1.
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
2.
Zither
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Zither is a class of stringed instruments. The word zither is a German rendering of the Latin word cithara, historically, it has been applied to any instrument of the cittern family, or an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat body – similar to a psaltery. This article describes the second variety, like a guitar or lute, a zithers body serves as a resonating chamber, but, unlike guitars and lutes, a zither lacks a distinctly separate neck assembly. The number of strings varies, from one to more than fifty, in modern common usage the term zither refers to three specific instruments, the concert zither, its variant the Alpine zither, and the chord zither. Concert and Alpine zithers are found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, France, north-western Croatia. Emigration from these areas during the 19th century introduced the concert, chord zithers similar to the instrument in the photograph also became popular in North America during the late 19th and early 20th century. These variants all use metal strings, similar to the cittern and it is not fully understood how zitter or zither came to be applied to the instruments in this article as well as German varieties of the cittern. The Hornbostel-Sachs system, an academic instrument classification method, also uses the term zither, pedal steel guitars, lap guitars, and keyboard instruments like the clavichord, harpsichord and piano also fall within this broad categorical use. The word has also used in conjunction with brand varieties of other string instruments. The earliest known surviving instrument of the family is a Chinese guqin. Increasing interest in music has brought wider recognition to these other zither family members. Many of these instruments have been sampled electronically, and are available in instrument banks for music synthesizers, some of these employed movable bridges similar to the Japanese koto, used for retuning the drone strings. The Alpine Scheitholt furnishes an example of this type of European zither. By the late 18th century, two varieties of European concert zither had developed, known as the Salzburg zither. Both styles are found in concert zithers today, although the Salzburg style has become by far the most common. The zither became a folk music instrument in Bavaria and Austria and. Viennese zitherist Johann Petzmayer became one of the outstanding virtuosi on these early instruments and his ideas were not, however, widely accepted until 1862, when luthier Max Amberger of Munich fabricated a new zither based on Weigels design. At this point the zither had reached something very close to its modern concert form, within a relatively short time the new design had largely replaced the old Volkszither throughout central Europe, particularly in the Alpine countries
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
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.
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
8.
Setar
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The Setar is an Iranian musical instrument. It is a member of the family, which is played with the index finger of the right hand. Two and a half ago, a fourth string was added to the setar. It has 25 -27 moveable frets which are made of animal intestines or silk. It originated in Persia before the spread of Islam, the satar is an important instrument in 12 muqam
9.
Sitar
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The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani music and Indian classical music. The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India and it derives its distinctive timbre and resonance from sympathetic strings, bridge design, a long hollow neck and a gourd-shaped resonance chamber. In appearance, the sitar is similar to the tanpura, except that it has frets, used widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, the sitar became popularly known in the wider world through the works of Ravi Shankar, beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The word sitar originally derived from Sanskrit words saptatantri veena, which later was called as saat taar which eventually became sitar, another source might be from Persian seh + tar, literally meaning three strings. The instrument is thought to have been a version of the Veena, another prominent instrument in Carnatic and Hindustani music, altered in order to conform with Mughal tastes. The sitar flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries and arrived at its present form in 18th century India, in his Bharatiya Sangeet Vadya, Lalmani Misra traces the instruments development from the Tritantri veena through the nibaddh and anibaddh Tamburas also called tanbur and later the jantra. Construction of the similar tanpura was described by Tansen, a sitar can have 18,19,20, or 21 strings. The frets are movable, allowing fine tuning, the Gandhaar-pancham sitar has six playable strings, whereas the Kharaj-pancham sitar, used in the Maihar gharana, to which Ravi Shankar belonged, and other gharanas such as Bishnupur, has seven. Three of these, called the chikaari, simply provide a drone, the instrument has two bridges, the large bridge for the playing and drone strings and the small bridge for the sympathetic strings. Its timbre results from the way the strings interact with the wide, as a string reverberates its length changes slightly as its edge touches the bridge, promoting the creation of overtones and giving the sound its distinctive tone. The maintenance of this specific tone by shaping the bridge is called jawari, many musicians rely on instrument makers to adjust this. The bridges are fixed to the resonating chamber, or kaddu. Some sitars have a resonator, the tumbaa, near the top of the hollow neck. Materials used in construction include teak wood or tun wood, which is a variation of mahogany, for the neck and faceplate, the instruments bridges are made of deer horn, ebony, or very occasionally from camel bone. Synthetic material is now common as well, there are three popular modern styles of sitar offered in a variety of sub-styles and decorative patterns. The two popular styles are the gayaki style sitars and the full decorated instrumental style sitars, the gayaki style sitar is mostly of seasoned toon wood, with very few or no carved decorations. It often has a dark polish, the inlay decorations are mostly of mother of pearl. The number of strings is often limited to eleven but may extend to thirteen
10.
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
11.
Mandolin
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A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or pick. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five, the courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello. There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-back has a bottom, constructed of strips of wood. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a shallower, arched back. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and traditional music, carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are used in Irish, British and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature a fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course. There has also been a type and an instrument with sixteen-strings. Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard, pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, and were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, the modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections, there is usually one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic f. A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling, Mandolins evolved from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the deep bowled mandolin, produced particularly in Naples, became common in the 19th century. Dating to around c.13,000 BC, a painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed, since each string played a note, adding strings added new notes, creating bow harps, harps. In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords, another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute
12.
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
13.
