1.
Cithara
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The cithara or kithara was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the lyre or lyra family. In modern Greek the word kithara has come to mean guitar, the kithara was a professional version of the two-stringed lyre. As opposed to the lyre, which was a folk-instrument. The kitharas origins are likely Asiatic, the barbiton was a bass version of the kithara popular in the eastern Aegean and ancient Asia Minor. In the Middle Ages, cythara was used generically for stringed instruments including lyres. The use of the name throughout the Middle Ages looked back to the original Greek cithara, the kithara had a deep, wooden sounding box composed of two resonating tables, either flat or slightly arched, connected by ribs or sides of equal width. At the top, its strings were knotted around the crossbar or yoke or to rings threaded over the bar, the other end of the strings was secured to a tail-piece after passing over a flat bridge, or the tail-piece and bridge were combined. The kithara was played primarily to accompany dances and epic recitations, rhapsodies, odes and it was also played solo at the receptions, banquets, national games, and trials of skill. The music from this instrument was said to be the lyre for drinking parties and is considered an invention of Terpander, aristotle said that these string instruments were not for educational purposes but for pleasure only. The kithara was the instrument, generally known as taking a great deal of skill. Sappho is closely associated with music, especially string instruments like the kithara and she was a woman of high social standing and composed songs that focused on the emotions. A Greek mythology story goes that she ascended the slopes of Mount Parnassus where she was welcomed by the Muses. She wandered through the grove and came upon the cave of Apollo. The sacred nymphs danced while she stroked the strings with much talent to bring forth sweet musical melodies from the resonant kithara, Music and Image in Classical Athens, New York, Cambridge University Press Schlesinger, Kathleen. MMA staff, The Kithara in Ancient Greece | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved 2016-10-25 Hagel, Stefan, Ancient Greek Music, Oeaw. ac. In its recording DEuripide aux premiers chretiens, musique de lantiquité grecque et romaine, pictures of its instruments can be seen on their website
2.
Lyre
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The lyre is a string instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later periods. The lyre is similar in appearance to a small harp but with distinct differences, the word comes via Latin from the Greek, the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning lyrists and written in the Linear B script. The lyres of Ur, excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, date to 2500 BC, the earliest picture of a lyre with seven strings appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada. The sarcophagus was used during the Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the recitations of the Ancient Greeks were accompanied by lyre playing. The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed with a plectrum, the fingers of the free hand silenced the unwanted strings in the chord. However, later lyres were played with a bow in Europe, one example from Wales that has been resurrected recently is the crwth. In organology, lyres are defined as yoke lutes, being lutes in which the strings are attached to a yoke which lies in the plane as the sound-table. A classical lyre has a body or sound-chest, which. Extending from this sound-chest are two raised arms, which are hollow, and are curved both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke, an additional crossbar, fixed to the sound-chest, makes the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge, according to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo. In order not to be followed, he made shoes for the cows which forced them to walk backwards, Apollo, following the trails, could not follow where the cows were going. Along the way, Hermes slaughtered one of the cows and offered all, from the entrails and a tortoise/turtle shell, he created the Lyre. Apollo, figuring out it was Hermes who had his cows, Apollo was furious, but after hearing the sound of the lyre, his anger faded. Apollo offered to trade the herd of cattle for the lyre, hence, the creation of the lyre is attributed to Hermes. Other sources credit it to Apollo himself, locales in southern Europe, western Asia, or north Africa have been proposed as the historic birthplace of the genus. The instrument is played in north-eastern parts of Africa. Some of the cultures using and developing the lyre were the Aeolian and Ionian Greek colonies on the coasts of Asia bordering the Lydian empire, some mythic masters like Musaeus, and Thamyris were believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization
3.
Utrecht Psalter
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The Utrecht Psalter is a ninth-century illuminated psalter which is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art, it is probably the most valuable manuscript in the Netherlands. It is famous for its 166 lively pen illustrations, with one accompanying each psalm, the precise purpose of these illustrations, and the extent of their dependence on earlier models, have been matters of art historical controversy. The psalter spent the period between about 1000 to 1640 in England, where it had a influence on Anglo-Saxon art. It was copied at least three times in the Middle Ages, a complete facsimile edition of the psalter was made in 1875, and another in 1984. The other texts in the book include some canticles and hymns used in the office of the hours, including various canticles, the latter text was the subject of intense study by Thomas Duffus Hardy and others after scholarly interest in the psalter grew in the 19th century. The entire volume contains 108 vellum leaves, approximately 13 by 10 inches in size, the pages are formed by quires of 8 pages folded. There was probably at least an author portrait of David at the start, the psalter was at one time thought to be a 6th-century work largely because of the use of archaic conventions in the script. The Psalter is written in capitals, a script which by the 9th century had fallen out of favour in Carolingian manuscripts. These are now viewed as imitation rustic capitals, and the manuscript is dated no earlier than the 9th century. The psalter is believed to have made near Reims, as its style is similar to that of the Ebbo Gospels. It may have been sponsored by Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims, others have argued for a date c. 850, saying that the psalm illustrations draw from the travels of Gottschalk of Orbais, the manuscript had reached Canterbury Cathedral by c. 1000, at time a copy began to be made of it, this. The Psalter was copied in full three times in the Middle Ages, the copy being the Eadwine Psalter of 1155–60, with additions 1160–70. The last copy is a version in full colour with gold backgrounds that is known as the Anglo-Catalan Psalter or MS Lat.8846 in the BnF. This was half-illustrated by an English artist in about 1180-1200, and completed by a Catalan artist in 1340-50, the images are necessarily somewhat simplified, and the number of figures reduced. It reached Utrecht University in 1716, at which point it was incorporated into the University Library and it was rediscovered in the library in 1858. The Utrecht Psalter is lavishly illustrated with pen and ink drawings for each psalm
4.
String instrument
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String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or piano, with bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a wheel that rubs the strings. Bowed instruments include the string instruments of the Classical music orchestra. All of the string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp, in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, in most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also vibrates, along with the air inside it, the vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience. The body of most string instruments is hollow, some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, the development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country, Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four stringed precursor to the guitar and these instruments typically used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history, violins and guitars became more consistent in design, and were roughly similar to what we use in the 2000s. At the same time, the 19th century guitar became more associated with six string models. In big bands of the 1920s, the guitar played backing chords. The development of guitar amplifiers, which contained a power amplifier, the development of the electric guitar provided guitarists with an instrument that was built to connect to guitar amplifiers. Electric guitars have magnetic pickups, volume control knobs and an output jack, in the 1960s, larger, more powerful guitar amplifiers were developed, called stacks
5.
