sounds good to me. placement of the bordòn in the
middle would suggest that rasgueo was the intended
method of play and not plectrum - correct?
interesting note about Vasco de Quiroga setting up
luthier work shops for the natives - i wonder if the
instruments were intended for export back to europe?
if any of these instruments get mentioned by name,
please let me know.
i understand that speculation on the origins of the
charango in south america can become heated and get
clouded in national overtones. bolivia seems to be
its accepted birthplace. i think it's just an
indigenous word for either of the figure 8 shaped,
plucky little cordophones introduced by the europeans
and i think it - whatever it was; vihuela or guitar
- received little, if any modification over the
succeeding years.
this idea, you may have noted, pleases no one.
regards - bill
--- Monica Hall [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
- Original Message -
From: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: vihuela list vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 6:36 PM
Subject: 4c. guitar structure
a friend of mine on the charango site has
suggested
that structural differences (light bracing,
thinner
sound board) may account for the bordòn being
placed
in the center instead of off to the side as on a
4c.
guitar.
were there any structural features of the
renaissance
or baroque, 4c. guitar designed to support this
uneven
distribution of tension on the 4th (bass) course?
I think it has more to do with the way the thumb and
finger work in opposite
directions. If you are playing a single line using
thumb and finger
alternately there are some (a few) advantages to
having the lowest string
inside. I regularly practice scales like this on
the baroque guitar - and
you can actually play Narvaez' variation contra
haziendo la guitarra with
each note on a different course, including the
repeated notes which work
particularly well like this. It doesn't work on the
vihuela of course.
Once you start playing in two parts the thumb
naturally moves to the lower
part.
Re-entrant tunings are used on the Mexican jarana -
some of which are quite
odd with the lowest course in the middle and the 1st
a tone lower than the
2nd. There is a this idea that such instruments are
descended from the
baroque guitar, but there is no doubt that the
Conquistadores took plucked
string instruments to the New World very early on
and the various
instruments may have developed along side. I'm just
reading an interesting
book about Vasco de Quiroga who tried to set up
Utopian communes for the
Indians to live free of the Spanish. One of the
crafts which the Indians
were encouraged to pursue was instrument making.
Cheers
Monica
and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell
of a creepy crawly... -
Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), Historias de la
Conquista del Mayab by Fra
Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to:
http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm
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