Ancient History of the Guitar
jim...@vision-design.biz
instrument from Arabic countries and Turkey, or the Tanbur, which was
origianally a Persion instrument.
Which did the lute and later the guitar come from - the Ud or the
Tanbur, or both?
Thanks
Mark & Steven Bornfeld
I take it you don't believe in intelligent design.
Steve
--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
Mark & Steven Bornfeld
Seriously, I have seen various timelines for development of different
classes of stringed instruments. I know there was an issue of GuitArt
magazine a couple of years ago that tried to flesh out the geneology
more fully--including citterns, lutes, and their presumed descendents.
I think the oud and other mideast lute-like instruments as we know them
today are thought of more as having common antecedents with the modern
guitar, rather than one arising out of the other. Think gorilla and
chimp. ;-)
David Kilpatrick
Assuming playing style and tuning has anything to do with it, ud nit
tanbur. The tanbur is a drone/rythmic instrument, much simpler than a
guitar. The ud is relatively close to the guitar, even though modern ud
styles can be fairly heavy on rythmic patterns and ornamentation
(borrowing from tanbur in some ways).
As commented, maybe neither. Its own ancestor.
David
rcspross
David Kilpatrick wrote:
I think Maurice Summerfield identified the guitar as a evolving from
the Persian Tar. Someone out there must have his book on Players
I lost mine years ago and haven't replaced it. I faintly remember that
the Persian term Tar can have many derivatives and I'm sorry I fail
to remember which one, however it predates the Greek Kithara from
which mid 20th century writers sought to find a lineage.
Richard Spross
Antony
4-stringed guitar-like instrument which was brought to Spain in 476 AD
almost 3 centuries before the Moors came. From this there evolved the
Guitarra Latina and the Guitarra Morisca . The Guitarra Latina had a flat
back, as has the modern guitar, and the soundboard had one hole over which
the strings passed. It was used for playing chords and was the forerunner of
the vihuela. The Guitarra Morisca had a vaulted back, the fingerboard was
large and the soundboard had several soundholes. It was used for playing
melodies.
It was these instruments that later evolved into the aristocratic vihuela (a
six double stringed instrument tuned GCFADG ) which dominated the courts of
Spain and Portugal during the 16th century. The four-course guitar (tuned
CFAD - the same as middle four strings of the vihuela) was used mainly by
troubadors to accompany songs and dancing.
The Ud, which had also evolved from early tanburs, eventually developed into
the lute .This instrument became very popular in England, France. Italy and
Germany. Although related to the early guitar, because of its similar
origins, the lute really had little part in the evolution of the guitar.
I would say that the word "guitar" has one of three origins :
1. From the Sanskrit words "Git" (song) and "tar" (string).
2. From the Persian words "Char" ( meaning four as the tanbur had 4 strings)
and "tar" (string).
3, From the Greek "Kithara".
Antony
"rcspross" <posto...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:43572A78...@pacbell.net...
Roman Turovsky
Quitra/Kuitra. Some of the Roman and Greek iconography may be found here:
http://polyhymnion.org/torban/iconography.html
It is NOT an ancestor of the Spanish guitar though, but of the lute-shaped
Chitarra Italiana, Chitarrone, Calascione, and some Balkan and Ukrainian
instruments.
RT
"Antony" <git...@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
news:4357...@news.alphalink.com.au...
John LaCroix
was influenced by India. He said that Indians contributed to gypsy
culture, and that the free stroke and use of the nails was influenced
by the sitar. I had never heard or read anything on this topic and
can't vouch for the accuracy of the claim (it was relayed to me almost
anecdotally), particularly the notion of Indians migrating to Spain in
the 11th or 12th century, but thought I'd throw it out to see if anyone
else has ever heard of this.
John LaCroix
David Kilpatrick
The tribes/nations of India were so diverse that you can't use the term
generically. Even early Victorian accounts ascribe to India as much
variety in language, skin colour, physical type as 'all of Europe, even
including Turkey'. Gypsy origins may lie in the north-west of India with
one or more tribes who migrated further west to Asia Minor, Egypt,
before being further dispersed throughout Europe and across North Africa.
Certainly the Romany gypsies believe they come originally from an area
probably the Punjab or more northerly, and language studies have I
believe supported that. Surviving words found in England, Scotland,
Ireland in gypsy (or horse-travelling, semi nomadic, trading clans).
