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Building a Bowed Psaltery

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Parts of instruction sheets from the sources listed in this article.

Building a Bowed Psaltery

Though the bowed psaltery was apparently developed in mid-1900s Germany as a teaching tool, a few folks noticed its potential as a sort of "folk instrument," like the "Appalachian Dulcimer," easy to play and relatively easy to build.

In the 1980s and 1990s, they began turning up in booths at Folk festivals, etc.

Their haunting sound has attracted many fans and players. The fact that nearly any competent woodworker with a good workshop can build them has encouraged any number of people to "roll their own," and often to write about it.

My own time woodworking is usually spent on other kinds of projects, so I haven't put any of the materials I link to below "through their paces" to decide which would be most helpful.

Ken Burton's "Bowed Psaltery" Article in Woodcraft - Well illustrated with detailed plans, precise measurements, and colored photographs, Several tips I wouldn't have thought of on my own.
A Psimple Psaltery's "Let's Build One" Article - Detailed lists of tools and supplies, many tips. Worth going through the series of pages, in spite of popup ads on every page.
Dennis Havlena's ASCII-based Instruction Sheet - In the early days of the web, Dennis Havlena wrote countless articles on building acoustic instruments. Unfortunately, he had to cut back on the photos he posted, so only the text is available. Still, his outline has some very good tips.
Dulcimer.net's "How to Build a Psaltery in Seven Steps." - Overview is fine, some tips. Lots of popups, but the biggest problem is that it looks like you have to download a special software product just to see the PDFs. Recommended for background and other perspectives, not as a prime source.

Books - Sorry, I haven't reviewed these yet, but they look helpful. Clicking on the titles will take you to Amazon and I get a few cents if you buy them there, but anywhere you want to buy them is fine with me.

A Psimple Psaltery: Building a Bowed Psaltery, From Start to Finish by Eric Meier. This looks like it has the tips from Eric's online article above all in one place, which would be worth the small investment.
Bowed Psaltery: Maker’s Notes and Plans for Chromatic and Diatonic Models by Michael J King. Includes detailed plans for two small psalteries, lots of tips.

Get On My List - If you make bowed psalteries and you're not on my list, please use our Contact page to let me know. Include a link to your web site in the comments, please.

Conclusion

Like most of the articles on our HarpersGuild and CreekDontRise pages, this article came as a result of reader inquiries, and discovering that much of the "information" on these things was either patchy or unreliable.

That said, if you have a correction or a question, please contact me and I'll be glad to hear from you.

Also, if you make or play bowed psalteries, and want to provide additional information, corrections, etc. we'd be glad to hear from you.

Whatever else you get out of our pages, I hope you come away with some great ideas for "sharing the joy."

And please stay in touch!

- Paul Race

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