Functionally more important is the question of whether a lute is fretted or unfretted. In the tunings of lutes, though fourths and fifths ( intervals the size of four and five tones of a Western seven-note scale, as C to F and C to G) predominate in many places, any given instrument is likely to be tuned differently from one location, piece, or player to another. Very often there are sets, or courses, of two strings to a pitch, so that an instrument that produces four pitches with open strings actually has eight strings arranged in pairs. Some lutes have only a single string, but the great majority have three, four, or more. Whatever the material, each string must be of equal thickness throughout its length. Most lute strings have traditionally been made of animal intestines (gut), metal, or silk, though nylon has become a common replacement for gut. (The belly of the Japanese samisen is preferably made from the skin of a female cat the wooden belly of the Puerto Rican cuatro is best constructed from wood from a female jagrumo tree that has been well seasoned and, if possible, taken from an old house.) Since the late 20th century, synthetic materials have largely replaced skin bellies. Makers lavish great attention on the choice and fashioning of material for the belly: if it is of wood, it must be selected and aged with much care and planed to a prescribed thickness if it is of skin, it must be made from only certain materials. The string vibrations of the lute are transferred to the resonating chamber by the bridge, which holds the strings above the lute’s belly the resonator magnifies the vibrations and transmits them to the air. A second subdivision concerns the shape of the instrument for instance, the lute proper has a round back, the guitar a flat one. The two different varieties of lute are distinct in sound and structure, and methods of construction, timbre, history, and symbolic associations differ markedly. Chinese fiddles (bowed lutes) tend to have a skin belly and, like the banjo, an open back. In Japan the wood-bellied lute is the biwa, and the samisen has a skin belly and back. In Iran, for instance, the wood-bellied lute is the ʿūd and the skin-bellied is the tar in the United States it is the guitar and the banjo, respectively. Historically, lutes may be subdivided into those with skin and those with wood bellies in most Eurasian cultures examples of both types exist side by side.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |