Name: Yang Qin
Maker Yi Chen
Price Starting at $349
Buy: Call for detail (909) 581-9377

The hammered dulcimer is considered a member of the zither family and may have origins in Iran as the citer or santir, an instrument used to produce the ancient classical music of Persia. The spice and silk trades that crisscrossed the Middle East during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance may have been responsible for the instrument’s presence in Spain by the twelfth century and its appearance in China. In China, it is called the yangqin, yangch‘in, or foreign zither.
The hammered dulcimer is rectangular or trapezoidal in shape and has sets of multiple strings with a range of up to three octaves. The instrument is played with two light-weight beaters called hammers that are shaped like long-handled spoons and are used to strike the strings.