Mandola
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The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin, the four courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola. The mandola, although now rarer, is the ancestor of the mandolin, the name mandola may originate with the ancient pandura, and was also rendered as mandora, the change perhaps having been due to approximation to the Italian word for almond. The instrument developed from the lute at a date, being more compact and cheaper to build. Historically related instruments include the mandore, mandole, vandola, bandola, bandora, however, significantly different instruments have at times and places taken on the same or similar names, and the true mandola has been strung in several different ways. The mandola has four courses of metal strings, tuned in unison rather than in octaves. The scale length is typically around 42 cm, the mandola is typically played with a plectrum. The double strings accommodate a sustaining technique called tremolando, an alternation of the plectrum on a single course of strings. The mandola is commonly used in folk music—particularly Italian folk music and it is sometimes played in Irish traditional music, but the instruments octave mandola, Irish bouzouki and modern cittern are more commonly used. It is tuned like a viola CGDA, like the guitar, the mandola can be acoustic or electric. Attila the Stockbroker, punk poet and frontman of Barnstormer, uses an electric mandola as his main instrument, alex Lifeson, guitarist of Rush, has also featured the mandola in his work. Mandolas are often played in orchestras, along with other members of the mandolin family, mandolin, mandocello. Sometimes the octave mandolin is included as well, Mandolin Mando-bass Octave mandola - Tuned an octave below the mandolin Mandocello - Tuned an octave below the mandola Irish bouzouki Troughton, John. Mandolin Manual, The Art, Craft and Science of the Mandolin, united States, Crowood Press, Limited, The. The Tenor Mandola Chord Bible, CGDA Standard Tuning 1,728 Chords, Chords for Mandolin, Irish Bango, Bouzouki, Mandola, Mamdocello. — A chord book featuring 20 pages of popular chords, the Mandolin Page theMandolinTuner, a mandolin site focusing on mandolin tuning, chords and tabs
14.
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
15.
Theorbo
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For his 1607 opera LOrfeo, Claudio Monteverdi lists duoi chitaroni among the instruments required for performing the work. The round-backed chitarra was still in use, often referred to as chitarra Italiana to distinguish it from chitarra alla spagnola in its new flat-backed Spanish incarnation. The etymology of tiorba is still obscure, it is hypothesized the origin may be in Slavic or Turkish torba, according to Athanasius Kircher, tiorba was a nickname in Neapolitan dialect for a grinding board used by perfumers for grinding essences and herbs. It is possible the appearance of new large instrument resulted in jokes. Robert Spencer has noted the confusion the two names were leading to in 1600, Chitarone, ò Tiorba che si dica. In the performance of basso continuo, theorboes were often paired with a pipe organ. The most prominent early composers and players in Italy were Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, little solo music survives from England, but William Lawes and others used theorbos in chamber ensembles and opera orchestras. In France, theorbos were appreciated and used in orchestral or chamber music until the half of the 18th century. Court orchestras at Vienna, Bayreuth and Berlin still employed theorbo players after 1750, the tuning of large theorboes is characterized by the octave displacement, or re-entrant tuning, of the two uppermost strings. Piccinini and Michael Praetorius mention the use of metal strings. The Lang Romanische Theorba, Chitarron also appears to have strings attached to the bridge. The string courses, unlike those of a Renaissance lute or archlute, were often single, typically, theorboes have 14 courses, though some used 15 or even 19 courses. This is theorbo tuning in A, modern theorbo players usually play 14-course instruments. Some players have used a theorbo tuned a step lower in G. Most of the repertoire is in the A tuning. The Italians Kapsberger, Castaldi, Piccinini, Viviani, Melli, Pittoni and Bartolotti, in the French treatises, chords in which a lower note sounds after the bass were also used when the bass goes high. The English theorbo had just the first string at the lower octave, diego Cantalupi, La tiorba ed il suo uso in Italia come strumento per il basso continuo, pre-press version of the dissertation discussed in 1996 at the Faculty of Musicology, University of Pavia. Davide Rebuffa, Il liuto, LEpos, Pelermo 2012, ekkehard Schulze-Kurz, Die Laute und ihre Stimmungen in der ersten Hälfte des 17
16.
Gallichon
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The mandora or gallichon is a type of 18th- and early 19th-century lute, with six to nine courses of strings. The terms were interchangeable, with mandora common in Northern Italy and Central Europe, Mandora or gallichon generally refers to a bass lute from the 1700, with the vibrating string length of 72 centimeters or greater, used in Germany and Bohemia. It could be either single- or double-strung, james Tyler pointed out in his book The Early Mandolin that the word mandora was rarely encountered before the 18th century. Then, it referred to a bass lute. The gallichone, as it was known, was a type of 6 or 8-course bass lute used, mainly for basso continuo, in Germany, Austria and Bohemia particularly during the 18th. It was also called the galizona or galichon, Tyler disputed that it was mainly used for continuo, saying it was used both as a solo and as a continuo instrument. Modern era music was written for the gallichon by Ruggero Chiesa, other composers included the German Schiffelholtz and the Italian Brescianello. Chiesa also called the instrument the colascione, gottfried Finger suggested that it was used in Boheman musical circles. Francis William Galpin thought that the earliest versions of the colascione were initially called the Guitarra morisca, if that were true, it would take the history of the instrument back into the 13th Century, when it was illustrated as a smaller instrument in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Unique to this instrument is the neck, which is enough to allow for ten to 12 tied gut frets. The pegbox is either straight and set at an angle to the neck, or gently curving and set at a shallow angle. The strings were of gut and are strung either singly or, especially on Italian instruments, however, on German-made instruments, the first course is usually single and often has its own separate raised peg rider/holder attached to the pegbox. The number of courses varies from six to eight, open string lengths tend to be fairly long on German instruments, but shorter on late Italian ones, probably because they tended to be tuned to a higher pitch. At least 50 original instruments survive in collections around the world, examples are found in museums in Berlin, Claremont, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, The Hague, Leipzig, Milan, Munich and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg. Many of these instruments are found in a more or less unaltered state, with the former tuning, the instrument was called Calichon or Galichon in Bohemia. Around 1800, an interchange between the mandora and the guitar took place. The so-called wandervogellaute has been an heir to that development. There are about 55 sources of music in tablature, all in manuscript
17.
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
18.
