Everyone loves the cittern. But suppose you want to play in meantone? Specifically, alternating major and minor semitones such as in this delicious photo? [1]http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/old/img_1600/34cm_citternscale .jpg Let's look at a few possibilities. The French 4 course tuning aa'a' gg'g'd'd'e'e' and the Italian bbggd'd'e'e' And let's assume this is tastini free--puh-leeze-- Right away, we see the the G makes an A flat on the first fret of both tunings. Rats, shades of F minor. And right away we see that the Italian tuning is no good because there is a both a B and a G. But if we tune the French tuning up a fifth--and adjust the strings-- we get the pitch set E D A B Which gives the following scales E F F# G G# A D Eb E F F# G A Bb B C C# D B C C# D D# E This gives good meantone for chords, and has both an E flat and a D sharp, although for solo music the the E on the top course is a bit high, this is mitigated by the the lowness of the open string. For the Italian tuning, a single extra fret would help the G sharp, as it does on the baroque guitar. dt --
References 1. http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/old/img_1600/34cm_citternscale.jpg To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
