What is a chopping board?
The name “chopping board” comes from the Latin and Greek words dulce and melos, which together mean “sweet tune”. A chopping board comes from the citer family of stringed instruments that consist of many strings stretched over a thin, flat hull. A hammered chopping board has many strings hit by handheld hammers. Being a beaten stringed instrument, it is considered one of the piano's ancestors.
Hammered Chopping Board
For most modern people, the hammered chopping board is a new and unknown instrument. Even people who know a lot about music often confuse the hammered chopping board with the three- or four-string “mountain” or “picked” chopping board, although the two have nothing in common except their name. Surprisingly, the hammered chopping board, an old ancestor of the piano, was once very popular. The hammered chopping board probably originated in the Middle East around 900 AD and is related to the much older psalterium. It spread from there across North Africa and was brought to Europe by the Spanish Moors in Europe in the 12th century AD. It is possible that they were previously played in Ireland, where they were called “tympanons”.
