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Simsimiyya - Desert breeze |
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The simsimiyya is a traditional plucked lyre used in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. Before going to Jordan I had a look on wikipedia to find which kind of instrument could I look for. This small harp was one of my first choice, also because I did not had any other instrument like this one! Before going abroad, I wrote a mail to our hotel in Aqaba. They were so kind to agree to help me in finding this instrument. When I was there, they asked a person who owned a simsimiyya to come to the hotel, and we reached an agrement on the price after some "usual" bargain.
I really love the sound of this lyre, it's very "middle east"!
When I came back to italy, I asked a luthier of my city to fix some problem the simsimiyya had with the bridge. I used the old bridge of the guitar I converted to a cello: that turned out to be the perfect choice because this bridge had the possibility to fine tune the strings.