The 4 wire courses of the gittern that was a small cittern were not tuned the same as the larger cittern, but the same as (or very near to) the gut-strung guitar, though its style of playing was very different to the guitar. The gittern meaning guitar should also not be confused with the gittern (gitterne, gyttern, gyttron, etc.) that was a small cittern (cithern, cistre, psittyrne, cythara, etc.), known in England before 1550 and popular in the the 17 th century. In the 16 th century, the 4 course guitar was also known as the gittern or guiterne in England and France, so it must not be confused with the unrelated medieval gittern, carved from a solid piece of wood. So not only can the same instrument have different names in different sources, th e same name may be used for different instruments. Instead of calling the orpharion by its distinguishing name, Kircher calls it “Cythara communis”, Latin for common stringed instrument. On the right we see another example of this practice from the 17 th century, an illustration of an orpharion from Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia Universalis, Rome, 1650. Wishing to tie their music theory to ancient sources, medieval and renaissance writers used kithára / chetarah / cithara as the root word for citole, cittern, gittern, guitar, etc., or used the actual word indiscriminately for lyres, citoles, harps, psalteries, gitterns, citterns, guitars and indeed for any instrument with plucked strings. In ancient usage, the word came to be used for any plucked stringed instrument. The gittern underneath isn’t named.Ĭithara is the Latin for the Greek kithára (κιθάρα) and Assyrian chetarah, a lyre for which there is evidence dating back to the 9 th or 8 th century BCE. In this source, theĬitole is called a cithara. (Berkeley, Library of the University of California MS. An illustration of a citole in the Berkeley Theory Manuscript, written before 1361 In the 14 th century Berkeley Theory Manuscript, for example, what appears to be a citole is called a cithara. But a citole isn’t always called a citole. – we can be sure the instrument in question is a citole. If we see a medieval reference to, for example, a citole – or its spelling variants citola, cithola, cistole, citolent, sitole, citule, sitol, chytole, etc. The misunderstanding which can arise due to mistaken word association is central to our subject: names of instruments in early music can lead the unwary to make erroneous connections, so it pays to be careful. Words can also mean something very different in different places at the same time: football, fanny, jumper, pants and biscuit could be the current cause of confusion in a conversation between English speakers in the UK and the USA. And pimp: there’s another word that has expanded its meaning and usage over time. Someone in the 16 th and 17 th century who ‘pandered to your desire’ was a pimp. A man in the 1920s who had ‘a night out with his gay friend’ would be surprised at how the meaning of the phrase had altered by the 1960s. Words can change their meaning over time. Starfish and jellyfish are neither stars, jellies, nor fish. A butterfly isn’t made of butter and isn’t a fly. A ladybird, for example, is neither a lady nor a bird. The relationship between the word for something and its identity can be complicated. Lester Junior Barnard, Jimi Hendrix and Martin Carthy. Times played by Ian Pittaway, Rolf Lislevand, Robert Trent, Robert Johnson, In the late 15 th century to the present day, featuring guitar music from 1551 to modern This is an expanded version of an article originally published in 2015, with a new video.Ĭlick picture to play – opens in new window.Ī history of the development of the guitar in four minutes, from its first appearance The article is illustrated with pictures, videos and sound recordings, beginning with a short video of guitar history. This article is an attempt to slice through the fog with a brief history of the instrument, charting its development from the renaissance, through the baroque period to the modern day, based only on what can be claimed with evidence. The origins of the guitar are much-discussed and much-disputed, and some pretty wild and unsubstantiated claims are made for its heritage, based on vaguely guitary-looking instruments in medieval and even pre-medieval iconography, about which we often know little or nothing beyond an indistinguishable drawing, painting or carving or based on instruments which have guitary-sounding names.
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