Nancy Carlin
Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:34:49 -0700
One of the interesting things about the Welsh crwth is that while there are several extant instruments (including a nice one in the National Library in Aberystwyth) the playing tradition got completely killed off by the religious movement that encouraged people to get rid of instruments and stop dancing. Both Bob Evans and Cass Meurig are revivalists - there were no old players of crwths they could learn from. Fortunately for harpists this is not the case with triple harps. In addition to Nanci Richards, there were Gypsy harpists such as Eldra Jarman, who kept the the traditional music and ways of playing alive. The WElsh are very proud of their unbroken tradition of harp playing. Nancy Carlin >Brad McEwen wrote: > > > Well, I could be wrong, but since bowed instruments are more recent > > that plucked, it would seem that way. > >That's probably true but the bow does still go a long way back. >There certainly were bowed lyres similar to the crwth in Europe >during the medieval times. In addition to Wales, the such >instruments also survived well into the 20th century in Sweden and >Estonia and may still be in use there today for all I know. > > > The crowd is one of those many instruments that (I believe) > evolved from the Greek Kithara and are known throughout Europe by > various names..zither, citera, etc (ha ha). > >It's actually quite possible that a crwth style instrument was the >direct ancestor to the cittern: First you have the lyre. You put a >fingerboard underneath the string and get a crwth. Then you >strengthen the fingerboard so it'll take the pull of the strings on >its own so you don't need the "horns" anymore. > It's just one of several theories about the development of > stringed instruments before 1500 but it is one of the more plausible ones. > > >Frank Nordberg >http://www.musicaviva.com >http://stores.ebay.com/Nordbergs-Music-Store?refid=store > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - www.nancycarlinassociates.com Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org --