Musical instrument classification
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Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, the oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and dates from the 3rd millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. However, the Chou-Li, an anonymous treatise compiled from sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order, metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan, attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, more usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced. The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion, the scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division, but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips, many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, however, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves. Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme, for example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa also recognized the three classes in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun, a treatise on the origin. The division pervades Tboli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. This scheme was taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Electrophones, such as the guitar or electric bass, which produce sound through electricity and is required to be plugged in to an amplifier. Later Sachs added a category, electrophones, such as theremins. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category, within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, in 1932, comparative musicologist André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments. The Kpelle of West Africa also use this system and they distinguish the struck, including both beaten and plucked, and the blown
6.
Plucked string instrument
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Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to vibrate, plucking can be done with either a finger or a plectrum. Most plucked string instruments belong to the family, which generally consist of a resonating body, and a neck. The zither family does not have a neck, and the strings are stretched across the soundboard, in the harp family, the strings are perpendicular to the soundboard and do not run across it. The harpsichord does not fit any of these categories but is also a string instrument. Bowed string instruments, such as the violin, can also be plucked in the known as pizzicato, however, as they are usually played with a bow. Struck string instruments can be plucked as an extended technique. Plucked string instruments are not a category in the Sachs-Hornbostel classification, as some of them are simple chordophones and others are composite
7.
Chordophone
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A chordophone is a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points. It is one of the four divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. What many would call string instruments are classified as chordophones, violins, guitars, lyres, and harps are examples. However, the word also embraces instruments that many would hesitate to call string instruments, such as the musical bow, Hornbostel-Sachs divides chordophones into two main groups, instruments without a resonator as an integral part of the instrument, and instruments with such a resonator. Most western instruments fall into the group, but the piano. Hornbostel and Sachs criterion for determining which sub-group an instrument falls into is that if the resonator can be removed without destroying the instrument, then it is classified as 31. This is not true of the violin, because the passes over a bridge located on the resonator box. Electric string instruments often have a pickup that produces a signal that can be amplified. The electric guitar is the most common example, but many other chordophones use pickups—including mandolins, violins, when a chordophone is played, the strings vibrate and interact with each other. There is usually something that makes the sound resonate, such as the body of a guitar or violin, the strings are set into motion by either plucking, strumming, by rubbing with a bow, or by striking. Common chordophones are the banjo, cello, double bass, dulcimer, guitar, harp, lute, piano, sitar, ukulele, viola and violin
8.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
9.
Bandurria
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The bandurria is a plucked chordophone from Spain, similar to the mandolin, primarily used in Spanish folk music, but also found in former Spanish colonies. Prior to the 18th century, the bandurria had a round back and it had become a flat-backed instrument by the 18th century, with five double courses of strings, tuned in fourths. The original bandurrias of the Medieval period had three strings, during the Renaissance they gained a fourth string. During the Baroque period the bandurria had 10 strings, the modern bandurria has 12 strings. The strings are tuned in pairs, going up in fourths from the low G#. The lowest four strings are a major-third above those of a guitar and the highest two strings are a fourth above a standard guitar, i. e. G♯, c♯, f♯, b, e. Juan Ruiz first mentioned the term mandurria in the 14th century in his Libro De Buen Amor, in the early 1870s, a childs wake was accompanied with the bandurria music in Jijona, Alicante Province. The zapateo, a derived from the Spanish zapateado and introduced by tobacco cultivators from the Canary Islands, is accompanied with bandurria. The Philippine harp bandurria is a 14-string bandurria used in many Philippine folkloric songs, with 16 frets and this instrument probably evolved in the Philippines during the Spanish period, from 1521 to 1898. The Filipino bandurria is used in an orchestra of plucked string instruments called rondalla and it is tuned a step lower than the Spanish version, that is, low to high, F# B E A D G. There are also different varieties of Bandurria in South America, especially Peru. They have 4 courses, unlike the traditional Spanish 6 courses, the 4 courses are double, triple or quadruple, and the tuning is guitar-like, rather than the fourths tuning used on the Spanish type. In Lima, Peru, harp and bandurria duos were common in the early 20th century, nowadays people there still play bandurria accompanying with the popular vals peruano, or vals criollo. Although generally little known in the UK, the bandurria was used by Roy Williamson of the Scottish folk-group The Corrie Folk Trio. When this group became the immensely popular Corries, Williamson incorporated a bandurria into one of the two multi-instrument combolins that he constructed for himself and his partner. Arnel Pineda Bandura Laúd Music in the Philippines Music of Peru Music of Spain Stringed instrument tunings Sparks, Paul
10.
Archlute
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Essentially a tenor lute with the theorbos neck-extension, the archlute lacks the power in the tenor and the bass that the theorbos large body and typically greater string length provide. The archlute was used in Handels operas and like repertoire, Giulio Cesare has continuo parts labelled both arciliuto and tiorba, perhaps one player would play both instruments. Music for solo archlute is usually notated in tablature, any late Italian Baroque music with a part labelled liuto will mean arciliuto, the classic Renaissance lute being in disuse by this time. Other known composers of music were Antonio Tinazzoli, Giuseppe Vaccari. Lute Multi-string classical guitar Theorbo Chitarrone, theorbo and Archlute by Robert Spencer Archlute by David Tecchler,1725, Rome at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Pieces for archlute, Francescovedremo s channel
11.
Balalaika
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The balalaika is a Russian stringed musical instrument with a characteristic triangular body and three strings. The prima balalaika is the most common, the piccolo is rare, there have also been descant and tenor balalaikas, but these are considered obsolete. All have three-sided bodies, spruce, evergreen, or fir tops and they are typically strung with three strings, and the necks are fretted. The prima balalaika, secunda and alto are played either with the fingers or a plectrum, depending on the music being played, the rare piccolo instrument is usually played with a pick. The earliest mention of the term dates back to an 1688 Russian document. The term balabaika was used in Ukrainian language document from 18th century, according to one theory, the term was loaned to Russian, where – in literary language – it first appeared in Elysei, a 1771 poem by V. Maykov. The most common instrument is the prima, which is tuned E4–E4–A4. Sometimes the balalaika is tuned guitar style by folk musicians to G3–B3–D4, whereby it is easier to play for Russian guitar players, although classically trained balalaika purists avoid this tuning. It can also be tuned to E4–A4–D5, like its cousin, the domra, to make it easier for those trained on the domra to play the instrument, the folk tuning D4–F♯4–A4 was very popular, as this makes it easier to play certain riffs. The balalaika has been made the following sizes, Factory-made six-string prima balalaikas with three sets of courses are also common. These have three double courses similar to the stringing of the mandolin and often use a guitar tuning, although they are popular, they are generally considered to be inferior in quality to single course instruments. Four string alto balalaikas are also encountered and are used in the orchestra of the Piatnistky Folk Choir, the piccolo, prima, and secunda balalaikas were originally strung with gut with the thinnest melody string made of stainless steel. Today, nylon strings are used in place of gut. An important part of balalaika technique is the use of the thumb to fret notes on the lower string, particularly on the prima. Traditionally, the side of the finger of the right hand is used to sound notes on the prima. One can play the prima with a plectrum, but it is considered rather unorthodox to do so, because of the large size of the contrabasss strings, it is not uncommon to see players using plectra made from a leather shoe or boot heel. The bass balalaika and contrabass balalaika rest on the ground, on a wooden or metal pin that is drilled into one of its corners, the exact origins of the balalaika are unknown. However, it is agreed that it descended from the domra
12.