Vihuela
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The vihuela is a guitar-shaped string instrument from 15th and 16th century Spain, Portugal and Italy, usually with five or six doubled strings. The vihuela, as it was known in Spanish, was called the viola de mà in Catalan, viola da mano in Italian, the two names are functionally synonymous and interchangeable. In its most developed form, the vihuela was an instrument with six double-strings made of gut. Vihuelas were tuned identically to their contemporary Renaissance lute, 4ths, plucked vihuelas, being essentially flat-backed lutes, evolved in the mid-15th century, in the Kingdom of Aragón, located in north-eastern Iberia. In Spain, Portugal, and Italy the vihuela was in use by the late 15th through to the late 16th centuries. In the second half of the 15th century some vihuela players began using a bow, the vihuelas descendants that are still played are the violas campaniças of Portugal. Much of the place, role, and function was taken up by the subsequent Baroque guitar. Today, the vihuela is in use primarily for the performance of early music, today, instruments like the tiple are descendants of vihuelas brought to America in the 16th century. Vihuela bodies were constructed from thin flat slabs or pieces of wood. This construction method distinguished them from some types of string instruments whose bodies were carved out from a solid single block of wood. The back and sides of common lutes were also made of pieces however, being curved or bent staves joined and glued together to form a bowl. Vihuela were built in different sizes, large and small, a family of instruments, duet music was published for vihuelas tuned one step, a minor third, a fourth, or a fifth apart, as well as unison tuned. The physical appearance of vihuelas was varied and diverse, there was little standardization, overall and in general, vihuelas looked very similar to modern guitars. The first generation of vihuela, from the century on, had sharp cuts to its waist. A second generation of vihuela, beginning sometime around 1490, took on the now familiar smooth-curved figure-eight shaped body contours, the sharp waist-cut models continued to be built into the early-to-mid-16th century, side by side with the later pattern. Many early vihuelas had extremely long necks, while others had the shorter variety, top decoration, the number, shape, and placement, of sound holes, ports, pierced rosettes, etc. also varied greatly. More than a few styles of peg-boxes were used as well, vihuelas were chromatically fretted in a manner similar to lutes, by means of movable, wrapped-around and tied-on gut frets. Vihuelas, however, usually had ten frets, whereas lutes had only seven, unlike modern guitars, which often use steel and bronze strings, vihuelas were gut strung, and usually in paired courses
19.
Lute guitar
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A lute guitar or German lute is a stringed musical instrument, common in Germany from around 1850. The instrument has a regular six-stringed guitar setup on a lute bowl, the instrument is associated with the Wandervogel countercultural movement in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. The name German lute is sometimes used for the waldzither. The headstock commonly ends in two styles, either a head or a curve, less commonly, instead of gears, wooden pegs may be used to tune the strings. Lute guitar headstocks are thinner and more curved than their modern guitar counterparts, while the neck of a lute guitar is very similar to that of a modern classical guitar, the fretboard design is often different. The fretboard of a modern guitar extends down over the all the way to the sound hole. However, the guitars fretboard may stop at the bottom of the neck. The body of the guitar is similar to the rounded body of the traditional lute. Several ribs of curved wood make up the back of body and these ribs are sometimes painted to resemble the traditional perception of a medieval minstrel or jester. For example, ribs may be painted in alternating colors, a modern classical guitar usually has a simply cut sound hole. Lute guitars, however, may have intricate designs carved into the soundboard, such as patterns or representational decorations such as flowers, castles. Alternatively, a hole may be cut and a pre-carved disk of wood then glued onto the inside of the soundboard, in some cases. Lütgendorff-Leinburg, Willibald von Die Geigen- und Lautenmacher
20.
Outhouse
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An outhouse, also known by many other names, is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers one or more toilets. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket toilet, the term may also be used to denote the toilet itself, not just the superstructure. Outhouses were in use in cities of developed countries well into the half of the twentieth century. They are still common in areas and also in cities of developing countries. Outhouses that are covering pit latrines in densely populated areas can cause groundwater pollution. In some localities and varieties of English, particularly outside North America, the term refers not to a toilet. Outhouses vary in design and construction and they are by definition outside the dwelling, and are not connected to plumbing, sewer, or septic system. The World Health Organization recommends they be built a distance from the house balancing issues of easy access versus that of smell. The superstructure exists to shelter the user, and also to protect the toilet itself, the primary purpose of the building is for privacy and human comfort, so that the user is not exposed and does not get wet when it is raining or cold when it is windy. Walls and a roof for privacy and to shield the user from the elements—rain, wind, sleet and snow —and thus to a small degree, Outhouses are commonly humble and utilitarian, made of lumber or plywood. This is especially so they can easily be moved when the pit fills up. Depending on the size of the pit and the amount of use, as pundit Jackpine Bob Cary wrote, Anyone can build an outhouse, but not everyone can build a good outhouse. Floor plans typically are rectangular or square, but hexagonal outhouses have been built, the arrangements inside the outhouse vary by culture. In Western societies, many, though not all, have at least one seat with a hole in it, others, often in more rural, older areas in European countries, simply have a hole with two indents on either side for your feet. In Eastern societies, there is a hole in the floor, a roll of toilet paper is usually available. Old corn cobs, leaves, or other types of paper are also used, the decoration on the outhouse door has no standard. The well-known crescent moon on American outhouses was popularized by cartoonists and had a basis in fact. There are authors who claim the practice began during the period as an early mens/ladies designation for an illiterate populace
21.
Martin of Tours
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St. Martin of Tours was Bishop of Tours, whose shrine in France became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints, sometimes venerated as a military saint. As he was born in what is now Szombathely, Hungary, spent much of his childhood in Pavia, Italy and his life was recorded by a contemporary, the hagiographer Sulpicius Severus. Some of the accounts of his travels may have been interpolated into his vita to validate early sites of his cult. He is best known for the account of his using his sword to cut his cloak in two, to give half to a beggar clad only in rags in the depth of winter. Conscripted as a soldier into the Roman army, he found the duty incompatible with the Christian faith he had adopted, Martin was born in 316 or 336 AD in Savaria in the Diocese of Pannonia. His father was an officer in the Imperial Horse Guard, a unit of the Roman army, later stationed at Ticinum, in northern Italy. The date of his birth is a matter of controversy, with both 316 and 336 having rationales, at the age of ten he attended the Christian church against the wishes of his parents, and became a catechumen. Christianity had been made a religion in the Roman Empire. It had many adherents in the Eastern Empire, whence it had sprung. Christianity was far from accepted amongst the higher echelons of society, although the conversion of the Emperor Constantine and the subsequent programme of church-building gave a greater impetus to the spread of the religion, it was still a minority faith. As the son of an officer, Martin at fifteen was required to join a cavalry ala. At the age of 18 around 334 or 354, he was stationed at Ambianensium civitas or Samarobriva in Gaul and it is likely that he joined the Equites catafractarii Ambianenses, a heavy cavalry unit listed in the Notitia Dignitatum. Jacques Fontaine thinks that the biographer was somewhat embarrassed about referring to long stint in the army and he was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service. Martin declared his vocation, and made his way to the city of Caesarodunum, where he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers and he opposed the Arianism of the Imperial Court. When Hilary was forced into exile from Pictavium, Martin returned to Italy, according to Sulpicius Severus, he converted an Alpine brigand on the way, and confronted the Devil himself. Having heard in a dream a summons to revisit his home, Martin crossed the Alps, there he converted his mother and some other persons, his father he could not win
22.
