Kantele categorised as "zither"?

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jujimufu
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Kantele categorised as "zither"?

Post by jujimufu »

Hey guys!

I was just going through some stuff of mine and I noticed that a piece I had uploaded, for kantele and violin, had been put under the "zither" categories (e.g. "for zither, violin" or "scores featuring the zither" etc).

In the broader sense of the word, a kantele is a zither (as is a a piano and harpsichord) but in a practical sense, a kantele is a separate instrument of its own, with a particular history and culture behind it (in the baltic countries, finland, and karelia for example) and I think it should be in its own separate category. For one I would like to transcribe a collection of kantele pieces and upload them here, but wouldn't feel comfortable having them in the "zither" category.

(For one, I am confident that if a finnish person wanted to look some kantele scores up, unless they had some musical background and were aware of the kantele being a "zither-like" instrument, they would never search under "zither" for kantele scores.)

I don't know the implications in terms of the category walker and other tools, but on principle (and generally speaking) I feel it is justifiable to create a new category for not-so-common instruments (e.g. electronics, electric guitar, etc), even if there is only one piece per category - at least this opens up the possibility for other people to be creative and fill those categories, rather than trying to squeeze compositions in already-defined (and to a certain degree arbitrary) categories.
Davydov
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Re: Kantele categorised as "zither"?

Post by Davydov »

Hello jujimufu. Yes, the kantele is a distinct instrument from the zither, so it's now been given its own category. At present it's the only work for that instrument, but feel free to expand the repertoire :D
jujimufu
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Re: Kantele categorised as "zither"?

Post by jujimufu »

awesome, thanks :)

will do, I'm working on transcribing some kantele melodies and putting them together in a sort of little collection :)
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