Associations with music, dance, horsemanship, certain types of dress,
traditions of wearing your wealth on your hair/skin/clothes, appear as
much as common factor as anything else - from Andalus to the Camargue,
Hungary/Romania to Greece and Turkey, Cumbria, Dublin... wherever. In
Ireland though a large number of travellers definitely don't belong to
the same original ethnic group and appear more Nordic (often red haired
- I used to deal with Irish 'gypsies' all the time and their look was
immediately recognisable).
Romanian gypsies don't seem to play guitar - they take the strings off,
leaving just two or three, to make it sound more like a tambura or a
cobza. They play cymbalom (hammer dulcimer), fiddle and a certain type
of button accordion. Some of the best buskers in Scotland in summer are
Romanian gypsy accordion players. Yet Romanian (and other
central/eastern European) gypsies are supposed to be the largest and
oldest group of their 'nation'.
Spanish gypsies certainly play guitar, and so do Provencal relatives,
but is this because the guitar was OTHERWISE popular in this whole area
(southern, eastern coast of Spain and Pyrenees to Lombardy)? Scots/Irish
gypsies are mainly associated with the fiddle, or with pure singing (no
instruments).
I'd like to know more about the waisted guitar shape, since I think this
is more a sign of the guitar's pedigree than the question of wire, gut,
four, six, strings. Roman's old pictures show lute-type shapes except
the Basque instruments which are tar-like (long neck, narrow body, few
strings) and judging from the numbers shown as a group, were possibly
strummed as a pedal/modal ground for sung or played melody.
Finding really old waisted shape instrument references (pre
viheula/viola de mano) is much harder.
David
alcarruth
in North Africa, where there are necked instruments with gourd bodies
and skin tops that later evolved into the banjo and West African Kora.
There has been some discussion about the name of the 'ud, which means
'wood'. Some poeple have said that the name refered to the wooden top
that replaced the skin one, and others think it was in reference to the
fact that the instrument was played with a wooden pick.
At any rate, there do seem to have been ancestors of the guitar in
Spain when the Moors got ther in 711, and one source has suggested that
the 'ud picked up the guitar/vihuela tuning when it transmogrified into
the lute.
It's interesting to me as a modern maker who tries to understand the
acoustics of the thing that, whatever it's origin, the guitar has
retained the waisted shape for centuries. Every once in a while
somebody tries to 'simplify' it, but those experiments, like the 'lyre
guitars' of the French Empire, are generaly short lived. It can be
shown that the shape of the guitar has effects on the tone, and it may
be that other shapes just don't sound 'guitar like' enough.
Alan Carruth / Luthier
Roman Turovsky
> in North Africa, where there are necked instruments with gourd bodies
> and skin tops that later evolved into the banjo and West African Kora.
all played a 3-string lute Quitra which still survives in Morocco as Kuitra.
> There has been some discussion about the name of the 'ud, which means
> 'wood'. Some poeple have said that the name refered to the wooden top
> that replaced the skin one, and others think it was in reference to the
> fact that the instrument was played with a wooden pick.
In Arabic UD at the time meant ANY instrument. Instrumental music was
proscribed for the Muslims, and was a slaves' prerogative.
RT
jim...@vision-design.biz
-Jim
Matanya Ophee
>It's interesting to me as a modern maker who tries to understand the
>acoustics of the thing that, whatever it's origin, the guitar has
>retained the waisted shape for centuries. Every once in a while
>somebody tries to 'simplify' it, but those experiments, like the 'lyre
>guitars' of the French Empire, are generaly short lived.
The lyre guitar did not come about because it sounded better, but
because it allowed society ladies to appear, visually, as Greek
Goddesses. See my article on the lyre guitar in the new New Grove.
> It can be
>shown that the shape of the guitar has effects on the tone, and it may
>be that other shapes just don't sound 'guitar like' enough.
Without disputing the first part of the statement, which I am sure is
right, the fact remains that there are guitars which are not figure-8
shape that sound pretty damn good. The English guitar and similar pear
shaped bodies, and the wappen (shield) form of guitars. My 1915 7+4
Eroshkin guitar is such a shape and it sounds very much like a guitar
of its time should. You can see a (small) picture of it in my avatar
on my LJ.