Aulos
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An aulos or tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology. An aulete was the musician who performed on an aulos, the ancient Roman equivalent was the tibicen, from the Latin tibia, pipe, aulos. There were several kinds of aulos, single or double, the most common variety was a reed instrument. Archeological finds, surviving iconography and other evidence indicate that it was double-reeded, like the modern oboe, a single pipe without a reed was called the monaulos. A single pipe held horizontally, as the flute, was the plagiaulos. A pipe with a bag to allow for sound, that is a bagpipe, was the askaulos. Like the Great Highland Bagpipe, the aulos has been used for martial music and it was the standard accompaniment of the passionate elegiac poetry. It also accompanied physical activities such as wrestling matches, the broad jump, plato associates it with the ecstatic cults of Dionysus and the Korybantes, banning it from his Republic but reintroducing it in Laws. It appears that some variants of the instrument were loud, shrill, sometimes a second strap was used over the top of the head to prevent the phorbeiá from slipping down. Aulos players are depicted with puffed cheeks. The playing technique almost certainly made use of breathing, very much like the Sardinian launeddas and Armenian duduk. Nevertheless, such musicians could achieve fame, the Romano-Greek writer Lucian discusses aulos playing in his dialogue Harmonides, in which Alexander the Greats aulete Timotheus discusses fame with his pupil Harmonides. Timotheus advises him to impress the experts within his profession rather than seek popular approval in big public venues, if leading musicians admire him, popular approval will follow. However, Lucian reports that Harmonides died from excessive blowing during practicing, in myth, Marsyas the satyr was supposed to have invented the aulos, or else picked it up after Athena had thrown it away because it caused her cheeks to puff out and ruined her beauty. But Apollo and his lyre beat Marsyas and his aulos, and since the pure lord of Delphis mind worked in different ways from Marsyass, he celebrated his victory by stringing his opponent up from a tree and flaying him alive. King Midas was cursed with donkeys ears for judging Apollo as the lesser player, Marsyass blood and the tears of the Muses formed the river Marsyas in Asia Minor. This tale was a warning against committing the sin of hubris, or overweening pride, some of this is a result of 19th century AD classical interpretation, i. e. Apollo versus Dionysus, or Reason opposed to Madness. In the temple to Apollo at Delphi, there was also a shrine to Dionysus, and his Maenads are shown on drinking cups playing the aulos, so a modern interpretation can be a little more complicated than just simple duality
23.
Tuning peg
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A tuning peg is used to hold a string in the pegbox of a stringed instrument. It may be made of ebony, rosewood, boxwood or other material, some tuning pegs are ornamented with shell, metal, or plastic inlays, beads or rings. Turning the peg tightens or loosens the string, changing the pitch produced when the string is played, a pegbox is the part of certain stringed musical instruments that houses the tuning pegs. Friction pegs are most often used on violin family instruments They are also used on instruments, such as the Bulgarian gadulka. A properly working peg will turn easily and hold reliably, that is, modern pegs for violin and viola have conical shafts, turned to a 1,30 taper, changing in diameter by 1 mm over a distance of 30 mm. The taper allows the peg to turn more easily pulled out slightly. Peg dope is a used to coat the bearing surfaces of the tuning pegs of string instruments. Manufactured varieties are sold in either a small stick, a block. A commonly used home expedient treatment involves soap and chalk, in varying proportion depending on whether the peg tends to slip or stick, Peg dope serves two different purposes. It both lubricates the peg shaft so it easily in the pegbox and provides friction to keep the pegs from slipping with the force of string tension. Tuning pegs that are fitted and properly doped will both turn smoothly throughout an entire rotation and hold firmly wherever the player wishes. Without the proper amount of friction to hold the peg in place, string instruments with pegs that are slipping can be tuned briefly, but will be out of tune within minutes as soon as the peg slips again. With too much friction, adjusting the tuning at all is impossible, if the pegs or their holes are not perfectly round, or if the bearing surfaces of the pegs are indented from wear, peg dope will not remedy the resulting problems. Pegs for double bass and guitar family instruments are usually geared, machine head Peg shapers and pegbox reamers in various tapers
24.
Rebec
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The rebec is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and Renaissance era. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body, played on the arm or under the chin, the technique and tuning may have influenced the development of the violin and the extended technique of bowed banjo. Popular from the 13th to 16th centuries, the introduction of the rebec into Western Europe coincided with the Arabic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, there is however evidence of the existence of bowed instruments in the 9th century in Eastern Europe. The Persian geographer of the 9th century Ibn Khurradadhbih cited the bowed Byzantine lira as typical bowed instrument of the Byzantines, the rebec also became a favourite instrument in the tea houses of the Ottoman Empire. The rebec was first referred to by that name around the beginning of the 14th century, though a similar instrument, usually called a lira da braccio, had been played since around the 9th century. The name derives from the 15th century Middle French rebec, altered in an unexplained manner from the 13th century Old French ribabe, a distinguishing feature of the rebec is that the bowl of the instrument is carved from a solid piece of wood. This distinguishes it from the later period vielles and gambas known in the Renaissance, the number of strings on the rebec varies from 1 to 5, although three is the most common number. The strings are tuned in fifths, although this tuning is not universal. In time, the viol came to replace the rebec, the instrument was used by dance masters until the 18th century, however, often being used for the same purpose as the kit, a small pocket-sized violin. The rebec also remained in use in music, especially in eastern Europe. Andalusi nubah, a genre of music from North Africa, often includes the rebec, the original Michael Nyman Band included a rebec before the band switched to a fully amplified lineup. Les Cousins Branchaud, a music group from Quebec, Canada. Ensemble Micrologus, an Italian medieval music group, has a member who performs on rebec, tina Chancey is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in early bowed strings like the rebec. She also plays in Hesperus, a music and folk music group. Dominique Regef is a French musician, composer and improvisor who performs on, among other instruments, giles Lewin, while being more famous for his work on violin and bagpipes, also plays the rebec in the Dufay Collective. Rossen Genkov is a rebec virtuoso and he appeared onstage with the Bulgarian band Epizod. Sisters Shirley and Dolly Collins have released a number of albums that include the rebec, oni Wytars, a European music group, often includes the rebec in their performances. Helen Johnson plays the rebec, and its relative the violetta
25.
