[CITTERN] Re: Preston tuner history

[Alexander Batov]

Stuart, I have very little knowledge in the history of EG (Philip Coggin's 
article in EM, 1987 is all that I've read so far) and how it all spread 
around, either from England to France or vice versa. I'm only focusing on to 
_where the idea of watch-key tuning mechanism could come from_, that's all. 
The earliest guittars with watch keys by Preston can probably be dated by 
1760s. I never saw precisely dated Preston with such keys, neither those 
with ordinary wooden pegs that also bear his stamp. The French ones are 
dated from 1760s (the ones that I saw anyway), so they all come about at 
approximately the same time. Would French just steal his idea? I haven't got 
a clue. I only know they had lots of sophisticated musical instrument making 
technologies at that time too; like the Erars for example, making all those 
incredibly complex mechanisms in harps etc.

Alexander

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stuart Walsh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Alexander Batov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; 
<cittern@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: Preston tuner history


Alexander Batov wrote:


There is even more to the story. I came across a number of French cistres
(some with seven-courses) which had watch key tuners without Preston mark 
on
them. Were they copied after Preston's, smuggled out of England and
rebranded ...? I very much doubt it.

Apart from one puzzling cistre in the V&A, it looks to me that there was a 
guittar (English guitar) fad in Britain that then spread to France and the 
Low Countries. Guittars and music appear in Britain from the 1750s and 
start to appear in France a decade or so later. The guitharre angloise - 
tuned in C - is mentioned by Joseph Carpentier in 1770 (who evidently 
disliked the pitch at C). Pieces  from the guittar repertoire published in 
Britain are sometimes ripped off and appear anew in (later) French 
publications with the French preferred tuning of a modified A chordal 
tuning.

So there really does seem a direction of influence from Britain to France. 
From a French perspective, they picked up an inconsiderable instrument 
from Britain and made it  into  something more tolerable!
So, the British use of watch keys - and metal tuners - would 
understandably be taken up by the French too. 



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