Tiompans

[Key_of_D]

Forgive the spelling if it's off but, does anyone know anything about them?

[SteveK]

I found a fairly comprehensive answer by Cliff Moses, a hammered dulcimer player. The short answer is that nobody knows exactly what a tiompan is. Derek Bell called his dulcimer a tiompan but apparantly the tiompan is not a hammered dulcimer.

https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A ... S=&P=25023

[Key_of_D]

Yeah that's the only place I ever heard of a tiompan was from Derek Bell. I guess it's a midieval string instrument or something, I'll check out the page. Thanks

[BrassBlower]

I think it's the same thing as a cimbalom. Anyway, it's like a hammered dulcimer inside a cabinet. Here's a picture:

[SteveK]

Here's something fascinating. It's a mechanical dulcimer player playing a sort of hammered dulcimer called a tympanon. Its strings run lengthwise rather than across the instrument. The hammers are wide so that both strings can be hit at once. The dulcimerist Pantelion probably played one something like this since his was said to be 9 ft long. Be sure to play the short movie.

http://www.automates-anciens.com/englis ... player.php

[Walden]

Here's something fascinating. It's a mechanical dulcimer player playing a sort of hammered dulcimer called a tympanon. Its strings run lengthwise rather than across the instrument. The hammers are wide so that both strings can be hit at once.

The piano is a mechanical dulcimer.

[Key_of_D]

Are there any photos of just an actuall tiompan anywhere though?

[jb]

The short answer is NO.
No one knows for definite what a Tiompan was. The french name for dulcimer is Tympanon and perhaps this led some people to associate Tiompan with dulcimer. Harper's Pass (Madhm na Tiompan), on the Isle of Mull, would suggest a harp like instrument.
Some historians claim it was a type of tambourine but most agree it was some kind of string instrument.

Jack

[Ptarmigan]

Here's the Long answer ':lol:'

On the one hand you read this on the Chieftains website:

Tiompán is the Irish language word for hammered dulcimer. Defined as: - a cymbal, Irish tiompán, tabor, cymbal, drum, Early Irish tiompán, a small stringed instrument; from Latin tympanum, a timbrel, drum (Windisch). The difference of meaning between Early Irish and Latin has caused some to doubt the connection; and Stokes gives the Celtic root as temppu-, a chord or string, Lithuanian tempià, stretch, chorda.

see: http://www.thechieftains.com/instruments/

& on the other you read this:

The ancient Irish instrument, the
tiompan, was not a hammered dulcimer despite the use of this name by Derek Bell of the Chieftans for his dulcimer and the similarity of name to the timpan, which was a hammered dulcimer in Western Europe in the 17th cent.

see: https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A ... T=0&P=4577

then, what might be the voice of reason saying:

There was also an instrument called the "timpan" or "tiompan." It's identity is uncertain, but we know it was a stringed instrument with 3 to 8 strings, played with a bow, plectrum, or fingers.

see: http://www.pbm.com/pipermail/minstrel/1999/004040.html

& the voice of no reason at all saying:

The corn was a metallic horn; the drum, or tiompan, was a tabor;

see: http://www.celtic-twilight.com/otherwor ... _bards.htm

after all that, this guy tells us it's time for a 'merry dump'!:

In fact, according to Flood, it referred to the music of an ancient Irish harplike instrument, the "tiompan" or timpan. The timpan was also popular in England in the 15th and 16th centurys, and the words "dump" and "thump," which mean to "pluck" and "strike" the timpan entered the English language, originally in connection with the instrument. Thus Shakespeare's reference to a "merry dump" is explained as descriptive of a technique of playing or a type of sharp musical attack....

see: http://www.ceolas.org/cgi-bin/ht2/ht2-f ... ax=250?Peg

Must admit, a dump is something completely different in my book

Anyway, it looks like there is no danger of you ever seeing a photograph of one of these mysterious instruments!

[Ro3b]

In the section on the hammered dulcimer in Ciaran Carson's book Irish Traditional Music, he says (with a nearly audible sniff):

Derek Bell of the Chieftains has latterly brought the instrument to the attention of an uncomprehending public, calling it a 'tiompan' (an obscure and conjectural medieval Irish instrument) which in all likelihood it is not.

[Diggy]

The tiompán (timpán) could not have been a hammered dulcimer. It is too ancient an instrument to be even vaguely related to dulcimers.

The tiompán was an ancient,
(triple-digit century-- will need to locate my scrolls to date more accurately)
probably *wire strung* harp-like instrument of some sort, but was *bowed*, not plucked. A performer on a timpán is mentioned in an ancient poem that can be found in the Book of Leinster, a manuscript copied by a some poor immured scribe around 1160.

Maybe not wort 2 pence, but that's what I have to offer.

Interesting subject.