As for the entire discussion: already in his 1970 PH.D. dissertation,
Thomas Heck proposed that such discussions, and you can see them in
many coffee table type guitar books, serve no useful purpose when we
do not have the _music_ played on these ancient instruments. IOW,
guitar history properly begins with the appearance of the first
written score for the instrument. Anything prior to that may be an
interesting and amusing archeological speculation, but it has nothing
to do with music.
Matanya Ophee
Editions Orphe'e, Inc.,
1240 Clubview Blvd. N.
Columbus, OH 43235-1226
614-846-9517
fax: 614-846-9794
http://www.orphee.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/matanya/
Mark & Steven Bornfeld
> Actually, I think of evolution as the process of intelligent design.
>
> -Jim
>
That's definition #2! ;-)
Antony
like a lute!
It is obvious that the guitar developed from the tanbur which both the
Greeks and later the Romans brought to Spain.
"Roman Turovsky" <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:8eO5f.6111$9N.2016@trndny07...
Antony
arrived in Spain so this makes no sense. Also the sitar is not played with
the nails but with a wire plectrum called a misrab brushed up and down on a
string. This is nothing like guitar freestroke.
"John LaCroix" <john...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:1129821877....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Antony
representation of the young Andalucian women with their perfect hour-glass
figures.
"Matanya Ophee" <m.o...@orphee.com> wrote in message
news:linfl11d6d5mf0uj2...@4ax.com...
David Kilpatrick
> Oh yeh so where did the guitar come from then? The Roman tanbur is nothing
> like a lute!
> It is obvious that the guitar developed from the tanbur which both the
> Greeks and later the Romans brought to Spain.
Obvious? The scale length is completely different, the number of strings
is different, the tuning is not in any way related, and the method for
playing (if known at all) sufficiently changed too much even in the last
600 years for definite, obvious ancestry to be attributed.
The Romans abandoned the pear-shape in favour of the instrument which
remained in Catalonia/Basque country, a much simpler squared off almond
shape. The tanbur even then seems to have far more in common with the
saz/bozuk/tambura, probably only two courses. one tuned as a unison
treble melody and a single bass.
After the return of Spain to Christian (European dynastic) rule the
Arabic oud/ud and even the European lute (because of its similarity)
were frowned on officially because of their use to play Arab and
Mozarabic music and rebellious or nostalgic songs. I have always
understood that an edict was issued forbidding the use of the ud/lute by
ordinary subjects, though I've never been told of any identifiable law.
More likely being seen with an Arabic instrument got you identified as
possibly remaining Muslim, and not submitting to conversion.
The guitar shape of the early guitarra (originally more pear-shaped and
narrow) was emphasised and the 'moresco' variety with its vaulted or
lute-like back fell our of favour, and an instrument which definitely
did not appear to be an Arabic one developed. However - and this is
where the problem arises - the stringing, scale length and tuning
intervals used were those of the five-course Arabic lute as used before
the Christian reconquest.
'Tuned in fourths' is still an official mode for the Kurdish tanbur, the
most authentic (probably) surviving relative of the old tanbur, and this
is called the ud or lute mode.
When an instrument has five courses only, tuning in fourths is very
effective and leaves no open string discords. The introduction of a
sixth course spoils the party, by creating a top open string one
semitone plus two octaves apart from the bass. So 'vihuela' and 'lute'
tuning with one short interval (it does not matter where it is placed)
replace the original Arabic five-course straight fourths. The modern
guitar inherits an altered tuning in fourths with one short interval,
and personally I think that is what defines its origin.
The Spanish laud and bandurria retain a straight fourths tuning despite
having six courses, and provide an attendant challenge. The reason given
in Andalus for this unusual tuning is that this is the 'Arabic tuning',
and it was introduced in the late 19th century (the laud/bandurria is a
historic revival instrument - not quite a modern invention).
I am not aware of any long-necked lute/tar survivors in Spain until you
reach the Pyrenees and maybe even cross them. You then find a
long-necked, three or four course, tanbur-like instrument in use at the
time of the troubadour courts.
Listening to modern Turkish (traditionally influenced) and Middle
Eastern guitar recordings there's a big, big connection with the sounds
of Andalus and through that to modern classical guitar. If the
instrument has a single ancestry (and this is all that I doubt, not that
the ancient tanbur had a part in it, that's certain - just not the ONLY
part) then it's great to see it returning to Turkey, Iran, India. The
way a good Turkish guitarist plays is so utterly different from a
Spanish player, but also so clearly related. In India there's an amazing
sort of archtop jazz guitar development with sympathetic strings and a
uniquely Indian sound.
