HOME



picture info

Kantele
A kantele () or kannel () is a traditional Finnish and Karelian plucked string instrument (chordophone) belonging to the southeast Baltic box zither family known as the Baltic psaltery along with the Estonian kannel, the Latvian kokles, the Lithuanian kanklės, and the Russian gusli. Construction Small kantele Modern instruments with 15 or fewer strings are generally more closely modeled on traditional shapes, and form a category of instrument known as small kantele, in contrast to the concert kantele. The oldest forms of kantele have five or six horsehair strings and a wooden body carved from one piece; more modern instruments have metal strings and a body made from several pieces. The traditional kantele has neither bridge nor nut, the strings run directly from the tuning pegs to a metal bar (''varras'') set into wooden brackets (''ponsi''). Though not acoustically efficient, this construction is part of the distinctive sound of the instrument. The most typical and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Koistinen Kantele
Koistinen Kantele OY is a manufacturer of kanteles, traditional plucked string instruments of the dulcimer and zither family native to Finland. Located in Rääkkylä, North Karelia, Finland, its current CEO is Hannu Koistinen, and it is a family business. Officially founded in 2000, its history dates back to 1957, when Otto Koistinen built his first kanteles. The company makes both acoustic and electric kanteles, and introduced the kantele as a modern instrument and developed high-level kantele amplifying equipment. Koistinen Kantele has long ago established itself as a leading kantele manufacturer in Finland; at present moment more than 50 Finnish music institutions are equipped with various models of kanteles by Koistinen. History The company's history dates back to 1957, when Otto Koistinen made his first kanteles. Otto's daughter Ritva Koistinen started to play kantele at an early age and demonstrated a high level of musical talent, motivating Otto to build higher quali ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Martti Pokela
Martti Eliel Pokela (23 January 1924 – 23 August 2007) was a Finnish folk musician and composer. Pokela was an expert with the kantele, Finland's national musical instrument. Life and career Pokela and his wife, Marjatta Pokela, were widely credited with ushering in a revival in interest in Finnish folk music beginning in the 1950s. Their daughter, Eveliina Pokela, began performing with them in the 1960s. Pokela merged traditional Finnish folk music with contemporary sounds. The family's albums have also been released outside of Finland. Pokela taught kantele playing at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and Kuopio Kuopio ( , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of North Savo. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Kuopio is approximately , while the Kuopio sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is the mos ... until 1987. He was the founder of the academy's folk music department, where he was named a full professor i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Plucked String Instrument
Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the string (music), strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate. Plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the lute family (such as guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, balalaika, sitar, pipa, etc.), which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck (music), neck; the strings run along the neck and can be stopped at different pitches. The zither family (including the Kanun (instrument), Qanún/kanun, autoharp, kantele, gusli, kannel (instrument), kannel, kankles, kokles, koto (musical instrument), koto, guqin, gu zheng and many others) does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard. In the harp family (including the lyre), the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The har ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Gusli
The ''gusli'' (, , , ''husla'') is the oldest East Slavic multi-string plucked instrument, belonging to the zither family, due to its strings being parallel to its resonance board. Its roots lie in Veliky Novgorod in the Novgorodian Republic. It has its relatives in Europe and throughout the world: kantele in Finland, kannel in Estonia, kanklės in Lithuania, kokles in Latvia, Zither in Germany, citera in the Czech Republic, and psalterium in France. Furthermore, the kanun has been found in Arabic countries, and the autoharp, in the United States. It is also related to such ancient instruments as Chinese gu zheng, which has a thousand-year history, and its Japanese relative koto. A stringed musical instrument called is listed as one of the Me in ancient Sumer. Etymology The term ''gusli'' derives from the verb *gǫsti (make sound, howl, play music) with the suffix *slь (from Proto-Indo-European *-trom). In the times of the Kievan Rus', the term ''gusli'' is believed ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Sibelius Academy
The Sibelius Academy (, ) is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities with roughly 1,400 enrolled students. The Sibelius Academy is the organizer of the International Maj Lind Piano Competition and one of the organizers of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition held every five years in Helsinki. History The academy was founded in 1882 by Martin Wegelius as ' ("Helsinki Music Institute") and renamed ' in 1939 to honour its own former student and Finland's most celebrated composer Jean Sibelius. In 2013, the academy merged with two formerly independent universities, Helsinki Theatre Academy and Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, to form the University of the Arts Helsinki. Between 2015 and 2017 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Baltic Psaltery
Baltic psaltery is a family of related plucked box zithers, psalteries, historically found in the southeast vicinity of the Baltic Sea and played by the Baltic people, Baltic Finns, Volga Finns and northwestern Russians. Types Baltic psalteries include: * Kanklės (Lithuania) * Kantele (Finland, Karelia and Northwest Russia) * Kannel (Estonia) * Kāndla (Livonian people of Northwest Latvia) * Kokles (Latvia) * Krez (Udmurt people of Central Russia) * Krylovidnye gusli (Northwest Russia) * Kusle (Mari people of Central Russia) * Harpu (Sápmi) The internationally most known instrument of the family is Finnish kantele, so its name is sometimes used in English to also refer to other Baltic psalteries as well. Many of the Baltic psalteries hold a strong symbolic significance in their respective countries, including Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia, where playing instruction and instrument makers are available. Etymology According to Finnish linguist Ei ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Folk Harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments. Ancient depictions of harps were recorded in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Persia (now Iran) and Egypt, and later in India and China. By medieval times harps had spread across Europe. Harps were found across the Americas where it was a popular folk tradition in some areas. Distinct designs also emerged from the African continent. Harps have symbolic political traditions and are often used in logos, including in Ireland. Historically, strings were made of sinew (animal tendons). Other materials have included gut (animal intestines), plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire. In pedal harp scores, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