Calabrian lira
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The Calabrian lira is a traditional musical instrument characteristic of some areas of Calabria, region in southern Italy. The lira of Calabria is a string instrument with three strings. Like most bowed liras, it is played upright, usually supported on the knee, the repertory of the lira includes accompaniment songs and songs suitable for dancing. The repertory of traditional instrument is known only through records of older players. The Calabrian lira is closely related to the bowed lira of the Byzantine Empire, the Persian geographer of the 9th century Ibn Khurradadhbih was the first to cite the Byzantine lira, as a typical bowed instrument of the Byzantines. The Byzantine lira spread westward to Europe, with evolution, authors in the 11th and 12th centuries use the words fiddle. Margaret J. Kartomi, On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments, Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press,1990 La lira calabrese, supplemento a Calabria, Catanzaro, maggio 1987, quaderno n. Libricino del cd La lira in Calabria - RLS002 - Coop, La lira, di Goffredo Plastino, Edizioni Monteleone
26.
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
27.
Lijerica
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The lijerica is a musical instrument from the Croatian region of Dalmatia and Croatian parts of eastern Hercegovina. It is a pear-shaped, three-stringed instrument which is played with a bow and it is played to accompany the traditional linđo dance from the region. The lijericas name comes from the lyra, the instrument of the Byzantine Empire which it probably evolved from. While the lijerica is most often associated with folk music. One artist who is notable for his use of the instrument is Mate Bulić, the Byzantine lyra spread through Europe westward, in the 11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lira interchangeably when referring to bowed instruments. During the Renaissance the gambas, were important and elegant instruments, lirica - tradicijsko glazbalo hrvatskoga Jadrana Hercegovački etno okret Lijerica
28.
Gudok
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The gudok or hudok is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow. A gudok usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher, all three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound simultaneously. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings under the sounding board and these made the gudoks sound warm and rich. The player held the gudok on his lap, like a cello or viola da gamba and it was also possible to play the gudok while standing and even while dancing, which made it popular among skomorokhs. Initially in the 12th century, the gudok did not have a neck for pressing strings and this suggests that it was played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails, rather than pressing strings onto the instruments neck. Later in the 14th century some modifications of the gudok had a neck for pressing strings. Russian gudok ceased to exist as an instrument for several centuries. All present instruments are replicas, based on parts of gudoks found in the Novgorod excavations. There have been attempts to revive the gudok in music. Borodins opera Prince Igor contains a Gudok Players Song, which is a reconstruction of how the gudok may have sounded. The Ukrainian hudok contained a drone tuned to a similar to that of the Ukrainian lira. In Western Ukraine, particularly in the Carpathian mountains the term hudok is also used for folk violins, gadulka - a related Bulgarian instrument Site with large photo of 12th century gudok or rebec. Gudok at the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, - Musical instruments // Wood Use in Medieval Novgorod. Edited by Mark Brisbane and Jon Hather, oxbow Books and the authors,2007. - Thirteenth century fiddles from excavations in Pskov and their investigation, stabilization and reconstruction // Proceedings of the 4-th IGOM Group on Wet Organic Archaeological Materials Conference. Edited by Per Hoffmann Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum
29.
Cobza
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The cobza is a multi-stringed instrument of the lute family of folk origin popular in Romanian and Moldovan folklore. It is also used in the Hungarian folk music revival and it is distinct from the Ukrainian kobza, an instrument of a different construction and origin. The Romanian cobza is metal-strung, and has a short neck without frets. It is usually double or triple strung, and often has a flat end clasp. The cobza is played with a plectrum in elaborate and florid melodic passagework and its strings are widely spaced at the bridge to facilitate this technique. It has a tone, most often tuned to D-A-D-G. The origins of the Romanian cobza are thought to be an adaptation of the Persian barbat or Turkish oud. A cobza player specifically is called a cobzar, notable cobza players are Ion Păturică, Ion Zlotea, Marin Cotoanță, Grigore Kiazim, Nicolae Păsnicuțu and Constantin Negel. The cobza was also played in the 19th Century by Jewish musicians from Moldova region, the name of the instrument comes from the Turkic kopuz. koboziskola. hu/
30.
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)
31.
Vulgar Latin
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Vulgar Latin or Sermo Vulgaris is a generic term for the nonstandard sociolects of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Works written in Latin during classical times used Classical Latin rather than Vulgar Latin, because of its nonstandard nature, Vulgar Latin had no official orthography. Vulgar Latin is sometimes also called colloquial Latin, or Common Romance, in Renaissance Latin, Vulgar Latin was called vulgare Latinum or Latinum vulgare. The term common speech, which later became Vulgar Latin, was used by inhabitants of the Roman Empire, traces of their language appear in some inscriptions, such as graffiti or advertisements. The educated population mainly responsible for Classical Latin might also have spoken Vulgar Latin in certain contexts depending on their socioeconomic background, the term was first used improperly in that sense by the pioneers of Romance-language philology, François Juste Marie Raynouard and Friedrich Christian Diez. These terms, as he points out later in the work, are a translation into German of Dantes vulgare latinum and Latinum vulgare, and these names in turn are at the end of a tradition extending to the Roman republic. Latin could be sermo Latinus, but in addition was a variety known as sermo vulgaris, sermo vulgi, sermo plebeius and these modifiers inform post-classical readers that a conversational Latin existed, which was used by the masses in daily speaking and was perceived as lower-class. These vocabulary items manifest no opposition to the written language, there was an opposition to higher-class, or family Latin in sermo familiaris and very rarely literature might be termed sermo nobilis. The supposed sermo classicus is a scholarly fiction unattested in the dictionary, all kinds of sermo were spoken only, not written. If one wanted to refer to what in post-classical times was called classical Latin one resorted to the concept of latinitas or latine. If one spoke in the lingua or sermo Latinus one merely spoke Latin, but if one spoke latine or latinius one spoke good Latin, and formal Latin had latinitas, the original opposition was between formal or implied good Latin and informal or Vulgar Latin. The spoken/written dichotomy is entirely philological, although making it clear that sermo vulgaris existed, the ancients said very little about it. Because it was not transcribed, it can only be studied indirectly, knowledge comes from these chief sources, Solecisms, especially in Late Latin texts. Mention of it by ancient grammarians, including prescriptive grammar texts from the Late Latin period condemning linguistic errors that represent spoken Latin, the comparative method, which reconstructs Proto-Romance, a hypothetical vernacular proto-language from which the Romance languages descended. The original written Latin language was adapted from the spoken language of the Latins, with some minor modifications. As with many languages, over time the spoken language diverged from the written language with the written language remaining somewhat static. Nevertheless, during the period spoken Latin still remained largely common across the Empire. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire rapidly began to change this, the former western provinces became increasingly isolated from the Eastern Roman Empire leading to a rapid divergence in the Latin spoken on either side
32.
