> From: Brad McEwen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:17:59 -0700 (PDT) > To: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Stuart Walsh > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [email protected] > Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Origin of the Portuguese guitarra > > Hi: > > This instrument (or others with similar appearances) have also been called > gitterns.
Guitarras more likely (gitterns look more like small narrow-bodied lutes). > It is difficult to determine exactly what they may have been, how > they were tuned or played, and how they may relate to the development of > instruments played today. agreed on all points. We have a grand total of zero real info on these instruments and their evolutions other than iconography. > Certainly in appearance there is nothing to suggest any similarity between it > and the modern Portuguese guittarra (or 18th C. "English" guittar). right again > However, as per our previous discussion (guitar/bouzoukis, banjo/ukes, etc) > what emphasis should be placed upon outward appearance, as opposed to tuning, > string materials, etc. It works both ways -- it all matters, and then might not, at some point or another. Outward appearance was certainly very important to showing the links between early plucked vihuela and bowed vihuela (viols). But then again, there were many other instruments which also shared a similar body construction to those two, i.e. early violins and lyra da braccio etc, and they all existing side by side in the late 1400's. On the other hand though, I happen to like the idea of reuniting _all_ the fretted fourths machines and viewing them as one big related and influential family, plucked or bowed, gut or wire, bowl or flat-backed, doubled courses or single strings, straight 4ths or with mid 3rd anywhere, acoustic or electric, solid body or hollow, wood, metal, plastic, or carbon materials used in construction, etc, etc. It put a whole new perspective on things for me at least, seeing that long continuum, that womb and facilitator. And I also find it meaningful that I could/can play them all with nearly equal easy. Knowledge of one is largely transportable to the other, bowing being the one thing which would require some extra doing, but it's still just an alternate interface to the same machine, the way I see it. i.e. if you pluck your fretless 5ths violin "pizzicato" style, and then start bowing it afterwards, you're still playing violin in both cases, but with a different interface. Same goes for the modern fretless four-string fourths-tuned bass viol (pluck or bow is taken for granted, same machine). Same goes for plucking or bowing fretted fourths vihuela, i.e. plucked and bowed guitars. Add to that a few altered tunings or "scordatura" (i.e. alternately tuned bowed viols, English "lyra viol" tunings, which sound like playing Scottish pipes when bowed!) and I have very few limitations. Why, I might even take a 12 string wire-strung English guitar and tune it like a Spanish guitar and still call it mine, and still call it a guitar too, or maybe even a short scale Orpharion? Rules are hard to live by ;-) Roger > Brad > > "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> From: Stuart Walsh >> Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:54:29 +0200 >> To: ron fernandez , [email protected] >> Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Origin of the Portuguese guitarra >> >> (the citola isn't meant to predate the Renaissance cittern is it?) > > > The "citole" does predate the cittern. > Here's a medieval Portuguese citole (or what most people would call a citole > these days in any event). I'd imagine it's late 13th to mid 14th cent. > I don't think anyone knows for sure if they were wire or gut strung. > http://www.TheCipher.com/Portuguese_medieval_citole.jpg > > There's a similar instrument in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (c.1265, Spain), > 5 string http://www.TheCipher.com/cantigas-guitar-detail-5str_det.jpg > > > Roger > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > --------------------------------- > How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. > --
