----- Original Message ----- From: "David Kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 6:02 PM Subject: [CITTERN] Re: guitar?
> >Roger E. Blumberg wrote > > > >http://tinyurl.com/9vuzl > I particularly like the one with the guy resting his foot on the Hiscox > case :-) > Nothing changes! > I know the music changes, but in some ways it is the 'nothing changes' > aspect I like about this material. You can see the same posture and the > same captured moment as you might today, and somehow get a sense that > despite the context, the same affection for the instrument (call it a > vihuela or a guitar, yup. That's part of what recapturing history is about -- seeing the continuity, us in them, them in us. I find it comforting. I like the vibe amoung the 3 guitar players in this shot (one plucked, two bowed). This is Portuguese by the way, 1604. http://tinyurl.com/9rpwg some people might object to my calling those three violists "guitarists", but that's tough ;-) > >One could imagine that both of these instruments too, seen from the front, > >are flat-back. > >http://www.thecipher.com/lutes_BartolomeoMontagna_1498_det.jpg > I think they are bowlback. so do I, but I was playing devils advocate with you > >Here's a monster bass vihuela from Catalan, with no apearent waist indents > >of any kind, flat back, slab constructed, late 15th century, lower left > >http://tinyurl.com/75jvf > What interests me in this is the pipe and tabor player who is beating a > psaltery instead of a drum - hitting the strings of the vertical > zither-like instrument with a narrow wand - that looks like a practical > and interesting alternative to hitting a tabor, same basic technique for > the pipe - never seen it before. I just learned about this combination of instruments and it's name a couple days ago -- it was common pairing apparently. The 3 or 4 string drone harp played with a stick is called a "Tambour de Béarn", string drum, or Ttun Ttun. Here's a couple more examples of pipe and drone harp: http://tinyurl.com/cmbwx http://tinyurl.com/aw3pf > I took a walk in the Marrakesh souk looking for instruments last month. > They had an amazing variety of flatback, gut, wire, everything. Each one > has a name but I didn't try to work out whether they were modern > corruptions or genuinely old instruments, because everything in souk was > rubbish. I contacted a professional player instead. He sold me a (used) > standard six-course large Moroccan oud, which is an almost perfect shape > and build for an early 16th century large bodied lute, with an almost > 'straight' end and very simple design. I did not buy, since 600 Euros > was a bit more than I wanted to pay, a seven-course bass oud which > resembles the largest lutes shown in early representations. > > Maybe the vihuela with its 700-mm ish scale (obviously on that level) > was played like the Moroccan bass oud, which is also a long scale, more > than a modern guitar, primarily as a bass to accompany voice, fiddle and > tambourine - the Moroccan traditional ensemble resembles a mediaeval > southern European ensemble very closely in instrument line-up. > > Morocco is a place I'd like to visit properly - I was only there for a > couple of days - because the music is so very close to Andalucian themes > and the oud technique includes a bare finger method close to guitar fashion. > > David > ya, it'd be nice to travel round the Mediterranean, the whole thing. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
