>I'm nor sure what you are ranting about. If it's connected with what I
>wrote, I think I simply talked about different kinds of cittern and the >history of that instrument. Sorry, Stuart, I wasn't about to start ranting about anything you'd said, really - I've been doing a lot of reading lately and getting a bit fed up with some of what I see as narrow thinking within the establishment, for want of a better description. I'm a bit bothered by the whole idea of "influence" and that comes from my reading too many "anglo-centric" articles. I think the actual picture is much broader than that. I know multi-lingual, multi-cultural research is difficult, having done it myself, but it does broaden things out quite a bit. One thing that often gets to me, for example, is the lack of understanding of earlier printing practice and how it relates to spelling, especially when it is coupled with a lack of knowledge of, for example, Italian dialects, as has happened in some works on the mandolin. As for the p-shaped neck and differing body tapers, for me they just don't consitute grounds for calling instruments with these features citterns and those without (but with several others in common) "other". Even today in Germany and Switzerland (and for all I know several other places) one can find citterns with either or both of these features along with a variety of tunings. I think the idea of "old" and "new" can often be misleading. Recovering, Doc -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
