Finnish people, categorized as a lap harp, and deeply tied to the folklore and folk music of Finland. Kanteles have a distinctive ringing sound, due to the absence of a nut or bridge, and the use of wire for the strings.
Who made the kantele?
Paul Salminen
The first concert kantele, or machine kantele, was invented in the 1920’s by Paul Salminen.
Is a kantele a harp?
The kantele is the Finnish version of an instrument known throughout the world as either a zither or lap harp.