Anyway, in Marrakesh for a couple of days start of November, time to
bring back a quitar or oud I think!
David
Roman Turovsky
> oud/ud and even the European lute (because of its similarity) were frowned
> on officially because of their use to play Arab and Mozarabic music and
> rebellious or nostalgic songs. I have always understood that an edict was
> issued forbidding the use of the ud/lute by ordinary subjects, though I've
> never been told of any identifiable law. More likely being seen with an
> Arabic instrument got you identified as possibly remaining Muslim, and not
> submitting to conversion.
lutes in Spanish iconography, even in the liturgical context.
Has been discussed extensively on the Dartmouth vihuela list (a good reason
to subscribe there).
RT
Feci quod potui. Faciant meliora potentes.
David Kilpatrick
>>After the return of Spain to Christian (European dynastic) rule the Arabic
>>oud/ud and even the European lute (because of its similarity) were frowned
>>on officially because of their use to play Arab and Mozarabic music and
>>rebellious or nostalgic songs. I have always understood that an edict was
>>issued forbidding the use of the ud/lute by ordinary subjects, though I've
>>never been told of any identifiable law. More likely being seen with an
>>Arabic instrument got you identified as possibly remaining Muslim, and not
>>submitting to conversion.
>
> This has actually been proven untrue. There are great many instances of
> lutes in Spanish iconography, even in the liturgical context.
> Has been discussed extensively on the Dartmouth vihuela list (a good reason
> to subscribe there).
But that's not *ordinary subjects* Roman - that's the ruling class. I
can well believe the story is a myth. But I don't see why Spanish ruling
class iconography should be any different from Italian or others of the
same period in including lutes in liturgical scenes, since they were
used throughout Europe. The privileges extended to the clerical/musical
class, and to landowning or aristocratic players, might not necessarily
be extended to the peasantry.
In Scotland most native music, along with the kilt and the bagpipe, was
banned and suppressed for the best part of the entire 18th century. It
was left to the landowning classes to keep it alive. After the accession
of George IV, who repealed all the proscriptions and encouraged Scottish
identity, piping and other traditions were able to recover. The
aristocratic great houses who kept the music alive were Catholic (and
indeed still are) and did so in secret, using many forms of words in
newly written songs, that are metaphors or symbolism for the real
meanings. They transferred the music of pipe, harp, stock-and-horn etc
to the harpsichord, flute and violin (and even to the guittar) and
played it in drawing-rooms.
It's easy to imagine parallels in Spain. I have no doubt, hearing
Turkish traditional saz and ud music, watching the techniques used, and
comparing these with Andalucian flamenco, that the Spanish guitar
inherited the modes and rythms of Asia Minor. One baglama saz teacher,
showing me sets of positions and chord shapes which make up the basis
for improvisation, performed a typical flamenco progression including
bare finger rasgeudo strum patterns, on the very lightly wire strung saz
and it was amazingly effective.
How many (post-Arabic) pictures are there in Spain of peasantry using
ud/saz?
David
Antony
String lengths and tuning mean nothing. Even today you have guitars without
a variety of string lengths and many guitarists use different tunings. It is
a fact that the guitar at one stage had only four strings (you can see
Julian Bream play such a guitar in his "Guitar in Spain" series), then later
a fifth string was added and then a sixth. The Arabs influenced the music of
Spain but not necessarily the instruments.
"David Kilpatrick" <icon...@btconnect.com> wrote in message
news:djaris$gv5$1...@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
Roman Turovsky
>>>Arabic oud/ud and even the European lute (because of its similarity) were
>>>frowned on officially because of their use to play Arab and Mozarabic
>>>music and rebellious or nostalgic songs. I have always understood that an
>>>edict was issued forbidding the use of the ud/lute by ordinary subjects,
>>>though I've never been told of any identifiable law. More likely being
>>>seen with an Arabic instrument got you identified as possibly remaining
>>>Muslim, and not submitting to conversion.
>>
>> This has actually been proven untrue. There are great many instances of
>> lutes in Spanish iconography, even in the liturgical context.
>> Has been discussed extensively on the Dartmouth vihuela list (a good
>> reason to subscribe there).