Bouzouki
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A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin. There are two types of bouzouki. The trichordo has three pairs of strings, and the tetrachordo has four pairs of strings and it is in the same instrumental family as the mandolin and the lute. The type of the instrument used in Rembetika music was a three-stringed instrument, the Greek bouzouki is a plucked musical instrument of the lute family, called the thabouras or tambouras family. The tambouras has existed in ancient Greece as pandoura, and can be found in sizes, shapes, depths of body, lengths of neck. The bouzouki and the baglamas are the direct descendants, the Greek marble relief, known as the Mantineia Base, dating from 330-320 BC, shows a muse playing a variant of the pandoura. From Byzantine times it was called pandouras and then tambouras, on display in the National Historical Museum of Greece is the tambouras of a hero of the Greek revolution of 1821, General Makriyiannis. Other sizes have appeared and include the Greek instrument tzouras, an instrument smaller in size than standard bouzouki, following the 1919–1922 war in Asia Minor and the subsequent exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, the ethnic Greeks fled to Greece. The early bouzoukia were mostly three-string, with three courses and were tuned in different ways, as to the scale one wanted to play, at the end of the 1950s, four-course bouzoukia started to gain popularity. The four-course bouzouki was made popular by Manolis Chiotis, who used a tuning akin to standard guitar tuning. However it allowed for greater virtuosity and helped elevate the bouzouki into a popular instrument capable of a wide range of musical expression. Recently the 3 course bouzouki has gained in popularity, the first recording with the 4-course instrument was made in 1956. This is the style of bouzouki, introduced around 1900. It has fixed frets and 6 strings in three pairs, in the lower-pitched course, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string, tuned an octave apart. The conventional modern tuning of the bouzouki is D3 D4•A3 A3•D4 D4. This tuning was called the European tuning by Markos Vamvakaris, who mentioned several other tunings, or douzenia, the illustrated bouzouki was made by Karolos Tsakirian of Athens, and is a replica of a trichordo bouzouki made by his grandfather for Markos Vamvakaris. The absence of the heavy mother-of-pearl ornamentation often seen on modern bouzoukia is typical of bouzoukia of the period and it has tuners for eight strings, but has only six strings, the neck being too narrow for eight
13.
Chitarra Italiana
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Chitarra Italiana is a lute-shaped plucked instrument with 4 or 5 single strings, in a tuning similar to that of the guitar. It was common in Italy during the Renaissance Era and it is believed to have descended from Panduras, the Mediterranean lutes of Antiquity, and to be related to north African Quitra. Its bass variety was known as Chitarrone and he also said that in latter years, when the mandola was popular, the chitarrone was sometimes confused with the mandola. Cithara Italica Chitarra battente Mandore Gittern considered ancestral to Spanish guitar, kwitra, Also spelled kouitra, kaitara, and quitra. This is a North African 4 course lute, similar to the oud, da chitarra italiana a chitarrone, una nuova interpretazione. Enrico Radesca di Foggia e il suo tempo, Atti del Convegno di studi, strumenti della ricerca musicale collana della Società Italiana di Musicologia 5. Lucca, Italy, Libreria Musicale Italiana,2001, 37–57, the theorboed guitar - the Chitarrone Francese. London, Stephen Barber & Sandi Harris, Lutemakers, roberto Meucci recently wrote about small lutes, revealing that in Italy they were called chitarra, so as not to confuse them with the chitarra alla spagnola. Sources from the early 18th Century also declare that the chitarra italiana or chitarrino is in reality a small lute
14.
Citole
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Although it was largely out of use by the late 14th century, the Italians re-introduced it in modified form in the 16th Century as the cetra, and it was possibly ancestral to the guitar as well. It was also an instrument in England, introducing the populace to necked, plucked instruments, giving people the concepts needed to quickly switch to the newly arriving lutes. It is known mainly from art and literary sources. Early examples include Provençal poetry from the 12th Century, however it was widely displayed in medieval artwork during the 13th and 14th Centuries in manuscript miniatures. The art did not show uniformly shaped instrument, but instead an instrument with numerous variations, the variety shown in art has led the instrument to be called ambiguous. From the artwork, scholars know that it was generally a four-string instrument, while paintings and sculpture exist, only one instrument has survived the centuries. The sole survivor, associated with Warwick Castle, was made around 1290–1300 and it is now preserved in the British Museums collection. That instrument contributed to a deal of confusion. It was labeled a violin in the 18th century, a gittern in the early 20th century and finally a citole, additionally, scholars have translated passages in such a way that literature itself can not always be trusted. One example cited by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a reference to the citole may be found in Wycliffes Bible in 2 Samuel vi. 5, Harpis and sitols and tympane, however, the Authorized Version has psaltiries, and the Vulgate lyrae. Whether the terms overlapped in medieval usage has been the subject of modern controversy, the controversy of citole versus gittern was largely resolved in a 1977 article by Lawrence Wright, called The Medieval Gittern and Citole, A Case of Mistaken Identity. The citole was carved from a block of wood and had a separate soundboard glued to the top. Everything else was a piece of wood that included a neck, the sides, the bottom, shoulder points. One of the most prominent features of the earlier citoles was a deep neck and this feature gradually receded as the instrument was transformed into the cittern, first becoming larger and then turning into a hook on the back of the neck. The neck itself was short, generally shorter than the length of the body, and players hands dont have to move far to reach all the frets. Another feature documented was the back which was not curved into a bowl, nor flat like a modern guitar and he used the Airtam frieze as an example but cautioned about assuming direct ancestry to this particular instrument. He took issue with the fact there was a 200-year gap between the 9th-10th Centuries Carolingian Manuscripts and the next evidence in 1198 a. d. which was a sculpture at Parma)
15.
