Dear John:
I've done a lot of cittern playing in various contexts and have owned
three citterns. Here are some answers and opinions:
1. The smallish common citterns tuned (from the top course) e - d - G - a
and e - d - G - b tend to favor sharp keys, the latter Anglo-Italian tuning
more so than the former French tuning. I have found the French tuning
better for general continuo playing.
2. Some citterns have "missing" frets, but this has little to do with
temperament. A meantone temperament helps quite a bit as far as the
instrument being in tune with itself. Virtually all surviving citterns
display unequal temperament. Low-tension brass wire is extremely sensitive
tuning-wise, so this makes a big difference if you want the ringing
overtones that make a cittern's sound special.
I would recommend a cittern without any "missing" frets if that is to be
your only cittern.
3. The cittern is essentially a chordal, continuo instrument, with chordal
accompaniment being probably its principal purpose. The polyphonic solo
repertoire is of course unique and worthwhile, but perhaps not fully
representative of the cittern's usage. Some have termed it "the rhythm
guitar of the renaissance."
Cheers,
Jim
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11/30/2005 06:40 Subject: [CITTERN] Cittern
questions
AM
Dear Citternists,
I would like to sound out the suitability of the Renaissance cittern for me
personally, and I'd like your help.
I've always loved "ancient musick", but the viol, the sackbut and the
recorder are just too out of the way for a fretted-string player of my age
to take
up. I find classical guitar difficult enough, so I don't fancy the lute,
but I
imagine that my mandolin, classic 5-string banjo and a bit of Waldzither
might
give me a good start on the cittern. So I'd like to try and make some sense
of
what I've read recently on the Internet about the instrument.
I've read up on shapes, sizes, tunings, plectra, string technology etc,
etc.
but I have not yet seen a cittern played nor handled one (Someone suggested
restringing a normal mandolin as a "training simulator", but this would
require
the calculation of the correct string gauges, if the result were to feel
right).
So I have a couple of questions:
1. Is the cittern an all-key instrument, or is it one of those (like the
classic banjo) that is very easy to play in one key, reasonably easy in a
couple
of more, but awkward in more distant keys?
And if so, what keys are handy on the 4-course "Italian" tuning? Does the
"French" tuning offer advantages or disadvantages, and if so, under what
circumstances?
2. I've read about the non-equal-temperament fretting of the cittern. Does
this apply to the diatonic variety with the"missing" frets, or is it used
on the
chromatically-fretted variant, too? And how diatonic is a diatonic cittern
-
one key? two keys...?
3. Must the cittern be played in a polyphonic style, or is it possible to
accompany a song or an instrumental melody using chords, as on the folk
guitar?
I think the answers to these questions will keep my mind turning over for a
while. More questions will probably arise from the answers, but I know
where to
ask, don't I ? ;-)
Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
John D.
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