>
> But that's not *ordinary subjects* Roman - that's the ruling class. I can
> well believe the story is a myth. But I don't see why Spanish ruling class
> iconography should be any different from Italian or others of the same
> period in including lutes in liturgical scenes, since they were used
> throughout Europe. The privileges extended to the clerical/musical class,
> and to landowning or aristocratic players, might not necessarily be
> extended to the peasantry.
"persona non-grata with islamist connotations" is exactly simply a myth. The
regional iconography has an incredible variety of plucked strings depicted.
As to musical class: professionals were professionals, and those who were
not played a stick with a sheep bladder, not lutes or vihuelas.
> In Scotland most native music, along with the kilt and the bagpipe, was
> banned and suppressed for the best part of the entire 18th century.
Too bad the bagpipe has survived that ban......
> How many (post-Arabic) pictures are there in Spain of peasantry using
> ud/saz?
Why peasantry? It is not any more culture-perpetuating than urban folk.
The most famous that comes to mind is Zurgaran's Assumption of the Virgin
with (horror...) a lute!
RT
David Kilpatrick
> So where did the guitar come from then? You haven't answered the question.
> String lengths and tuning mean nothing. Even today you have guitars without
> a variety of string lengths and many guitarists use different tunings. It is
> a fact that the guitar at one stage had only four strings (you can see
> Julian Bream play such a guitar in his "Guitar in Spain" series), then later
> a fifth string was added and then a sixth. The Arabs influenced the music of
> Spain but not necessarily the instruments.
If you look at the tanbur and its direct lineal descendants (of which I
have a couple) they are either carved from a single piece of mulberry,
or made to resemble a single carved, hollowed out piece.
Such guitars do exist but they are very rare indeed. The Veracruz
variant of the Mexican vihuela (closer to older types than the Paracho
style) is carved from a single block; the Canarian and Venezuelan timple
or ukelele-type instruments, with a shape closely resembling early
guitars, have carved bodies. Four, five and six strings can be used.
Also, they are not so much a 'waisted' shape (historically) as a longer,
narrow shape with a slightly pear-shaped narrowing using almost parallel
sides. The female figure shape in its present form seems to be little
over 200 years old, and where it exists earlier, appears to be central
European. Changes in the guitar to its modern form seem to have happened
mainly under the Hapsburg/Bourbon influences and Spain was (in that
dynastic and cultural sense) linked to Austria/Hungary. Luthiers and
players appear to have travelled very widely and had Europe-wide
reputations.
The Portuguese folk violas may perhaps shed some light on origins, but
then again maybe not. The largest number of variants remains in the
Azores, typical of the past getting itself strandard on islands. Some
have extremely narrow waists and nearly equal sized upper and lower bouts.
String lengths and tuning may 'mean nothing' today, but in the past they
were inextricably linked. The range of materials made for strings was
limited, and their quality was such that they had to match the
instrument exactly. Many orpharions were abandoned or converted to
something else when the unique German wire strings they depended on
ceased to be made. The scale of an instrument certainly determined its
overall pitch more in the past than today. I have guitars ranging from
470mm to 660mm scale which can all be tuned in standard tuning, and be
playable; I can retune one or two of my instruments by as much as a
fifth difference in overall pitch, and still have a good sound.
There's a stack of reasons for lots of things. Tanbur-type instruments
with necks about 800mm long can incorporate frets in one-third tone
intervals easily and allow for further microtonal adjustment (only the
pentatonic scale frets being fixed, the intermediate ones being movable
to set up for different modes). European lutes can have semitone,
chromatic frets tied more or less permanently, but these would be
useless to a Turkish classical ud player, who must be able to play exact
microtones. A modern Turkish folk singer could use, instead, a lavta
with fixed frets more or less on the Western chromatic scale. The lavta
is the closest thing you can get to a pre-renaissance four-course guitar
(gyterne or whatever), tuned in fourths, not re-entrant, four courses,
scale length midway between an ud and a guitar.
Modern materials have made Robert Fripp's 'New Standard Tuning' (six
strings tuned in fifths) possible - it's difficult to master, and the
very heavy bass and light treble don't suit all guitars. But it was a
long time before tuning in fifths was practical at all. Early viols and
rebecs were often tuned to much closer intervals, or open chords, with
less overall range than a modern violin - because the strings of the
time lacked the range of gauges and windings of modern types.
The Spanish guitar definitely isn't suited to microtonal playing or it
would have no frets and a higher action. Most guitars do seem to have
had frets, tied or fixed, and unlike citterns they always seem to have
been chromatic. I associate that with more northern influences on music.
