page_title: Zither
section_title: Concert and Alpine zithers
hierarchical_section_title: Zither / Concert and Alpine zithers
caption_attribution_description: Zither (Konzertzither) quote from caption on wikipedia:de:Zither: "alpenländische Zither in Salzburger Form"
context_page_description: Zither is a class of stringed instruments.
  The word Zither is a German rendering of the Greek word cithara, from which the modern word "guitar" also derives. Historically, it has been applied to any instrument of the cittern family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body – similar to a psaltery.
  Zithers are played by strumming or plucking the strings, either with the fingers, sounding the strings with a bow, or, with varieties of the instrument like the santur or cimbalom, by beating the strings with specially shaped hammers. Like a guitar or lute, a zither's body serves as a resonating chamber, but, unlike guitars and lutes, a zither lacks a distinctly separate neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty.
  In modern common usage the term "zither" refers to three specific instruments: the concert zither, its variant the Alpine zither, and the chord zither. Concert and Alpine zithers are traditionally found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, France, north-western Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
context_section_description: A concert zither may have from 29 to 38 strings, with 34 or 35 being most typical. These are arranged as follows: four or five fretted melody strings, placed above a guitar-like fretboard; 12 unfretted "accompaniment" strings; followed by 12 unfretted "bass" strings; followed by a varying number of "contrabass" strings, with five or six being the most common number.
  On some older zithers, one may find "half-frets" above the 12th fret, which extend only under the first two or three strings. This results in the lower fretted strings having no pitches (or no chromatic pitches) available above the 12th fret, while the higher fretted strings still have higher chromatic pitches available at these half-frets. Nearly all instruments made after 1960, however, have full-length frets all the way up the fretboard.
  Anton Karas and Ruth Welcome used instruments of similar design to the one illustrated. After World War II, Karas (according to zither scholar Günter Wittenstein, who was acquainted with him) performed on an instrument of larger dimensions than normal – with a 43 cm standard scale length for the fingerboard strings. He used Viennese tuning (see below), but with an altered chromatic sequence for the fingerboard and open strings. The accompaniment strings G and F♯ were tuned an octave higher, while contrabass strings tuned E♭, F, D, E, C♯ replaced the regular cycle of fifths bass strings. This brought the contrabasses closer to the fingerboard where the player could reach them more easily.
  For The Third Man, Karas tuned the zither a semi-tone lower, giving a particularly distinctive tone to the contrabass strings. The resulting lower string tension also enabled Karas to perform an expressive vibrato on the fingerboard melody strings. Film director Carol Reed, (on whose oak kitchen table the music was performed), described the sound as "gritty and dirty", perfectly reflecting the atmospheric mood of the film.
  The Alpine zither has 42 strings, and differs from the concert zither primarily in requiring the addition of an extension to the body of the instrument to support both the longer additional contrabass strings and their tuners.
  Alpine zithers are tuned in a similar manner to the concert zither, with the accompaniment and bass strings each providing a full set of 12 chromatic pitches also arranged in a cycle of fifths. Contrabass strings are arranged in a descending chromatic scale. Late 19th and early 20th century versions of the instrument were often called 'harp zithers' – so-named because the pillar extension seemed a miniature version of the harp's pillar. The extra contrabass strings ran parallel to the other strings on these earlier instruments, the diagonal arrangement illustrated developed later to assist the right hand in reaching the strings.
  There are two popular tunings for the modern zither: Munich and Viennese. The zither tuning chart below, gives tuning details, including pitches and octaves. Munich tuning is on top, and Vienna tuning below. Some players have used Vienna tuning only for the fretted strings, and Munich tuning for the unfretted strings. Full Viennese tuning is normally used only on instruments with 38 or fewer strings.
caption: Concert zither, with a fretted fingerboard. This variety is a discant Salzburger Konzertzither
exif: {}