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Bosphorus Cymbals takes no shortcuts, especially in the hand-hammering process. This critical step is absolutely necessary to create the fine nuances and depth of expression that your music demands. Bosphorus believes hand-hammering means simply that: a man striking a cymbal with a hammer held in his hand. The artisan hears the sounds of the hammer blows as he feels the cymbal in his other hand, bringing to fore years of experience and mastery.
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Legend has it that the sounds of arrows hitting bronze shields led to the development of musical cymbals. In any event, highly skilled artisans have been hand making cymbals on the banks of the Bosphorus for hundreds of years. It is a time-honored labor intensive process that delivers the dark complex purity of tone sought after by discerning drummers for generations.
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At Bosphorus, not much has changed since the 17th century. Bosphorus make cymbals in the time-honored traditional way -completely by hand. No stamped sheets of metal. No computer guided machine hammers. From the wood burning ovens to the meticulous hand hammering, each step moves towards one goal: the creation of a unique musical instrument. The woody stick sound. The deep mysterious tone. The dark warm spread underneath.
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Sensing the importance of this process, some companies market their cymbals as hand-made. But are they really? Guiding a pneumatic hammer is not hand-hammering. Adding a few hammer marks by hand after completing the pneumatic process isn’t hand hammering. At Bosphorus, one man with one hammer makes cymbals one at a time. Bosphorus calls this essential human dimension the “Soul of the Cymbal”.