Çişte fingers… and the çişte analogue

Happy New Year, world!

I’ve been asked whether you can discern the instrument someone plays by their calluses, so I am posting this picture of a (relative beginner) çişte player’s fingers.

Doşu frue pêteces çiştes

The indent in the middle finger and fingernail is from using that finger to slide on the strings, inspired by the technique of some sarod players.

And this is the culprit… An Ashbury ukulele, upon which I have spent a pleasant morning trying to play Raga Megh, which by the way consists of the Eretaldan notes ẸC̣ẠF̣Ḳ and would thus be classified as ‘ecafřë čimora’ or just ‘ecafře’ in Verdurian, and ‘ecafŕ’ in Ismaîn. (Eretaldans would probably miss the finer subtleties of the raga, i.e. its differing shapes on the ascent and descent.)

Pesi çişte

I bought this instrument five or six years ago because it will fit in a rucksack. It’s been through some nasty rucksacks, poor little thing. I tune it to BAEA (the B string a ninth above the first A string, then ascending), or in Eretaldan nomenclature ĊẸF̣Ė (cumpogulán Fidran).

It’s not a perfect çişte analogue, but it has helped me work out the basics.

Another helpful friend in discovering both the çişte and the vyon is this handsome oddity, which my dad says was purchased from ‘a man in Hebdon Bridge’ (I must find out who, and thank him!).

Çişte rulêses

This is technically a type of dulcimer. It was the first instrument I ever tried to play in an ‘Almean’ way, and allowed me to discover the baďul style of endivyón playing, with srava and endi (‘shell and stick’).