Cittern
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The cittern or cithren is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate, played by all classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today. The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the Renaissance period and it generally has four courses of strings, one or more course being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of chord shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances, however much more complex music was written for it. Its bright and cheerful timbre make it a valuable counterpoint to gut-strung instruments, the Spanish bandurria, still used today, is a similar instrument. DUMAIN, The head of a bodkin, BIRON, A Deaths face in a ring. The leading 18th century Swedish songwriter Carl Michael Bellman played mostly on the cittern, in Germany the cittern survives under the names Waldzither and Lutherzither. The last name comes from the belief that Martin Luther played this instrument, also, the names Thüringer Waldzither in Thüringer Wald, Harzzither in the Harz mountains, Halszither in German-speaking Switzerland are used. There is a tendency in modern German to interchange the words for cittern, the term waldzither came into use around 1900, to distinguish citterns from zithers. The cittern family survives as the Corsican cetara and the Portuguese guitar, the guitarra portuguesa is typically used to play the popular traditional music known as fado. Chitarra Italiana Cithara Italica English guitar Stringed instrument tunings Gregory Doc Rossi Martina Rosenberger Musics Delight on the Cithren, John Playford. Renovata Cythara, The Renaissance Cittern Pages Stefan Sobell website G.1550 at the National Music Museum Decorated Cittern by Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, ca.1685 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
16.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
17.
Pandura
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The pandura was an ancient Greek string instrument belonging in the broad class of the lute and guitar instruments. Musical instruments of this class have been observed in ancient Greek artwork from the 3rd or 4th century BC onward, lute-class instruments were present in Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the third millennium BCE. The ancient Greek pandoura was a medium or long-necked lute with a resonating chamber. It commonly had three strings, such an instrument was known as the trichordon. Renato Meucci suggests that the some Italian Renaissance descendants of Pandura type were called chitarra italiana, information about Roman pandura-type instruments comes mainly from ancient Roman artwork. The word pandura was rare in classical Latin writers, there were at least two distinct varieties of pandura. One type was pear-shaped, used in Assyria and Persia, in this type the body had graceful inward curves which led up gradually from base to neck. These curves changed at the end off the instrument to a more sloping outline. The oval type, an instrument of the Egyptians, was also found in ancient Persia. From the ancient Greek word pandoura, an instrument is found in modern Chechnya and Ingushetia. In Georgia the panduri is a fretted instrument. The modern Georganian panduri instrument is in the tanbur class, tambouras Panduri Baglamas Mandora Bandura Tanbur Bouzouki Mandolin J. W. McKinnon Pandoura in New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments Vol 3 p 10 ed S. Sadie. Picture of a pandura, originally published 1947 in the book The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors by David Talbot Rice, henry George Farmer calls the instrument a three-stringed pandoura in his 1949 article An Early Greek Pandore. Website that has a history of Pandura with some good photos
18.
Tambura (instrument)
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The tambura is a stringed instrument that is played as a folk instrument in Macedonia, Croatia and Bulgaria. It has doubled steel strings and is played with a plectrum, the Bulgarian tambura has 8 steel strings in 4 doubled courses. All the courses are tuned in unison, with no octaves and it is tuned D3 D3, G3 G3, B3 B3, E4 E4. It has a bridge and a metal tailpiece. The instrument body is carved from a single block of wood and is therefore quite heavy. The Macedonian tambura has 4 steel strings in 2 doubled courses and it is tuned A A, D D when playing melodies based on A tonic upon A drone. It also may be tuned G G, D D when playing melodies based on G tonic upon G drone, sometimes octave strings are used on the lower course. It has a bridge and a metal tailpeice. The instrument body is often made from staves like a lute. It is played with a plectrum, playing short tones which are plucked from the top down, while playing long tones with fast tremolo. For solo playing or to accompany a singer, they are played in the traditional manner, the more modern way, which is more used in orchestras or other groups, is to play single line melodies using all courses. Both varieties of tambura have a long, narrow neck with 18 or 20 frets, the frets are nowadays always arranged in the normal Western 12 note scale, although in the past the Farkas system was also used. The Bulgarian tamburas body is rather shallow and flat, whereas the Macedonia tambura has a more rounded. Instruments of the Tamburica orchestras The mandolin family The bouzouki Tambura The stringed instrument database Atlas of plucked instruments
19.
Harp
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The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard, which are plucked with the fingers. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and Europe, Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy, different harps may use strings of catgut or nylon, or of metal, or some combination. While all harps have a neck, resonator, and strings, frame harps have a pillar at their end to support the strings, while open harps, such as arch or bow harps. Modern harps also vary in techniques used to extend the range and chromaticity of the strings, the earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer,3500 BC, and several harps were found in burial pits and royal tombs in Ur. The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be adjacent to the Near East, in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley. These murals show an instrument that resembles the hunters bow. The chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 3000 BC, around 1900 BC arched harps in the Iraq–Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. By the start of the Common Era, robust, vertical, angular harps, in the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible, while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production, such light harps were still frequently depicted, the works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as 200 BC. Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and the instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment, another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena, unlike the modern instrument of the same name, the ancient veena was a harp vice the modern lute-type instrument. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century AD show the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument, the ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there. The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day, the Chinese konghou harp is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period, and became extinct during the Ming Dynasty. A similar harp, the gonghu was played in ancient Korea, Harps are essentially triangular in shape, and are made primarily of wood. Harp strings are made of gut or metal, the top end of each string is secured on the crossbar or neck of the instrument, where each will have a tuning peg or similar device to adjust the pitch of that string. It is the distance between the tuning peg and the soundboard, as well as the tension and weight of the string, the body is hollow and when a taut string is plucked, the body resonates, projecting sound. The longest side of the harp is called the column or pillar, though some earlier harps, such as a bow harp, on most harps, the sole purpose of the pillar is to hold up the neck against the great strain of the strings. On harps which have pedals, the pillar is a column and encloses the rods which adjust the pitch of strings
20.
Viola
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The viola is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century it has been the middle or alto voice of the family, between the violin and the cello. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C3, G3, D4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style as did its names, the Italians often used the term, viola da braccio meaning literally, of the arm. Brazzo was another Italian word referring to the viola which the Germans adopted in the form, the French had their own names, Cinquiesme was a small viola, Haute Contre was a large viola and Taile meant Tenor. In the modern era, the French use the term Alto, the viola had enjoyed popularity in the heyday of five-part harmony up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music that is written for the viola differs from that of most other instruments in that it uses the alto clef. Viola music switches to the treble clef when there are sections of music written in a higher register to make the notes easier to read. The viola often plays the voices in string quartets and symphonic writing. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral music, examples include Don Quixote by Richard Strauss and Harold en Italie by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber, many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for Lionel Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Toru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, Paul Hindemith wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher. The concerti by Paul Hindemith, Béla Bartók, and William Walton are the big three of viola repertoire, the viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size violas body is between 25 mm and 100 mm longer than the body of a violin, with an average length of 41 cm. Small violas typically made for children typically start at 30 cm, for a child who needs a smaller size, a fractional-sized violin is often strung with the strings of a viola. Unlike the violin, the viola does not have a full size. The body of a viola would need to measure about 51 cm long to match the acoustics of a violin, there have been several experiments intended to increase the size of the viola, in the interest of improving the instruments sound
21.
