Rob MacKillop wrote: > I've just this last couple of days had the fortune to be invited to the > second Waldzithersymposium to be held in Thuringia In October. I'll playing > James Oswald's ''Divertimentis for the Guittar'' (1759) and some other > Scottish pieces from Bremner and elsewhere. However, I know very little > about the Waldzither - can anyone enlighten me so that I can appear > intelligent and informed when I get there? ;-)
Waldzither is really a generic term for a number of 19th and 20th century German citterns. It is however usually used for the 9 string 5 course (with a single stringed 5th course) Th�ringer Waldzither or the similar "B�hm" Waldzither with English Guittar style tuners. My Meinel & Herold Waldzither has a scale length of 46 cm and I think that's typical for tenor Waldzithers. The most common tuning is (bottom-to-top) C-G-C-E-G. If you want to learn more I strongly recommend these two sites: http://www.waldzither.de/ and http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/zistern.htm Unfortunately they're both in German. I'm planning to write some info pages in English about them myself, but so far all I have is this: http://www.mandolin-player.com/instruments/waldzither/index.html Not very much I'm afraid. Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com http://www.tablatvre.com http://www.mandolin-player.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
