The idiochord
tube-zither
•The idiochord tube-zither is a
bamboo internode with strings
raised up from the epidermis (hence the term idiochord) between two internodes.
Small wooden bridges
are inserted under the strings both to lift them from the surface of the bamboo and
to tune them. All these
are relatively recent and the basic type is still widely played in the Philippines and
Indonesia.
•The broad distribution of the
tube-zither is Philippines, Indonesia, Madagascar, Việt Nam. The Aslian groups of the Malay peninsula also play the
zither, although not the surrounding Malay. Its presence in Madagascar
is presumably
due to the migrations of the Maanyan, one of the Barito groups now thought to
have been the main source
of the peopling of the Great Isle. Tube-zithers are entirely absent in Melanesia and
Polynesia, and Oceanic speakers had already lost
his instrument when they
began their expansion.