Romance languages
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Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe, Africa and the Americas, but also elsewhere. Additionally, the major Romance languages have many speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas. This is especially the case for French, which is in use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of speakers are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian. Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the modern Romance languages are given, for example, Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility. Between 350 BC and 150 AD, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, Latin also exerted a strong influence in southeastern Britain, the Roman province of Africa, western Germany and the Balkans north of the Jireček Line. Despite other influences, the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of all Romance languages consist mainly of evolved forms of Vulgar Latin, however, some notable differences occur between todays Romance languages and their Roman ancestor. With only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the system of Latin and, as a result, have SVO sentence structure. From this adverb the noun romance originated, which applied initially to anything written romanice, the word romance with the modern sense of romance novel or love affair has the same origin. In the medieval literature of Western Europe, serious writing was usually in Latin, while popular tales, often focusing on love, were composed in the vernacular, for example, the Portuguese word fresta is descended from Latin fenestra window, but now means skylight and slit. Cognates may exist but have become rare, such as finiestra in Spanish, the Spanish and Portuguese terms defenestrar meaning to throw through a window and fenestrado meaning replete with windows also have the same root, but are later borrowings from Latin. Galician has both fiestra and the frequently used ventá and xanela. As an alternative to lei, Italian has the pronoun ella, a cognate of the words for she. Sardinian balcone comes from Old Italian and is similar to other Romance languages such as French balcon, Portuguese balcão, Romanian balcon, Spanish balcón, Catalan balcó and Corsican balconi. Documentary evidence is limited about Vulgar Latin for the purposes of research. Many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples, other scholars argue that the distinctions are more rightly viewed as indicative of sociolinguistic and register differences normally found within any language. Both were mutually intelligible as one and the language, which was true until the second half of the 7th century. Central Europe and the Balkans were occupied by the Germanic and Slavic tribes, as well as by the Huns, over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, Vulgar Latin, by this time highly dialectalized, broke up into discrete languages that were no longer mutually intelligible
33.
Barbat (lute)
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The barbat or barbud was a lute of possibly Central Asian origin. As a two-stringed lute, the barbat was an important instrument of the Arab Ghassanids in pre-Islamic times, many instruments such as the Arabic oud are derived from the barbat. The modern Persian Barbat is almost identical to the oud, although differences include a body, longer neck. The barbat is one of the oldest instruments in the world, according to Encyclopedia Iranica, this type of instrument could have been introduced by the Kushans and was later adopted by the Persians. By the 7th century, the barbat was developed by the Sassanid Persians into a rud which after the Islamic Conquest of Persia was Arabized into its current form, after the tanbur, it is the oldest string instrument in Iran. The instrument was abolished in the Safavid period for an unknown reason and it is possible that the earliest ouds were carved from a solid piece of wood in a similar manner to the barbat. By the time of the Moorish period in Spain, the body was in its characteristic staved wood vaulted back design. After the instrument was taken to the Arab world, the body became larger as a result of the new method of construction. In all matters of holding and playing it is recommended that the player use only the muscles needed for any task and to relax as much as possible. This will allow one to play longer, easier and to put the effort into creativity rather than mechanics. In the past many players sat cross-legged on a rug, but now most perform sitting, two methods of left hand fingering are in current usage. Hakki Obadia taught a fingering system that uses finger 1 for several notes, finger 2 for some, but not all strings and finger 3. Another important facet of left hand technique is the employment of the fingernail to help stop the string, giving a clearer tone and this is common to several other fretless instrument, among them the sarod, shamisen and san-xien. As mentioned the right hand employs a method for holding the quill-inspired pick called risha in Arabic. The long flexible pick puts the wrist at a particular angle, the traditional material was an eagle quill, but this is not practical, plastic makes a more durable and standard material for the risha. Players have used things like collar stays, plastic pieces from hardware stores, cut-up plastic bottles and these come in a thin, more-or-less pointed tip style made of lighter gauge translucent plastic and a round tip model made of heavier white opaque stock. The thinner ones are lovely sounding and play very delicately with subtle nuances, variations can be obtained by cutting a new tip on the thinner ones a bit further back where the plastic is a little thicker, adding volume to the attack. The rounded ones can be cut to a shape and thinned a fraction with fine sandpaper adding nuance to the heavier attack produced by this pick
34.