Lute
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The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an instrument, especially in vocal works. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, the words lute and oud possibly derive from Arabic al-ʿud. Recent research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests ʿud may in turn be an Arabized version of the Persian name rud and it has equally been suggested the wood in the name may have distinguished the instrument by its wooden soundboard from skin-faced predecessors. Gianfranco Lotti suggests the wood appellation originally carried derogatory connotations because of proscriptions of all music in early Islam. Lutes are made almost entirely of wood, the soundboard is a teardrop-shaped thin flat plate of resonant wood. In all lutes the soundboard has a single decorated sound hole under the strings called the rose. The sound hole is not open, but rather covered with a grille in the form of a vine or a decorative knot. Robert Lundberg, in his book Historical Lute Construction, suggests ancient builders placed bars according to ratios of the scale length. He further suggests the inward bend of the soundboard is an adaptation by ancient builders to afford the lutenists right hand more space between the strings and soundboard. Soundboard thickness varies, but generally hovers between 1.5 and 2 mm, some luthiers tune the belly as they build, removing mass and adapting bracing to produce desirable sonic results. The lute belly is almost never finished, but in cases the luthier may size the top with a very thin coat of shellac or glair to help keep it clean. After joining the top to the sides, a half-binding is usually installed around the edge of the soundboard, the half-binding is approximately half the thickness of the soundboard and is usually made of a contrasting color wood. The rebate for the half-binding must be precise to avoid compromising structural integrity. The back or the shell is assembled from strips of hardwood called ribs. There are braces inside on the soundboard to give it strength, the neck is made of light wood, with a veneer of hardwood to provide durability for the fretboard beneath the strings. Unlike most modern stringed instruments, the fretboard is mounted flush with the top
22.
Oud
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In the first centuries of Arabian civilisation, the oud had 4 courses only, tuned in successive fourths. These were called the Bamm, then came the Mathnā, the Mathlath, a fifth string, called ḥād, was sometimes added for theoretical purposes, generally to complement the double octave. The Modern tuning preserves the ancient succession of fourths, with adjunctions which may be tuned differently following regional or personal preferences. The first known description of the ‛ūd and its construction is found in the epistle Risāla fī-l-Luḥūn wa-n-Nagham by 9th-century Philosopher of the Arabs YaꜤqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī. Kindīs description stands thus, length will be, thirty-six joint fingers - with good thick fingers -, and its depth seven and a half fingers. And the measurement of the width of the bridge with the remainder behind, remains the length of the strings, thirty fingers and on these strings take place the division and the partition, because it is the sounding length. This is why the width must be fifteen fingers as it is the half of this length, similarly for the depth, seven fingers and a half and this is the half of the width and the quarter of the length. And the neck must be one third of the length and it is, remains the vibrating body, twenty fingers. And that the back be well rounded and its thinning towards the neck, the first description of the modern oud is by ibn a-ṭ-Ṭaḥḥān. It is very similar to the construction of modern lutes, the modern oud stems most probably from the barbat which, in turn, stems from the Indian lute-type vīnā. The oud, as a difference with the western lute, has no frets. It is the ancestor of the European lute. The oldest surviving oud is thought to be in Brussels, at the Museum of Musical Instruments, the Arabic, العود literally denotes a thin piece of wood similar to the shape of a straw. Henry George Farmer considers the similitude between al-ʿūd and al-ʿawda, research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests that oud may be an Arabic borrowing from the Persian word rōd or rūd, which meant string, stringed instrument, or lute. Another researcher, archaeomusicologist Richard J. Dumbrill, suggests that rud came from the Sanskrit rudrī, the modern hosogal, l, lasga Oud is a derived from the ancient Lute. The lute originates in the crescent at least 5000 years ago. The long-necked variety also was never called a lutebefore the twentieth century, musicologist Richard Dumbrill today uses the word to discuss instruments that existed millennia before the term lute was coined. Dumbrill documented more than 3000 years of evidence for the lutes in Mesopotamia
23.
Gittern
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The gittern was a relatively small gut strung round-backed instrument that first appears in literature and pictorial representation during the 13th century in Western Europe. It is usually depicted played with a plectrum, as we can see clearly beginning in manuscript illuminations from the thirteenth century. It was also called the guitarra in Spain, guiterne or guiterre in France, a popular instrument with court musicians, minstrels, and amateurs, the gittern is considered ancestral to the modern guitar, possibly other instruments like the mandore and gallichon. From the early 16th century, a vihuela shaped guitarra began to appear in Spain - then France, although the round-backed instrument appears to have lost ground to the new form which gradually developed into the guitar familiar today, the influence of the earlier style continued. Examples of lutes converted into guitars exist in museums, while purpose built instruments like the gallichon utilised the tuning. A tradition of building round-backed guitars in Germany continued to the 20th century with names like gittar-laute and Wandervogellaute, up until 2002, there were only two known surviving medieval gitterns, one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the other in the Wartburg Castle Museum. A third was discovered in an outhouse in Elbląg, Poland. The back, neck and pegbox were probably usually carved from one piece of timber, occurring less rarely later in the 15th century, the back was built up from a number of thin tapered ribs joined at the edges, as was characteristic of the lute. Unlike the sharp corner joining the body to the neck seen in the lute, the sickle, or occasional gentle arc pegbox, made an angle with the neck of between 30-90 degrees. Unlike the lute, most pegboxes on gitterns ended in a carving of a human or animal head, most gitterns were depicted as having three or four courses of double strings. There are also references to some five course gitterns in the 16th century, although there is not much direct information concerning gittern tuning, the later versions were quite possibly tuned in fourths and fifths like the mandore a few decades later. Frets were represented in a few depictions, although absent in most French. The gitterns sound hole was covered with a rosette, similar to the lute, the construction resembles other bowed and plucked instruments, including the rebec, Calabrian and Byzantine lyra, gǎdulka, lijerica, klasic kemençe, gudok and cobza. These have similar shapes, a neck, and like the gittern are carved out of a single block of wood. Some have pointed out there have been errors in scholarship which led to the gittern being called mandore and vice versa. As a result of uncertainty, many modern sources refer to gitterns as mandoras. The various regional names used appear derived over time from a Greco-Roman origin, although when, the gittern had faded so completely from memory in England that identifying the instrument proved problematic for 20th century early music scholarship. It was assumed the ancestry of the guitar was only to be discovered through the study of flat-backed instruments
24.