A Man Playing The Kantele In Front Of A Broadcast Van, 1930s
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900. These terms may mean different things in different contexts. Very often, ''diatonic'' refers to musical elements derived from the modes and transpositions of the "white note scale" C–D–E–F–G–A–B. In some usages it includes all forms of heptatonic scale that are in common use in Western music (the major, and all forms of the minor). ''Chromatic'' most often refers to structures derived from the chromatic scale in 12-tone equal temperament, which consists of all semitones. Historically, however, it had other senses, referring in Ancient Greek music theory to a particular tuning of the tetrachord, and to a rhythmic notati ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Strings (music)
In music, strings are long flexible structures on string instruments that produce sound through vibration. Strings are held under tension so that they can vibrate freely. The pitch (frequency) at which a string will vibrate is primarily related to its vibrating length (also called speaking length), its tension, and its mass per unit of length. A vibrating string produces very little sound by itself. Therefore, most string instruments have a soundboard to amplify the sound. There are two main kinds of strings; plain and wound. "Plain" strings are simply one piece of long cylindrical material, commonly consisted of nylon or gut. "Wound" strings have a central core, with other material being tightly wound around the string . Prior to World War II, strings of many instruments (including violins and guitars) were composed of a material known as catgut, a type of cord made from refined natural fibers of animal intestines. During the mid-twentieth century however, steel and nylo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Five String Kanteles
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat prime, a Mersenne prime exponent, as well as a Fibonacci number. 5 is the first congruent number, as well as the length of the hypotenuse of the smallest integer-sided right triangle, making part of the smallest Pythagorean triple ( 3, 4, 5). 5 is the first safe prime and the first good prime. 11 forms the first pair of sexy primes with 5. 5 is the second Fermat prime, of a total of five known Fermat primes. 5 is also the first of three known Wilson primes (5, 13, 563). Geometry A shape with five sides is called a pentagon. The pentagon is the first regular polygon that does not tile the plane with copies of itself. It is the largest face any of the five regular three-dimensional regular Platonic solid can have. A conic is determine ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]