As I said at the start, I would love to know where the guitar body shape
comes from. Loads of old art sources show lute or cittern, saz or tar
like items but the hourglass shape of the guitar seems to spring from
nowhere. Roman Turovsky's torban/pandor/cobza sources are interesting
and so are the countless web references - often with good copies museum
art or carvings etc - but the closest anything gets to a guitar is a
vaguely pear-shaped small body.
Yet, the word is there - Chaucer and contemporaries, clearly nothing new
even then, and clearly popular enough.
All I am doubting here is that the Roman tanbur is a single, lineal
ancestor of the modern guitar. I suspect it is a more likely ancestor of
the long-necked Provencal citole or the chitarra battente.
Whatever the 20th century theatre artist drew on as a source for the
painting in this page of mine I am not sure:
http://www.soundclick.com/pro/default.cfm?BandID=2395&content=lyrics&SongID=2437576
Appears to be a theatrical costume sketch, photographed in the loo of a
Paris hotel this year. It seems an unlikely instrument to 'make up' - a
bit too accurate. Suggests an older reference was used, for costume, and
perhaps for the instrument. Vaguely tanbur-like, vaguely kobza-like
(Ukrainian that is), tamburitsa-like, cittern-like. The painting does
not seem to be post-1960s and the chances of it showing a modern 'Irish
bouzouki' family item are minimal.
David
David Kilpatrick
> As to musical class: professionals were professionals, and those who were
> not played a stick with a sheep bladder, not lutes or vihuelas.
>
I'll avoid getting into this. I believe it is entirely untrue. Maybe not
lutes, but the Arabic ud is an item easily made by village craftsmen,
and there's no evidence to suggest the apprentices of Elizabethen
England who played gyternes were somehow favoured with wealth.
The Portuguese violas are very much instruments of the people - farm
workers, country people - not professional musicians.
>
> Why peasantry? It is not any more culture-perpetuating than urban folk.
> The most famous that comes to mind is Zurgaran's Assumption of the Virgin
> with (horror...) a lute!
Breughel at least showed his peasantry with their instruments. Not much
art showed ordinary working people before the Dutch broadened that
brush. I think we may not know much about what ordinary people did for
music - and they DID! it's human nature - because it's not well documented.
David
Roman Turovsky
>> So where did the guitar come from then? You haven't answered the
>> question.
> String lengths and tuning may 'mean nothing' today, but in the past they
> were inextricably linked. The range of materials made for strings was
> limited, and their quality was such that they had to match the instrument
> exactly. Many orpharions were abandoned or converted to something else
> when the unique German wire strings they depended on ceased to be made.
This is news to, and you should post this on the lute-net.
> There's a stack of reasons for lots of things. Tanbur-type instruments
> with necks about 800mm long can incorporate frets in one-third tone
> intervals easily and allow for further microtonal adjustment (only the
> pentatonic scale frets being fixed, the intermediate ones being movable to
> set up for different modes). European lutes can have semitone, chromatic
> frets tied more or less permanently, but these would be useless to a
> Turkish classical ud player, who must be able to play exact microtones. A
> modern Turkish folk singer could use, instead, a lavta with fixed frets
> more or less on the Western chromatic scale. The lavta is the closest
> thing you can get to a pre-renaissance four-course guitar (gyterne or
> whatever), tuned in fourths, not re-entrant, four courses, scale length
> midway between an ud and a guitar.
Have you considered that Lavta simply is a remnant of Byzantine lutes?
> long time before tuning in fifths was practical at all. Early viols and
> rebecs were often tuned to much closer intervals, or open chords, with
> less overall range than a modern violin - because the strings of the time
> lacked the range of gauges and windings of modern types.
This is the first time I hear of EARLY tunings involving 3rds. Such tuning
are not known to have existed before 17th century, i.e. Baroque.
> As I said at the start, I would love to know where the guitar body shape
> comes from. Loads of old art sources show lute or cittern, saz or tar like
> items but the hourglass shape of the guitar seems to spring from nowhere.
> Roman Turovsky's torban/pandor/cobza sources are interesting and so are
> the countless web references - often with good copies museum art or
> carvings etc - but the closest anything gets to a guitar is a vaguely
> pear-shaped small body.
I'd say that 8-shaped TAR is the only possible ancestor for guiTARs.