Mandore (instrument)
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The mandore is a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four, six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. It was considered a new instrument in French music books from the 1580s and it is considered ancestral to the modern mandolin. Other earlier instruments include the medieval European citole and the Greek, the history of modern mandolins, mandolas and guitars are all intertwined. The instruments shared common ancestor instruments, some instruments became fashionable widely, and others locally. Experts argue as to the differences, because many of the instruments are so similar but not identical, others consider that the mandore and mandolino may have been contemporary, with different names being used in different countries, the mandolino in Italy, the mandore in France. It is also considered a forerunner or close relative of the 17th century mandola, the instrument has also been called mandora or mandola in Italian, vandola in Spanish and mandörgen, or quinterne in German. Michael Praetorius used the names Mandürichen, Bandürichen, Mandoër, Mandurinichen, Mandüraen, for an article on the bass-range instruments, see Mandora. The instrument has also mistakenly called mandöraen instead of mandörgen by modern readers of Praetorius book. However, the raen in the word is actually rgen, the error is due to a lithographic fault in reproducing plate 16, that fault truncated the g into an a. The error can be seen when comparing two different versions of the plate, the Cantigas de Santa Maria shows 13th century instruments similar to lutes, mandores, mandolas and guitars, being played by European and Islamic players. The instruments moved from Spain northward to France and eastward towards Italy by way of Provence and his Hohenstaufen grandson Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor continued integrating Muslims into his court, including Moorish musicians. Like the earlier gittern, the back and neck were in earlier forms carved out of a block of wood. This hollowed out construction did still exist in the 16th century, according to James Tyler, the method was being replaced by gluing curved staves together to form back, and adding a neck and peg box. From Mersenne, The normal length of a mandore is 1 1⁄2 feet long and it is built as a lute, with strips of fir or other wood. Cut and bent into shape to make a rounded back. The fingerboard is on the plane as the soundboard, with a bridge glued onto the soundboard. Strings are secured in the pegboard in the neck, pass over the fingerboard and soundboard and are tied to a flat bridge, the instrument may have as few as four strings or as many as six. It could also have four to six courses of two strings, the soundhole was covered with a rose, either carved directly into the soundboard or glued in
25.
Stuttgart Psalter
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The Stuttgart Psalter is a richly illuminated 9th-century psalter, considered one of the most significant of the Carolingian period. Written in Carolingian minuscule, it contains 316 images illustrating the Book of Psalms according to the Gallican Rite and it has been archived since the late 18th century at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart. The original owner or sponsor of the book is not known, the Stuttgart Psalter contains 162 decorated initials, including one at the beginning of each psalm, which show floral, geometrical, zoomorphic, and interlaced patterns and motifs. The text is written in Carolingian minuscule, the manuscript also features an array of monsters, unicorns, animals, allegorical figures, and likely the first depictions of a bellows-driven pipe organ and a green man in the early Middle Ages. The Stuttgart Psalter, Its Pre-Carolingian Sources and Its Place in Carolingian Art, the Stuttgart Psalter, Biblia folio 23, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart. Princeton, Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University,1930, the Pictorial Arts of the West, 800-1200. New Haven, Yale University Press,1993, oxford University Press, accessed July 13,2015. Trost, Vera, Andrea Pataki, and Enke Huhsmann, der Stuttgarter Psalter, Katalog zur Ausstellung vom 9. High resolution page-images of the complete Stuttgart Psalter are at Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart Images in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
26.
Plectrum
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A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, in harpsichords, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism. A plectrum for electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars, the size, shape and width may vary considerably. Thin items such as coins, bread clips or broken compact discs. Banjo and guitar players may wear a metal or plastic thumb pick mounted on a ring, guitar picks are made of a variety of materials, including celluloid, metal, and rarely other exotic materials such as turtle shell, but today delrin is the most common. For other instruments in the day most players use plastic plectra but a variety of other materials, including wood. Many guitarists also use the pick and the remaining right-hand fingers simultaneously to combine some advantages of flat picking and this technique is called hybrid picking. A plectrum of the type is often called a pick. The plectra for the Japanese biwa and shamisen can be large. Plectra used for Chinese instruments such as the sanxian were formerly made of animal horn, click on the images to view them in full size. In a harpsichord, there is a plectrum for each string. These plectra are very small, often only about a long, about 1.5 millimeters wide. The plectrum is gently tapered, being narrowest at the plucking end, the top surface of the plectrum is flat and horizontal, and is held in the tongue of the jack, which permits it to pluck moving upward and pass almost silently past the string moving downward. In the historical period of harpsichord construction plectra were made of feather quills. In Italy, some makers used vulture quills, other Italian harpsichords employed plectra of leather. In late French harpsichords by the great builder Pascal Taskin, peau de buffle, modern harpsichords frequently employ plectra made with plastic, specifically the plastic known as acetal. Some plectra are of the variety of acetal, sold by DuPont under the name Delrin, while others are of the copolymer variety. Harpsichord technicians and builders generally use the names to refer to these materials
27.
Guitar fiddle
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The Guitar fiddle or Troubadour Fiddle is a modern name bestowed retrospectively upon certain precursors of the violin possessing characteristics of both guitar and fiddle. From such evidence as we now possess, it would seem that the evolution of the guitar with a neck from the Greek cithara took place under Greek influence in the Christian East. The various stages of this transition have been established by the remarkable miniatures of the Utrecht Psalter. The next stages in the transition are concerned with the addition of a neck, all these instruments are twanged by the fingers. One may conclude that the use of the bow was either unknown at this time, the earliest known representation of a guitar fiddle complete with bow occurs in a Greek Psalter written and illuminated in Caesarea by the archpriest Theodore in 1066. Instances of perfect guitar fiddles abound in the 13th century MSS. and monuments, as for instance in a picture by Cimabue, an evolution on parallel lines appears also to have taken place from the antique rectangular cithara of the citharoedes, which was a favourite in Romano-Christian art. In this case examples illustrative of the transitions are found represented in great variety in Europe, the old German rotta of the 6th century preserved in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, and the instruments played by King David in two early Anglo-Saxon illuminated MSS. We may not look upon this type of guitar fiddle as due entirely to western or southern European initiative, its origin like that of the type approximating to the violin is evidently Byzantine. It is found among the frescoes which cover walls and barrel vaults in the palace of Qasr Amra, believed to be that of Caliph Walid II. of the Omayyad dynasty, or of Prince Ahmad, the Abbasid. The instrument, a cittern with four strings, is being played by a bear, other examples occur in the Stuttgart Carolingian Psalter, in MS. It has also painted by Italian artists of the 15th and 16th centuries. History of the violin Origins of the citole Schlesinger, Kathleen, 127–135, and the Question of the Origin of the Utrecht Psalter, pp. 136–166. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Schlesinger
28.
