Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Steve Wyrick wrote: Well actually Fender did make an "Yngwie Malmsteen" custom model Stratocaster with a scalloped fretboard for a number of years but as you say, this never really caught on amongst guitarists. I suspect one reason is that an electric guitarist can get many of the same effects by either bending the strings (i.e., pulling them sideways) or using a tremelo bar (which changes pitch by moving the bridge and reducing or increasing string tension), and with either of these methods the guitarist doesn't have to worry too much about finger pressure affecting intonation. Might be interesting to see what could be done with this on an acoustic guitar, though. -Steve Actually, there's a guy on mp3.com playing scalloped fret electric as a speciality, doing Renaissance lute pieces and one Scots piece SHE METT HIM IN THE MEADOW or something like that. I did not bookmark this guy's page because to be honest after listening to everything, quite impressed, I just thought he missed the point of the original MS and made them sound un-renaissance or un-Scots or un-anything - and he did not really use the scalloped frets to very good effect either. I have heard note bending on a fretted guitar do more work. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Rob MacKillop wrote: The lute seems to have been born in Persia 2 to 3 thousand years ago and was known as the barbat. It spread all over Africa, out to China and Japan and to Europe In Vietnam I saw lutes in museums with frets about three inches high, and lutes being played were quite similar. Also a three-stringed instrument they called a guitar, though I never saw one of those played. In the Hanoi old quarter, where each street specializes in one kind of craft or product, there are still a few traditional instrument shops... There's another grant for the future, Rob. Susan Tichy Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Susan Tichy wrote: In Vietnam I saw lutes in museums with frets about three inches high, and lutes being played were quite similar. Also a three-stringed instrument they called a guitar, though I never saw one of those played. In the Hanoi old quarter, where each street specializes in one kind of craft or product, there are still a few traditional instrument shops... There's another grant for the future, Rob. Sounds great. I would love to go there. So little time. So little money! Rob Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Well actually Fender did make an "Yngwie Malmsteen" custom model Stratocaster with a scalloped fretboard for a number of years but as you say, this never really caught on amongst guitarists. I suspect one reason is that an electric guitarist can get many of the same effects by either bending the strings (i.e., pulling them sideways) or using a tremelo bar (which changes pitch by moving the bridge and reducing or increasing string tension), and with either of these methods the guitarist doesn't have to worry too much about finger pressure affecting intonation. Might be interesting to see what could be done with this on an acoustic guitar, though. -Steve --Original Message-- From: John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 28, 2001 4:23:41 PM GMT Subject: Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit snip I wonder why this design hasn't ever caught on in the West? You'd think that rock and jazz musicians would like it. Maybe it'll be the "new" style guitar a few years from now. Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Concord, California Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
The kobza is fairly weel-kent tae ethnomusicologists and organologists. It is sill used in parts of Hungary as well, and is regarded as a folk instrument. It certainly does look similar to the Melrose lute. The lute seems to have been born in Persia 2 to 3 thousand years ago and was known as the barbat. It spread all over Africa, out to China and Japan and to Europe (and then Russia) via the Moorish invasion of Spain. Its latest incursion is into Tayport... There are three basic routes which the lute could have taken to get here: trade - (Phoenicians are said to have visited England 2000 years ago, and 'black men from the Mediterranean' were said to have built Calanish) - pilgrim routes (places like Melrose and Rosslyn were on the pilgrim route - which drew people from Spain via France into Scotland. Not all pilgrimages were to the Middle East), and Crusades which involved the Knights Templars (Rosslyn especially), the aristocracy and their peasant lackies. I'm looking in to all of this and will put it all up on my website later this year. If you see any image of a lute, citole or gittern-type instrument at a palace or kirk near you, please let me know about it. Cheers, Rob Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Jack Campin wrote: There is a carving in Melrose Abbey of someone playing a small three- course lute. This (if the carving is anywhere near as old as the abbey itself) is by far the oldest documentation of any stringed instrument in Scotland. The type of lute was one I couldn't think of another parallel for, though; its shape was between an ud and a rebec, maybe rebec-sized (i.e. nearest to a mandolin among modern instruments, which should please Nigel). But today I spotted a picture of an instrument that looks just the same, in the New Grove's section on folk music of the USSR. It's the local lute type in Kirgizia; I forget the exact name, something like "kobuz" or "kobuk". It has a wacky tuning with the middle course the highest. Maybe the Kirghiz got it from Persia, but I can't see how any chain of influence could have transmitted an instrument design from Persia to Scotland in the Middle Ages either. I've already sent Rob the carvings of players using citterns in Kilconqhar Castle. You can see these by this URL: http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/kilconquharguittars.jpg These are clearly five-course instruments and the carvings are Jacobean, assumed. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
John Chambers wrote: Jack Campin writes: | Maybe the Kirghiz got it from Persia, but I can't see how any chain | of influence could have transmitted an instrument design from Persia | to Scotland in the Middle Ages either. Not much mystery there, actually. The Norse were trading through Russia down to the Black Sea by at least the 800's. They spread all sorts of things along their trade routes. And unless I'm mistaken, the Rus were Vikings in origin and European Russia owed as much to Nordic influence as Scotland and England did, only a bit earlier. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
David wrote: | John Chambers wrote: | Jack Campin writes: | | Maybe the Kirghiz got it from Persia, but I can't see how any chain | | of influence could have transmitted an instrument design from Persia | | to Scotland in the Middle Ages either. | | Not much mystery there, actually. The Norse were trading through | Russia down to the Black Sea by at least the 800's. They spread all | sorts of things along their trade routes. | | And unless I'm mistaken, the Rus were Vikings in origin and European Russia owed as |much | to Nordic influence as Scotland and England did, only a bit earlier. You're not at all mistaken. Part of the story is that in much of eastern Europe, there was a custom of hiring town managers from far away, so that they wouldn't have family and financial ties locally and could be impartial in how they ran things. Since the Norse were often sailing up and down the rivers, a lot of them managed to hire on as town managers. Many settled there permanently. Historians use this as the conventional explanation of all the Nordic names, customs and construction techniques throughout the area. About the only connection to Scottish topics is that in this case, "Norse" seems to have meant anyone who learned the language well enough to sign on and travel with them. This seems to have included a lot of people from the British Isles, not surprisingly, as well as from the rest of northwestern Europe. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] another place for Rob (or maybe Nigel) to visit
Jack Campin writes: | Maybe the Kirghiz got it from Persia, but I can't see how any chain | of influence could have transmitted an instrument design from Persia | to Scotland in the Middle Ages either. Not much mystery there, actually. The Norse were trading through Russia down to the Black Sea by at least the 800's. They spread all sorts of things along their trade routes. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