RT
Roman Turovsky
> lutes, but the Arabic ud is an item easily made by village craftsmen, and
> there's no evidence to suggest the apprentices of Elizabethen England who
> played gyternes were somehow favoured with wealth.
evidence that it was ever common among hoi polloi.
>>
>> Why peasantry? It is not any more culture-perpetuating than urban folk.
>> The most famous that comes to mind is Zurgaran's Assumption of the Virgin
>> with (horror...) a lute!
>
> Breughel at least showed his peasantry with their instruments.
As I recall the only instrument he showed is the bagpipe.
RT
alcarruth
<<Kora is not a lute, but a harp. >>
Have you seen one? Yes, it is played as a harp, and has one string per
note, but it's not built like any other harp I've ever seen.
To make a kora you start with a large gourd, and cut off part of one
side to make a deep bowl. Drill a hole in each side just below the rim,
about 3-5cm in daimeter, and put a stick through it, so that it pokes
out about 20cm on the bottom end and 70-80 on the top end. Attach a
skin to cover the bowl in the usual way.
A tall, rectangular bridge is made, perhaps 10 cm. wide by 25 tall,
with notches in the sides. The strings run from the lower end of the
stick to the notches in the sides of the bridge, and up to the upper
end of the stick. The ones in the lower notches end on the 'neck' close
to the edge of the top, while the strings in the upper notches go as
close to the upper end of the 'neck' as possible, thus giving the
different lengths. Tuning is accomplished on the neck end, by the use
of a ring of rawhide that slides down the string below the attachment
point, to both tension and shorten it. Modern ones use heavy nylon fish
line, but gut was probably the original string material.
Structurally, then, the kora is a form of lute or banjo, or, perhaps, a
sort of lyre. The strings do not pull upward on the soundboard, as they
do in all true harps, but run roughly parallel.
Matanya Ophee wrote:
<<The lyre guitar did not come about because it sounded better, but
because it allowed society ladies to appear, visually, as Greek
Goddesses. >>
I said nothing about why the lyre guitar was invented, and on that you
are certainly correct. 'Greek' was 'in'. My point was that if it _had_
sounded 'better' than the 'normal' guitar, it would have survived long
after the fad was gone: it did not.
<<Without disputing the first part of the statement, which I am sure is
right, the fact remains that there are guitars which are not figure-8
shape that sound pretty damn good. >>
But they must lack something that marks the sound of the true guitar,
and is a function of the shape, otherwise they would have displaced it.
<<The English guitar and similar pear shaped bodies, and the wappen
(shield) form of guitars. >>
The 'English guittar' I built, copied from a Preston, was a cittern,
and had the 'normal' cittern shape with a couple of extra corners for
decoration, and wire strings.
Alan Carruth / Luthier
Roman Turovsky
> <<Kora is not a lute, but a harp. >>
>
> Have you seen one?
> Yes, it is played as a harp, and has one string per
> note, but it's not built like any other harp I've ever seen.
Ditto Ukrainian bandura.
RT
David Raleigh Arnold
> I have been reading that that the guitar evolved from either the Ud, an
> instrument from Arabic countries and Turkey, or the Tanbur, which was
> origianally a Persion instrument.
There's a lot of stuff about central Asian origins, but the lute
originated in a place with shipbuilding, because a lute is made
like a ship. That pretty much rules out central Asia. Ud is a lute,
actually vice versa, as lute is from the Arabic 'al oud'.
Guitar was quitar, like chitarra. Qui or chi is four and tar is string,
so a guitar for millenia meant a four stringed instrument. It's probably
from root Indo-European, which makes it a very very old word, like pinky,
five, or lachs, salmon.
>
> Which did the lute and later the guitar come from - the Ud or the
> Tanbur, or both?
The lute came from the oud in historical times. The guitar is an original
as far back as our language goes. The Greeks apparently mixed it up
with another instrument (kithara is a lyre). Happens a lot, as with
banjar and banjo. A banjar is a harp, nothing like a banjo. daveA
--
The only technical exercises for all guitarists worth a lifetime
of practice: "Dynamic Guitar Technique". Nothing else is close.
Free download: http://www.openguitar.com/instruction.html
daveA David Raleigh Arnold dra..at..openguitar.com
David Kilpatrick
>>Antony wrote:
>>
>>>So where did the guitar come from then? You haven't answered the
>>>question.