Byzantine lyra
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The Byzantine lyra or lira was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine Empire. In its popular form the lyra was an instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails. Remains of two examples of Byzantine lyras from the Middle ages have been found in excavations at Novgorod. The first known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, a notable example is the Italian lira da braccio, a 15th-century bowed string instrument which is considered by many as the predecessor of the contemporary violin. The Byzantine lyra had rear tuning pegs set in a flat peg similarly to the fiddle and unlike the rabāb. However, the strings were touched by the nails laterally and not pressed from above with the flesh of the such as in the violin. The lyra depicted on the Byzantine ivory casket of Museo Nazionale, the soundboard is depicted without soundholes and as a distinct and attached piece, however this might be due to stylistic abstraction. The lyras of Novgorod are closer morphologically to the present bowed lyras, they were pear-shaped and 40 cm long, they had semi-circular soundholes, the lyra of the Byzantine empire survives in many post-Byzantine regions until the present day even closely to its archetype form. The gudok, a historical Russian instrument that survived until the 19th century, is also a variant of the Byzantine lyra, the slightly rounded body of the lyra is prolonged by a neck ending on the top in a block which is also pear-shaped or spherical. In that, are set the pegs facing and extending forward, the soundboard is also carved with a shallower arch and has two small semi-circular, D-shaped soundholes. The Cretan lyra is probably the most widely used surviving form of the Byzantine lyra, currently, numerous models tend to integrate the shape of the scroll, the finger board and other morphology of some secondary characteristics of the violin. On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-42548-7 Grillet, Laurent, Les ancetres du violon v.1, Paris
29.
Crwth
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Four examples have survived and are to be found in St Fagans National History Museum Cardiff, National Museum Wales Aberystwyth, Warrington Museum & Art Gallery and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Other Celtic words for violin also have meanings referring to rounded appearances, in Gaelic, for example, cruit can mean hump or hunch as well as harp or violin. Like several other English loanwords from Welsh, the name is one of the few words in the English language in which the letter W is used as a vowel, the traditional English name is crowd, and the variants crwd, crout and crouth are little-used today. In Medieval Latin it is called the chorus or crotta, the Welsh word crythor means a performer on the crwth. The Irish word is cruit, although it also was used on occasion to designate certain small harps, the English surnames Crewther, Crowder, Crother and Crowther denote a player of the crowd, as do the Scottish names MacWhirter and MacWhorter. In this article crwth denotes the modern, or most recent, a variety of string instruments so designated are thought to have been played in Wales since at least Roman times. Continuous, clear records of the use of crwth to denote an instrument of the lyre class date from the 11th century, Medieval instruments somewhat resembling the crwth appear in pictures as far back as the 11th century, shortly after bowing was first known in the West. In Wales, the crwth long took second place to the harp in the musical hierarchy, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica mentioned the crwth in an article about transition of instruments from the lyre to plucked and bowed instruments. The crwth consists of a simple box construction with a flat, fretless fingerboard and six gut strings. The original report of that tuning, from which most subsequent others appear to draw their information, jones also states that the tuning procedure began by tightening the highest string as much as possible without breaking it, subsequently tuning the others to it intervalically. Such was not a practice in the days before standardized pitch and was, in fact. A second tuning, reported by William Bingley, features the drones tuned in octaves, traditionally the soundbox, or resonator, and a surmounting yoke in the shape of an inverted U, were carved as a single unit from a block of maple or sycamore. The soundboard, or belly, a piece, was most often made of deal or some other soft wood. Two soundholes, or circular openings about an inch to an inch, the two G strings ran parallel to the fingerboard, but not over it, so those strings were used as fixed-pitch drones which could be plucked by the players left thumb. The remaining strings, which were tightened and loosened with metal harp wrest-pins, one characteristic feature of the crwth is that one leg of the bridge goes through a soundhole and rests on the back of the instrument. Since that piece is flat, unbraced, and usually made of soft wood, all surviving pictures of crwth players show a playing position with the lower end of the crwth braced against the chest, supported with a strap around the players neck. The sound of the crwth was described by medieval poet Gruffydd ap Dafydd ap Hywel as in the hand a hundred voices, a three-stringed version also existed which required less skill and was played by minstrels. Its sound that goes well with the timbres of the harp, for all its technical limitations, the crwth has great charm, and is much more than a historical curiosity
30.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
31.
Reims
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Reims, a city in the Grand Est region of France, lies 129 km east-northeast of Paris. The 2013 census recorded 182,592 inhabitants in the city of Reims proper and its river, the Vesle, is a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by the Gauls, it became a city during the period of the Roman Empire. Reims played a prominent ceremonial role in French monarchical history as the site of the crowning of the kings of France. The Cathedral of Reims housed the Holy Ampulla containing the Saint Chrême and it was used for the anointing, the most important part of the coronation of French kings. Reims functions as a subprefecture of the department of Marne, in the region of Grand Est. Although Reims is by far the largest commune in both its region and department, Châlons-en-Champagne is the capital and prefecture of both. Before the Roman conquest of northern Gaul, Reims, founded circa 80 BC as *Durocorteron, at its height in Roman times the city had a population in the range of 30,000 -50,000 or perhaps up to 100,000. Christianity had become established in the city by 260, at which period Saint Sixtus of Reims founded the bishopric of Reims, for centuries the events at the crowning of Clovis I became a symbol used by the monarchy to claim the divine right to rule. Meetings of Pope Stephen II with Pepin the Short, and of Pope Leo III with Charlemagne, took place at Reims, Louis IV gave the city and countship of Reims to the archbishop Artaldus in 940. Louis VII gave the title of duke and peer to William of Champagne, archbishop from 1176 to 1202, by the 10th century Reims had become a centre of intellectual culture. Archbishop Adalberon, seconded by the monk Gerbert, founded schools which taught the liberal arts. Louis XI cruelly suppressed a revolt at Reims, caused in 1461 by the salt tax, during the French Wars of Religion the city sided with the Catholic League, but submitted to Henri IV after the battle of Ivry. In August 1909 Reims hosted the first international meet, the Grande Semaine dAviation de la Champagne. Major aviation personages such as Glenn Curtiss, Louis Blériot and Louis Paulhan participated, hostilities in World War I greatly damaged the city. German bombardment and a subsequent fire in 1914 did severe damage to the cathedral, from the end of World War I to the present day an international effort to restore the cathedral from the ruins has continued. The Palace of Tau, St Jacques Church and the Abbey of St Remi also were protected and restored, the collection of preserved buildings and Roman ruins remains monumentally impressive. During World War II the city suffered additional damage, but in Reims, at 2,41 on the morning of 7 May 1945, General Eisenhower and the Allies received the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht
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Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
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Guitarra latina
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The guitarra latina is a plucked string instrument of the Medieval period in Europe. It has single string courses, and it is played with a pick. This gittern or citole with curved sides is illustrated in the musical text the Cantigas de Santa Maria, alongside another gittern. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
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Charles the Bald
