At 01:30 PM 11/6/2006, David Rastall wrote: >On Nov 6, 2006, at 11:29 AM, Eugene C. Braig IV wrote: > > > ...Martin fans tend to trivialize or quaint-ify > > the shop's early guitars with the "parlor" moniker. > >I don't understand the stigma attached to the word "parlor." Can >someone enlighten me please? Romantic guitars were mostly played in >the home by amateurs; at least amateurs constituted the vast bulk of >the sheet music market. The parlor is where they would have played! >What's the problem with considering 19th-century guitars parlor >instruments? Isn't that what they were? > >I've never heard any complaints about references to the lute as a >"household instrument." Is there some kind of snobbish element at >work here, that can't stand the thought of anything dignified being >associated with the "parlor?" Is it just a word-game being played >here, or is there something else about that word "parlor" that I'm >missing?
That's not quite my source of consternation. If we refer to instruments as their contemporaries named them, "parlor" simply is a modern, added-on misnomer; the instrument simply was "guitar" to its contemporaries. "Parlor" is a fine adjective, but I don't like it as a defined instrument type for an instrument that simply wasn't called that by its contemporaries. In spite of a large amateur market (which isn't so different from today), there were also a fair number of concert artists who performed on such guitars in concert halls, Giuliani through Foden and Bickford. I would wager there are many more Dreadnaught-style guitars being played by amateurs in private parlors than there were contemporary 19th-c. guitars. In spite, nobody calls the Dreadnaught a parlor guitar simply because that's not what it's contemporaries named it. I may be wrong, but too often "parlor" seems to imply "quaintly obsolete" to fans of the modern steel-string. I prefer simply "guitar", as they were originally named. If the context calls for clarification, I might add an era of manufacture, maker's name, physical measurements, etc. I'm happy to call modern small-bodied guitars "parlor" if that's what their makers would like them named, but I won't call historic guitars "parlor" just because they weren't. That said, I don't take offense if you'd like to refer to early 6-stringers as parlor. Enjoy. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
