Might it not have been the case that there were a variety of sizes? Could there have been such a thing as a 'great-octave-bass' chitarra? [Kidding]
Still, in the 18th century there was at least one very big 5c guitar made by Stradivari. Does anybody have statistics on string lengths of surviving 5c instruments? I'm tempted to turn an old 6c lute of mine with a very narrow neck into a 4c instrument. I can use the Durer engraving as evidence if anybody questions it's authenticity, not that I care terribly much at my time of life. As Monica suggests, music can be played on any instrument with the requisite number of courses and tuning. Bill From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> To: WALSH STUART <s.wa...@ntlworld.com> Cc: Lutelist <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thursday, 31 January 2013, 22:33 Subject: [LUTE] Re: chitarra italiana > I still don't understand that if this is a 'chitarra' and chitarra relates to what other places called 'gittern' (with all the spelling variants), how these things are this big? Like Topsy - it just grew! Monica >> >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> > > -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
