"Kantele" or "Finnish Harp"

Kantele is a string instrument from the zither family, related to Russian gusli, Latvian kokle and Lithuanian kanklės. All four of these instruments together form the family named Baltic Psalteries.

In its original form, kantele has 5 or 6 horsehair strings and a wooden body, carved out of one piece. Modern versions of this instrument have metal strings and a body is most often made from several pieces of wood.

Kantele has a characteristic bell-like sound. Players hold it in their laps or place it on a small table. Two main techniques to play are:

• plucking the strings using fingers or
  
• strumming unstopped strings which is sometimes done with a matchstick

Kantele src="http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii86/fbahrami/Kantele.jpg" width=682 border=0>

In recent years kantele is more and more popular in Finland again. So much so that a Finnish luthiery, Koistinen developed an electric kantele. That one exercises pick-ups similar to those of electric guitars. And the most unusual fact is that Finnish harp was even adopted by some Finnish heavy metal musicians - like Amorphis in video "My Kantele" below.