> Rob, on mp3.com recently I found an artist claiming to have tunes from
> 15th Scottish mandora (sic) MS rearranged for (wait for this) the
> scalloped fret guitar with ornaments derived from Indian sitar
> technique. I did listen to one such track, title like 'I met her in the
> the meadow' or such. Most impressive. Scalloped fret ELECTRIC guitar
> played in thrash mediaeval fashion and by your standards about as many
> ornaments as a Shaker lavatory seat.
You might be surprised to find out that the Scottish 17th-century cittern
had a scalloped fingerboard ! Ha! So there! Well, it was slightly scalloped,
but definitely so. It also had some frets missing, and some frets only went
half-way across the fingerboard, some only a third across. Of course, you
all know this already, having bought my 'Flowers of the Forest' by the
million. Nothing new under the sun.
A curious paragraph, David. As you all know, having bought my etc, etc, the
mandora should properly be called either a mandore (French) or mandour
(Scots). The manuscript is the Skene (not the fiddle Skene), and it was from
the 1640's, which even for slow and lazy Scots, could not be called the
medieval period. Of course, you are quoting someone else. There is a lot of
weird shit out there from lavatorial space cadets who don't know the
difference between an ornament and a Klingon.
A history of the guitar in Scotland, eh? Someone please talk me out of it
before it is too late!
Rob
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.robmackillop.com
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