>
>
>>String lengths and tuning may 'mean nothing' today, but in the past they
>>were inextricably linked. The range of materials made for strings was
>>limited, and their quality was such that they had to match the instrument
>>exactly. Many orpharions were abandoned or converted to something else
>>when the unique German wire strings they depended on ceased to be made.
>
> This is news to, and you should post this on the lute-net.
>
Ephraim Segerman's site has all the details.
David
Antony
guitar-like instrument with the exact hand position that is used today in
classical guitar? I rmember seeing it in Bobri's book on Segovia Technique.
I saw the original in the Athens Music Museum.
"David Raleigh Arnold" <darn...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.10.21....@cox.net...
David Raleigh Arnold
> According to Summerfield the guitar developed from the Roman Tanbur a
> 4-stringed guitar-like instrument which was brought to Spain in 476 AD
> almost 3 centuries before the Moors came. From this there evolved the
> Guitarra Latina and the Guitarra Morisca . The Guitarra Latina had a flat
> back, as has the modern guitar, and the soundboard had one hole over which
> the strings passed. It was used for playing chords and was the forerunner
> of the vihuela. The Guitarra Morisca had a vaulted back, the fingerboard
> was large and the soundboard had several soundholes. It was used for
> playing melodies.
> It was these instruments that later evolved into the aristocratic vihuela
> (a six double stringed instrument tuned GCFADG ) which dominated the
> courts of Spain and Portugal during the 16th century. The four-course
> guitar (tuned CFAD - the same as middle four strings of the vihuela) was
> used mainly by troubadors to accompany songs and dancing. The Ud, which
> had also evolved from early tanburs, eventually developed into the lute
> .This instrument became very popular in England, France. Italy and
> Germany. Although related to the early guitar, because of its similar
> origins, the lute really had little part in the evolution of the guitar. I
> would say that the word "guitar" has one of three origins : 1. From the
> Sanskrit words "Git" (song)
This can't be right, because the change in Spanish from quitar to guitar
is quite recent, and in Italian it didn't change. (Chitarra). There
is no reason to think that 'tar' doesn't predate Sanskrit and Persian
languages by thousands of years. They are both satem branch
Indo-European languages. daveA
David Raleigh Arnold
"Discord" is not a musical term. It is a third string tuned
differently that makes Arab type fretting, 14 to the octave, impossible.
Almost all three stringed long necked lutes, and the "Appalachian
Dulcimer", are tuned with a unison and a fourth.
A fourth string may be added if you are willing to use fewer notes
but you want frets with the Chinese lute
tuning, 4th, maj2, 4th. That creates an octave between the outside
strings.
An Arab oud absolutely could not have frets for Arab music. When fretting
the oud, Europeans began a struggle with intonation which later finally
resolved into equal temperament, and it was the five course version that
they fretted. I doubt the tuning change waited on a sixth string. They
would desire a perfect 12th over a minor 13th on the outer strings.
The fifth string had 'spoiled the party' already. daveA
David Kilpatrick
>
> An Arab oud absolutely could not have frets for Arab music. When fretting
> the oud, Europeans began a struggle with intonation which later finally
> resolved into equal temperament, and it was the five course version that
> they fretted. I doubt the tuning change waited on a sixth string. They
> would desire a perfect 12th over a minor 13th on the outer strings.
> The fifth string had 'spoiled the party' already. daveA
>
See other posts - I am very aware that Arabic music can't be played with
frets, though Turkish baglama music is happy with added quarter-tones
and a lot of very free bending of the strings. String bends on classical
are how Turkish guitarists get round the problem; I've never heard an
Arabic guitarist.
Yes, five course instruments do generally have the short interval, as in
baroque guitar and modern timple/vihuela. But you can just get away with
five straight fourths as a reasonably easily played instrument.
I find the idea that using frets really forced the adoption of equal
temperament an interesting one. The clavichord and early
veille/hurdy-gurdy would have had similar problems but it would have
been easier to set different fret positions for each string, unlike the
lute or guitar with a single fret running across the set of strings.
Surely equal temperament must have had other impetus? If it really
developed because of problems with fretted instruments (viols, lutes,
guitars) then they must have been more important than many modern
classical musicians like to assume. There's a whole bunch of my
relatives (in professional classical music) who don't think I really
play music at all because I play fretted instruments. That one single
aspect of my chosen instruments is enough to disqualify the music from
having any value, in their eyes.
David