doc rossi wrote: > Going back to the OUP article Martina posted, it demonstrates exactly > the kind of conclusion that I neither understand nor agree with because > it locks the cittern into a period and doesn't allow for variations in > structure, size and tuning that deviate from the earliest surviving > examples of the instrument. If scholars treated the guitar in the same > way, single-strung six-course instruments would be something other than > guitars.
Yeah, well said! :-) The mandolin might be an even better example than the guitar. The instrument Bill Monroe plays is about as different from the one Vivaldi wrote his mandolin concerto for as two fretted instruments can be. Different tuning, different playing technique, hardly any similarities in construction and no historical connection to speak of. Yet scholars, musicians and laymen all seem quite happy to regard them both as "mandolins." > John at Magnatune decided to call my instrument "baroque cittern" for > purposes of marketing. I think I've said this before, but objection to that term is that it isn't really a baroque instrument. If we need a generic term for the 18th century citterns (and I think we do), "classical cittern" would have been better. .. > name. I never thought it was a good name because it is a cittern rather > than a guitar, per se, but what the hell. Actually (if I may digress a little) it's possible to argue that the "English" guitar *is* a true guitar while the various modern "guitars" aren't. The reasoning is that although scholars seem to agree the renaissance guitar is a descendant of the gittern, nobody has actually ever presented any argument to support that claim. It seems the renaissance guitar simply was a small viola da mano that somehow got renamed during the early/mid 16th century - unrelated to any previous instrument carrying a variant of the cittern/guitar/kitara/etc. name. > I see things differently now, > not only because of Rob's campaigning but also from my own research > into the instrument throughout Europe. Sure, there are national > differences in terms of structure, tuning, number of courses, > repertoire, use, but when taking it all in and looking at the big > picture, I conclude that they are all citterns and that the cittern has > had a consistent history in Europe. To be honest I don't see the conflict there. Surely we all have the capacity to see *both* the big picture (the "baroque cittern") and the various regional variants. Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
