Jadagan

Jadagan

String instrument
Classification	String instruments Box zither
Developed	Antiquity
Related instruments
yatga koto guzheng zither Kanun (instrument) Kanklės Jetigen

The jadagan (çatkhan, or Siberian harp) is a wooden board zither of the Khakass Turkic people of Russian Siberia, usually with 6 or 7 strings stretched across movable bridges and tuned a fourth or fifth apart. The body is hollowed out from underneath like an upturned trough. It has a convex surface and an end bent towards the ground. The strings are plucked and the sound is very smooth. The instrument was considered to be sacrosanct and playing it was a rite bound to taboos. The instrument was mainly used at court and in monasteries, since strings symbolised the twelve levels of the palace hierarchy.

In the West

Folklorist Nancy Thym-Hochrein has researched the instrument,^[1] and musician Raphael De Cock is a contemporary player.

Related instruments

• Chadagan, Tuvan
• Jetigen, Kazakh
• Yatga, Mongolia

Notes

1. International Council for Traditional Music; Columbia University. Dept. of Music (1999). Directory of traditional music. International Council for Traditional Music. p. 31. Retrieved 22 April 2012.