James A Stimson wrote: > > > > Dear David and All: > The picture is quite interesting, including the tuning mechanism. Is that > one of those "watch-key" tuners seen on some English guitars?
Yes, it is the Preston tuners although the Germans called it F�cher-mekanik. But it's important to note that Waldzithers with regular "guitar style" tuners are just as common. The F�cher tuners were really a kind of "trademark" for one manufacturer, B�hm (who also used them for their mandolins), although others copied it as well. > Also, is there any connection between the Waldzither and the "bell > citterns" of a slightly earlier era? Hard to say. "Waldzither" became a generic term for cittern in Germany (and Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland) and the term covered a great number of different instruments of different origins. Even mandolins and English guitars were, and still are, occasionally referred to as Waldzithern. (Interestingly from an English guitar point of view, there was actually a early 19th century seven-stringed variant called the "Deutsher Guitarre" (German guitar).) There is a more specific definition of the term too though: The Waldzither is the local cittern variant from Th�ringen and a direct descendant of the renaissance cittern. The "Th�ringer Zister" is mentioned at least as early mid 17th Century, although I'm not sure how different the instrument itself was from citterns from other regions at that early time. The tuning was different though. In Th�ringen they swapped the B and D courses of the traditional renaissance cittern coincidentally mirroring the four upper strings of the modern guitar (with re-entrant D of course). During the 18th and 19th Century open chord tunings became common, the instrument aquired more courses and the instrument became known as the "Th�ringer Waldzither." At the beginning of the 20th Century, C. H. B�hm, a mandolin factory in Hamburg discovered the Th�ringer cittern and started building - and above all marketing - it with their favourite tuning mechanism and with a glass bridge. Since Hamburg is far away from Th�ringen, the name of the instrument was shortened to Waldzither. You can occasionally see 20th C Waldzithers with Preston tuners referred to as "Hamburger Waldzithern" and tose with regular tuners as "Th�ringer Waldzithern," but really they're the same instrument. Frank Nordberg To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