Pamplona Cathedral
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The Pamplona Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the archdiocese of Pamplona, Spain. The current 15th century Gothic church replaced an older Romanesque one, archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of other two previous churches. The Neoclassical façade was designed by Ventura Rodríguez in 1783 and it has a 13th-14th-century Gothic cloister, that gives access to two other Gothic rooms, the Barbazan chapel and the refectory. The Mediaeval kings of Navarre were crowned there and some of them were also buried, the Navarrese Cortes was held there even during the early modern ages. The site of the cathedral is the oldest part of the Roman Pompaelo, archaeological excavations in 1994 have revealed streets and buildings from the 1st century BC. The oldest cathedral was demolished in 924 during the invasion of Abd-al-Rahman III, during the reign of Sancho III the church was reconstructed. That church was demolished from 1083 to 1097, and the Romanesque cathedral was built from 1100 to 1127 and it collapsed in 1391, with only the façade remaining. The building of the current Gothic church began in 1394 and lasted to 1501, the floorplan is cruciform with ambulatory, a central nave and four shorter aisles, all covered by partially polycromed rib vault. The style is influenced by French models. The sculpture of the interior includes the sepulchre of Charles III of Navarre and spouse, by Jehan Lome de Tournai, and the image of Royal Saint Mary, the choir, with its Renaissance choir stalls, is separated from the nave by a Gothic iron grating. There was a Renaissance retable in the presbytery, now in the church of Saint Michael in Pamplona, in the lateral chapels there are two Gothic retables, one Italian Renaissance retable, one late Renaissance retable, and five Baroque retables. Probably, the most outstanding element of the cathedral is its 13th century cloister, as the temple, the style followed the French Gothic architecture, and the sculptural decoration is very rich. The door that gives access from the shows the Dormition of the Virgin. The Barbazan chapel—named after the Pamplonese bishop buried there, Arnaldo de Barbazán—is covered by a Gothic eight-rib vault, the so-called Precious Door gives access to the ancient canons dormitory and shows a complete sculptural story of the Virgin Marys life. There are several burials, Bishop Miguel Sánchez de Asiáins, Viceroy of Navarre Count of Gages. The lavatory is closed by a grid whose iron is said to be from the battle of Navas de Tolosa, another decorated Gothic door gives access to the old kitchen and the refectory. The former canons rooms house the Diocesan Museum, the main room is a 14th-century rib-vault covered refectory. The adjacent kitchen is covered by a pyramidal stone-built chimney. D, 500-1200, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Pamplona Cathedral
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Iberian Romance languages
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Originating in Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Galician. These languages also have their own regional and local dialects, like all Romance languages, the Iberian Romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin was the form of the Latin language spoken by soldiers. With the expansion of the empire, Vulgar Latin came to be spoken by inhabitants of the various Roman-controlled territories, Latin and its descendants have been spoken in Iberia since the Punic Wars, when the Romans conquered the territory. The modern Iberian Romance languages were formed roughly through the following process, the diversification of Latin spoken in Iberia, with slight differences depending on location. Development of Old Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese and Navarro-Aragonese and early Catalan language from Latin between the eighth and tenth centuries, the genetic classification of early Catalan and Occitan is uncertain. Some scholars place it within Ibero-Romance, others place it within Gallo-Romance, further development into modern Castilian, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, etc. between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. Politically, there are four major officially recognised Iberian Romance languages, Spanish, sometimes known as Castilian, is the national and official language of 21 countries, Spanish is the second-most widely spoken native language in the world, and the third-most widely spoken. It has a number of dialects and varieties, Portuguese, official language in eight countries including Portugal. After Spanish, Portuguese is the second most widely spoken Romance language in the world with over 250 million speakers, various Portuguese dialects exist outside of the European standard spoken in Portugal. Catalan is the language in Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Valencian Community. It is also spoken in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales without official recognition, Catalan is closely related to Occitan, with the two languages having been treated as one in studies by Occitanist linguists. When not treated as one, the two languages are classified together as Occitano-Romance languages, a group which is itself sometimes grouped with the Gallo-Romance languages. Galician, co-official in Galicia and also spoken in adjacent western parts of Asturias and Castile, closely related to Portuguese, but also Spanish. It shares origins with Portuguese, from the medieval Galician-Portuguese, modern Galician is spoken by around 3.2 million people and is ranked 160th by number of speakers. Additionally, the Asturian language, although not a language, is recognised by the autonomous community of Asturias. In Portugal, Mirandese, which, like Asturian, is one of the Astur-Leonese languages, has official status in the northernmost part of the country, the Iberian Romance languages are a conventional group of Romance languages. Many authors use the term in a geographical sense although they are not necessarily a phylogenetic group
36.
Warwick Castle
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Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from an original built by William the Conqueror in 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a bend of the River Avon, the original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified and it was used as a stronghold until the early 17th century, when it was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I in 1604. Greville converted it to a house and it was owned by the Greville family. In 2007, the Tussauds Group merged with Merlin Entertainments, which is the current owner of Warwick Castle, Warwick Castle is situated in the town of Warwick, on a sandstone bluff at a bend of the River Avon. The river, which runs below the castle on the east side, has eroded the rock the castle stands on, the river and cliff form natural defences. When construction began in 1068, four belonging to the Abbot of Coventry were demolished to provide room. The castles position made it important in safeguarding the Midlands against rebellion. During the 12th century, King Henry I was suspicious of Roger de Beaumont, to counter the earls influence, Henry bestowed Geoffrey de Clinton with a position of power rivalling that of the earl. The lands he was given included Kenilworth – a castle of comparable size, cost, Warwick Castle is about 1.6 kilometres from Warwick railway station and less than 3.2 kilometres from junction 15 of the M40 motorway, it is also close to Birmingham Airport. An Anglo-Saxon burh was established on the site in 914, with fortifications instigated by Ethelfleda, the burh she established was one of ten which defended Mercia against the invading Danes. Its position allowed it to dominate the Fosse Way, as well as the river valley, though the motte to the south-west of the present castle is now called Ethelfledas Mound, it is in fact part of the later Norman fortifications, and not of Anglo-Saxon origin. After the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror established a castle at Warwick in 1068 to maintain control of the Midlands as he advanced northwards. Building a castle in a settlement could require demolishing properties on the intended site. In the case of Warwick, the least recorded of the 11 urban castles in the 1086 survey, a motte-and-bailey castle consists of a mound – on which usually stands a keep or tower – and a bailey, which is an enclosed courtyard. William appointed Henry de Beaumont, the son of a powerful Norman family, in 1088, Henry de Beaumont was made the first Earl of Warwick. He founded the Church of All Saints within the walls by 1119. According to the Gesta Regis Stephani, a 12th-century historical text, Henry later returned the castle to the Earls of Warwick as they had been supporters of his mother, Empress Matilda, in The Anarchy of 1135–1154
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Juan Bermudo
