In einer eMail vom 18.12.2006 17:46:33 Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> I'm a bit surprised to get feedback about the articles the family tree > links to right away though. I had expected that the tree itself would > keep people occupied for a while. > Frank, Well, here's another surprise for you ;-) I read what was behind your link to Sachs & Hornbostel. It is true that they were looking for a way to categorise ANY instrument from ANYWHERE of ANY EPOCH. I think one of the basic lessons that they teach is that there are only a few possible ways of producing music - with aerophones, chordophones, membranophones and ideophones (and, later, electrophones). Every musical civilisation (and, let's face it, if it hasn't got music, it's not a civilisation!) from the dawn of time to the electronic age has had only those four (later 5) types of sound producers to work with. It would be pretty wild to suggest that the two sticks that Borneo cannibals knocked together were in some way "related" (e.g. by import or imitation) to the two sticks that Matto Grosso Indios knock together. But you broke off the Sachs thread there. The next step in the categorisation gets even more interesting. Let's take the chordophones, which are our babies. Sachs realised that if you're going to use strings to make musical sounds, you're going to need a resonator as well, and some method of putting the strings under tension. Again, he found only a few feasible methods of doing this: 1. One string for each note, strung inside an open, triangular frame, with the strings pulling perpendicular to the resonator 2. One string for each note, stretched again over a open frame, but running parallel to the surface of the resonator and bearing down on a bridge to couple strings to resonator 3. One string for each note, but stretched from one side of the resonator to the opposite side, bearing down on bridges 4. One string for several notes, stretched along a neck allowing stopping, and parallel to the surface of the resonator, bearing down on a bridge to couple strings to resonator That's it! Every stringed instrument you'll find in use anywhere in the world or in any ancient wall painting of any period belongs to one of those categories. People just had no other way of making strings audible and playable. The same categories appear in ancient chinese music and in medieval European music - not because someone borrowed, but because no-one had another choice! Where Sachs got a bit eurocentric - and downright misleading, if you're not careful - was in the naming of those four categories of chordophones. category 1 above, he called "Harps", category 2, "Lyres", category 3, "Zithers" and category 4, "Lutes". He used these terms because they were the names of existing instruments belonging to the respective category and familiar to European musicologists. What he failed to see was that the man in the street often fails to differentiate between the name of a familiar instrument and the same name used generically for an abstract configuration. So let's look at the"Lutes", which is the category to which the cittern belongs. These consist of a resonator, a neck and a bridge (and of course, strings and some tuning mechanism, like all chordophones). Again there isn't much choice of how to configure these. Necks can be fretted or fretless, and must be thin enough to get your fingers round, but wide enough to take the strings at a comfortable spacing and provide stiffness. Bridges can be fixed or floating. The resonator gives a bit more freedom, but the only really feasible possibilities are a wooden box of some sort and a drum of some sort. Both types are found scattered through time and across distant geographies. No need to postulate import or imitation here, either! The cittern is of the "wooden box" category of "Lute". These almost invariably have a straight-grained softwood belly - not because somebody used it and somebody else copied it, but because there's not much choice! The back can be carved (e.g. early Itlaian citterns) or built. The built back can really only have three basic configurations: 1. Barrel-like staves, e.g. the renaissance lute (with a small "L") 2. Vertical ribs and flat back, e.g. modern guitar, cittern 3. Vertical ribs and vaulted back, e.g. Thuringer style Waldzither. We've come pretty far down the hierarchy of categorisations, and can slot our renaissance cittern into the category "flat-backed wooden-box-type Lutes with floating bridges and wire strings". However, this is not an unambiguous specification of the renaissange cittern; and there are many instruments that one might categorise the same - some of them European or American, some Far Eastern! The variables that go to make up this categorisation are so few that the feasible permutations of them are statistically bound to crop up everywhere luthiers try to produce a loud, playable, stringed instrument. It's like asking 100 people to think of a number between 1 and 10. You'll get a lot of people thinking of the same number, even if you don't let them confer. Back to Sach's main lesson: The fact that two instruments share common features can often be fully explained by the fact that there are so many instruments in the world and so few possible ways of building them. In my opinion, the only area in which one can assume some "descendency" or at least influence is in small details, like the style of design or decoration ot the tuning, for instance, that could have an infinite number of variations but just "happen" to be common to two instruments. I hope that's given enoug food for controversy! Cheers, John -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
