Stuart, and all,
The problem with the old instruments is the naming. We moderns have a
bit better communications than they had. A name could change across
boundaries and languages. It is said that the name of the lute comes
from the Arabic word for wood - "oud". A likely scenario is that when
the Moors brought their necked stringed instrument (and it was
unfretted) into Spain they already called it an "oud", but also likely
that the instrument had an early life as made from a gourd, or tortoise
shell (there are such instruments depicted historically, and yet in use
in some native areas). So perhaps there was another name - let us call
it the "plunk" (an old Arabic word I just made up <g>). So the player of
the plunk, made of shell or gourd, might have made one of wood. He then
would have an "oud plunk". Should he shorten that to "oud", then use the
Arabic "al oud" for "the wood", one could understand the Spanish were
they to call it "aloud", then pervert it to "lute".
The lute family has a number of names - as you so well point out. But
that very fact makes all documentation of the names suspect - they come
from a place and a time. The psaltery (from the Greek psein, or plucked)
was also the lyre (expanded to many strings) and the Kithera (Greek) or
Cithera (Roman) - and is now the class of instruments called the Zither
group (which includes the mountain/Appalachian dulcimer).
I have the entire archive of the Skene book, I am not familiar with
Chancy or Ulm or Gallot. I'm not sure if you are confusing the naming of
the instrument (the Italian/European) with the actual instrument. I
tried to go back through my "originals" on the computer but can't find
the title page of Skene. I rely on Ronn for the dating of 1615 and the
naming of mandora with an "a". He used the same source I have. I will go
through the 200 odd badly reproduced handwritten pages to look for the
title page - but not tonight.
The key to the exercise isn't the names - my main instrument is the harp
and that name is apparently Norse even though the instrument was
preserved by the Celts as the clearsach, and played by the Babylonians,
Egyptians and Assyrians under some other name. (The harp isn't the lyre
shown in Nero's hands, nor the psaltery shown as King David's harp, in
medieval portraiture - it is unique in that the strings pull away from
the soundboard rather than across a bridge). The music is the tuning,
the form of the music is defined by that. Instrumental polyphony started
with the ground base and the divisions on top, a duet. Tunings have
changed over the centuries to allow for more polyphony in the solo
instrument, and then for more combinations of instruments. The Scot's
mandora, as written for in Skene, is a solo instrument that might have a
ground base - or might play off a harp (the harp being the main
instrument of the Celts of Scotland and Ireland - going back in history
to at least the 6th C. when tombstone carvings show the instrument).
Enjoying this,
Best, Jon
On 1/20/2011 11:24 AM, Stuart Walsh wrote:
As I understand it, mandoras (mandoras/gallichons) are large
instruments of the lute family but mandores (mandors, mandours) are
tiny. The Skene MS doesn't mention 'mandora' (with an a on the
end).... nor 1615?
Jean-Marie Poirier's website has lots of materials about and pictures
of mandores.
http://le.luth.free.fr/mandore/index.html
As the first image demonstrates, a typical mandore has single strings.
As Jon says, the instrument was tuned in fourths and fifths. But the
top course was sometimes lowered (not in the Skene pieces, but in some
of the suites in Chancy and some of the pieces in the Ulm MS and all
of the (few) pieces in Gallot). There is one whole section of pieces
in Skene that are in the old lute tuning.
There is a good article by the late James Tyler on Jean-Marie's website.
Stuart
On 1/19/2011 9:55 AM, Mark Day wrote:
Hello everyone,
Does anyone know where I could find information on the mandora - as
played by Ronn MacFarlane on "The Scottish Lute"? I would like
to build
one of these instruments.
Thank you,
--
Mark Day
[1]http://neowalla.smugmug.com/
--
References
1. http://neowalla.smugmug.com/
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