My search for builder was one of the first pleasures of this journey. It can be risky making a commission from afar: I am hardly competent to evaluate a zither, since I haven't owned one in 40 years, nor are there an abundance of them here in Southern California to provide a comparison! I had a couple of guiding principles: I would have to rely on builder's information available on the Internet, I wanted some insight into the builder's thought process, and I always prefer builders who play the instrument themselves.
There is a relatively short list of zither builders from Germany and Austria on the Internet. Although I found several strong candidates, Andi's site grabbed my attention almost immediately, both for the reasons I outlined above and because of the aesthetics of the instruments in his pictures. I realize that to a casual observer a zither just looks like a zither, but there are always subtle differences in the lines and details.
I was surprised – and very pleased – that I could get a commissioned instrument so quickly. By "quickly," I mean in less than a year. Indeed, having a zither built to order has not only the advantages of giving me some say in its decoration, but there can be some optimization of stringing, based on hand size. I carefully took pictures of my right hand, with measurements, once I decided on what kind of zither I wanted. This won't be just zither, it will be my zither.
Not only does Andi provide the usual variations in styles of zither (there are concert zithers, harp zithers, Arion zithers, and the more modern psaltry zithers), but also subtle options in spacing and how the treble accompaniment strings are sized. There is no doubt that this is a player's instrument: exactly what I wanted. I hope I don't embarrass the poor zither too much.
The selection of style was another fun decision. My first zither was a very traditional harp zither: it had a ornate decorative post that I'm not convinced provided any needed support or acoustic value, but which gave the instrument a very 19th century look. I was very tempted to go with the more modern Psalterzither, which is a little larger and which seems favored by the more progressive young players. However, I decided on the sleek and conservative design of the concert zither – or more correctly, Luftresonanz-Concert Zither ("Air resonant"). Andi's lines on this instrument are so elegant, that it is simply a pleasure to look at.