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Charles the Bald was the King of West Francia, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. After a series of wars during the reign of his father, Louis the Pious. He was a grandson of Charlemagne and the youngest son of Louis the Pious by his second wife and he was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia, at a diet in Aachen in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles at last received that kingdom, which angered Pepins heirs, the death of the emperor in 840 led to the outbreak of war between his sons. In the following year, the two confirmed their alliance by the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Verdun in August 843, Louis received the eastern part of the Carolingian Empire, known then as East Francia and later as Germany. Lothair retained the title and the Kingdom of Italy. He also received the regions from Flanders through the Rhineland. The first years of Charless reign, up to the death of Lothair I in 855, were comparatively peaceful, during these years the three brothers continued the system of confraternal government, meeting repeatedly with one another, at Koblenz, at Meerssen, and at Attigny. In 858, Louis the German, invited by disaffected nobles eager to oust Charles, Charles was so unpopular that he was unable to summon an army, and he fled to Burgundy. He was saved only by the support of the bishops, who refused to crown Louis the German king, and by the fidelity of the Welfs, in 860, he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of Provence, but was repulsed. On the death of his nephew Lothair II in 869, Charles tried to seize Lothairs dominions, besides these family disputes, Charles had to struggle against repeated rebellions in Aquitaine and against the Bretons. Led by their chiefs Nomenoë and Erispoë, who defeated the king at the Battle of Ballon and the Battle of Jengland, the Bretons were successful in obtaining a de facto independence. Charles also fought against the Vikings, who devastated the country of the north, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, at the Vikings successful siege and sack of Paris in 845 and several times thereafter Charles was forced to purchase their retreat at a heavy price. By the same edict, he ordered fortified bridges to be put up at all rivers to block the Viking incursions, two of these bridges at Paris saved the city during its siege of 885–886. In 875, after the death of the Emperor Louis II, Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII, traveled to Italy, receiving the crown at Pavia. Louis the German, also a candidate for the succession of Louis II, revenged himself by invading and devastating Charles dominions, and Charles had to return hastily to West Francia
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Commentary on the Apocalypse
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It is a commentary on the New Testament Apocalypse of John or Book of Revelation. It also refers to any copy of this work, especially any of the 27 illuminated copies that have survived. It is often referred to simply as the Beatus, the historical significance of the Commentary is made even more pronounced since it included a world map, which offers a rare insight into the geographical understanding of the post-Roman world. Well-known copies include the Morgan, the Saint-Sever, the Gerona, the Osma, considered together, the Beatus codices are among the most important Spanish manuscripts and have been the subject of extensive scholarly and antiquarian enquiry. The illuminated versions now represent the best known works of Mozarabic art, the work consists of several prologues and one long summary section before the first book, an introduction to the second book, and 12 books of commentary, some long and some very short. Beatus states in its dedication to his friend Bishop Etherius that it is meant to educate his brother monks. The work is structured around selections from previous Apocalypse commentaries and references by Ticonius, St. Primasius of Hadrumentum, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Apringius of Beja, and many others. Some manuscripts add commentaries on the books of Ezekiel and Daniel by other authors, genealogical tables, and the like, but these are not strictly part of the Beatus. His attitude is one of realism about church politics and human pettiness, hope and love towards everyday life even when it is difficult, and many homely similes from his own time and place. His work is also a source for Spanish linguistics, as Beatus often alters words in his African Latin sources to the preferred synonyms in Hispanic Latin. The Kingdom of Toledo fell in 711, leaving most of the Iberian Peninsula in the hands of Muslim conquerors, christians under Peylayo managed to establish one kingdom on the northern coast, protected by the Cantabrian Mountains. Beautus lived in the Cantabrian valley of Liébana, with the recent conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Apocalypse and the symbolism in it took on a different meaning. The beast, which had previously believed to represent the Roman Empire, now became the Caliphate, and Babylon was no longer Rome. Muslims are barely mentioned, except as references to Christian heresies include them, Revelation is a book about the Churchs problems throughout all ages, not about history per se. There are 35 surviving copies,27 of which are illustrated, kept at Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Held at Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Turin,214 folios,360 x 275 mm,106 miniatures Date of creation unknown. Rylands Beatus, Manchester, John Rylands Library Latin MS 8), document split up, many pages unaccounted for. Currently accounted for folios are dispersed between collections in 1) Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid Ms.2, 2) Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, 3) the private collection of Francisco de Zabálburu y Basabe, 4) Museu d’Art de Girona in Girona
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Viol
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All members of the viol family are played upright between the legs like a modern cello, hence the Italian name viola da gamba was sometimes applied to the instruments of this family. This distinguishes the viol from the violin family, the viola da braccio. A player of the viol is commonly known as a gambist, violist /ˈvaɪəlɪst/, violist shares the spelling, but not the pronunciation, of the word commonly used since the mid-20th century to refer to a player of the viola. It can therefore cause confusion if used in print where context does not clearly indicate that a player is meant, though it is entirely unproblematic. Vihuelists began playing their instruments with a bow in the second half of the 15th century. An influence in the playing posture has been credited to the example of Moorish rabab players, the viol is unrelated to the much older Hebrew stringed instrument called a viol. This ancient harp-like instrument was similar to the kinnor or nabla, Stefano Pio argues that a re-examination of documents in the light of newly collected data indicates an origin different from the vihuela de arco from Aragon. According to Pio, the viol had its origins and evolved independently in Venice, the fifth string, already present in some specimens of these violette as a drone, was incorporated into the neck when they were expanded in size. This was then surpassed by a string, named basso. Initially the family of shared common characteristics but differed in the way they were played. The increase in the dimensions of the viola determined the birth of the viol, Viols most commonly have six strings, although many 16th-century instruments had only four or five strings. Viols were strung with gut strings of lower tension than on the members of the violin family, gut strings produce a sonority far different from steel, generally described as softer and sweeter. Viols are fretted in a similar to early guitars or lutes, by means of movable wrapped-around. A low seventh string was added in France to the bass viol by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, whose students included the French gamba virtuoso. Also, the painting Saint Cecilia with an Angel by Domenichino shows what may be a seven-string viol. Viols were first constructed much like the vihuela de mano, with all surfaces, top, back, however, some viols, both early and later, had carved tops, similar to those more commonly associated with instruments of the violin family. The ribs or sides of early viols were usually quite shallow, rib depth increased during the course of the 16th century, finally coming to resemble the greater depth of the classic 17th-century pattern. The flat backs of most viols have a sharply angled break or canted bend in their close to where the neck meets the body
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Wikisource
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Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
Guitar Fiddle". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. Wikisource. "From such evidence as we now possess, it would seem that the evolution of the early guitar with a neck from the Greek cithara took place under Greek influence in the Christian East. The various stages of this transition have been definitely established by the remarkable miniatures of the Utrecht Psalter."