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Juan Bermudo, O. F. M. was a Spanish Friar Minor who is best known as a composer, music theorist and mathematician. Bermudo entered the Franciscan Order in 1525, belonging to the Province of Andalusia and he was subsequently sent to study at the University of Alcalá, where he resided at the College of Saint Peter and Paul, for friars studying at the University. He then dedicated his energies to preaching to the people of that region, the esteem he gained from the other friars of the province can be seen in his election on 24 June 1560 as a Definitor of the province. A subsequent long period of illness led Bermudo to retire from his service as a preacher, during his convalescence, he began to read various manuscripts of musical theory and began to develop his untrained, native talents in this art. Bermudos first published work resulting from his studies was his Libro primero de la Declaración de instrumentos and it was followed the subsequent year by Comiença el Arte Tripharia. Treatises,1549 Libro primero de la Declaración de instrumentos musicales, Music for vihuela, Mira nera de Tarpeya. Organ works, Conditor alme siderum, Ave maris stella, Vexilla regis prodeunt a 5, free scores by Juan Bermudo at the International Music Score Library Project
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John Playford
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He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651. Playford was born in Norwich, the son of John Playford. He served an apprenticeship with publisher John Benson from 1639/40 to 1647, Playford was clerk to the church, and probably resided with his wife Hannah over the shop until 1659. He was, it temporarily in partnership with John Benson in 1652. Under the Commonwealth, and for years of Charles IIs reign. His shop was the meeting-place of musical enthusiasts, Samuel Pepys was a frequent customer, bookseller, publisher, and member of the Stationers Company, Playford published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651 and this work contains both the music and instructions for English country dances. This came about after Playford, working as a war correspondent, was captured by Cromwells men and told that, if he valued his freedom, although many of the tunes in the book are attributed to him today, he probably did not write any of them. Most were popular melodies that had existed for years, during the Restoration period, on the other hand, he endeavoured to encourage serious tastes. In 1662 he dedicated the Cantica Sacra to Queen Henrietta Maria, in typographical technique Playfords most original improvement was the invention in 1658 of the new-tyd note. Hawkins observes that the Dutch printers were the first to follow the lead in this detail, in 1665 he caused every semibreve to be barred in the dance tunes, in 1672 he began engraving on copper plates. Playfords printers were, Thomas Harper, 1648–1652, William Godbid, 1658–1678, Ann Godbid and her partner, John Playford the younger, 1679–1683, John Playford alone, 1684-1685. By 1665 Playford and his wife moved from the Temple to a house opposite Islington Church. By November 1680, Playford had established himself in a house in Arundel Street near the Thames side and he suffered from a long illness in that year, and retired, leaving the main running of the business to his son Henry. He brought out, in his own name, a collection of catches in 1685 and he apparently died in Arundel Street about November 1686. His will was written on 5 Nov.1686, neither signed nor witnessed, and only proved in August 1694 and he was probably buried in the Temple Church as he desired, although the registers do not record his name. Henry Purcell and John Blow attended the funeral, several elegies upon his death were published, one written by Nahum Tate, and set to music by Henry Purcell, appeared in 1687. After Playfords death, his surviving son, Henry Playford carried on the business at the shop near the Temple Church
39.
English guitar
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The English guitar or guittar, is a stringed instrument – a type of cittern, which was popular in many places in Europe from around 1750–1850. The instrument was known in Norway as a guitarre and France as cistre or guitarre allemande. There are many examples in Norwegian museums, like the Norsk Folkemuseum and British, including the Victoria, the English guitar has a pear-shaped body, a flat base, and a short neck. The instrument is related to the Portuguese guitar and the German waldzither. Early examples had tuning pegs, but many examples have what are commonly referred to now as Preston tuners. It usually had ten strings in a repetitive open C tuning, of which the highest eight are paired in four courses, C E GG cc ee gg. The English guitar may have influenced the development and tuning of the Russian guitar, which has seven strings tuned to open G in thirds with two fourths, D, G, B, D, g, b, d
40.
Geoffrey Chaucer
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Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was the first poet to be buried in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, among his many works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales, Chaucers work was crucial in legitimizing the literary use of the Middle English vernacular at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime around 1343, though the precise date and his father and grandfather were both London vintners, several previous generations had been merchants in Ipswich. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffreys father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure. In the City Hustings Roll 110,5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Geoffrey Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the Kings Works. In 1359, in the stages of the Hundred Years War, Edward III invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeths husband. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims, Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum, and Chaucer was released. After this, Chaucers life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward IIIs queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford and it is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had a career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France. Thomass daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk, thomass great-grandson, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffreys other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IVs coronation, Chaucers Treatise on the Astrolabe was written for Lewis. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple at this time and he became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment and he travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, two other literary stars of the era were in attendance, Jean Froissart and Petrarch
41.
Great Vowel Shift
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The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1600. Through the Great Vowel Shift, all Middle English long vowels changed their pronunciation, English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist and Anglicist, the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English in the year 1400 and Modern English is in the value of the long vowels. Long vowels in Middle English had continental values, much like those in Italian and Standard German, the change in pronunciation is known as the Great Vowel Shift. This timeline shows the vowel changes that occurred between late Middle English in the year 1400 and Received Pronunciation in the mid-20th century by using representative words. The Great Vowel Shift occurred in the half of the table. The changes that happened after 1600 are not usually considered part of the Great Vowel Shift proper, Pronunciation is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet, Before the Great Vowel Shift, Middle English in Southern England had seven long vowels, /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/. The vowels occurred in the bite, meet, meat, mate, boat, boot. The words had very different pronunciations in Middle English from their pronunciations in Modern English. In addition, Middle English had a long /ɛː/ in beat, like modern short e in bed but pronounced longer, after around 1300, the long vowels of Middle English began changing in pronunciation. The two close vowels, /iː uː/, became diphthongs, and the five, /eː ɛː aː ɔː oː/. The changes are known as the Great Vowel Shift and they occurred over several centuries and can be divided into two phases. The first phase affected the close vowels /iː uː/ and the close-mid vowels /eː oː/, /eː oː/ were raised to /iː uː/, and /iː uː/ became the diphthongs /ei ou/ or /əi əu/. The second phase affected the open vowel /aː/ and the open-mid vowels /ɛː ɔː/, /aː ɛː ɔː/ were raised, the Great Vowel Shift changed vowels without merger so Middle English before the vowel shift had the same number of vowel phonemes as Early Modern English after the vowel shift. After the Great Vowel Shift, some vowel phonemes began merging, immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as /miːt/. This is a picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English and todays English. Pronunciations in 1400,1500,1600, and 1900 are shown, to hear recordings of the sounds, click the phonetic symbols. Before labial consonants and also after /j/, /uː/ did not shift, the first phase of the Great Vowel Shift affected the Middle English close-mid vowels /eː oː/, as in beet and boot, and the close vowels /iː uː/, as in bite and out
