The tradition & historical record
1 min read · 2 sourcesA dolceola is a musical instrument resembling a miniature piano, but which is in fact a distinct type of zither with a keyboard. It has an unusual, angelic, music-box sound. Dolceolas were made by the Toledo Symphony Company from 1903 to 1907. 1
Performers
Paul Mason Howard accompanied Lead Belly on dolceola on some of his 1944 Capitol Records sides. A listen to those recordings, collected under the title Grasshoppers In My Pillow, reveals the characteristic clatter of the dolceola's three-level keyboard action. The gospel and gospel blues musician Washington Phillips (1880–1954) has been said to have played a dolceola on his recordings, but his instrument was in fact called a "dulceola", and was a home-made fingered fretless zither. Alex Turner of English band Arctic Monkeys plays the dolceola on the band's 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. Jim Dickinson plays the dolceola in Ry Cooder’s Crossroads. 1
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Dolceola”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. 1
dolceola is a zither with a keyboard, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 2
The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. 2