citole as father to mandolin

[billkilpatrick]

no one wants to play with me on this but have a look at these:

www.instrumentsmedievaux.org/pages/Citol20.htm

and...

www.instrumentsmedievaux.org/pages/Citol21.htm

where's a musicologist when you need one?

respectfully - bill

[Eugene]

Frankly, the citoles linked above don't seem to me to be too concerned with historic accuracy. #They look more like medieval gittern X modern mandolin hybrids. #For citole info, I really like this graphic-heavy page (http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/citole.html). #More properly, the citole was semi-/pseudo-waisted and evolved to shed the waist in renaissance and later citterns (other than a small lump as a vestigial upper bout in some early citterns). #Mandore (sometimes mandora, mandour, mandwr, or even mandoraen), mandolino, and later mandolins (as well as guitar) probably evolved from the gittern. #There is a nice summary article on the origins of citterns and guitars in citole and gittern respectively in:

Baines, A. 1992. The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. Oxford University Press.

While distantly related to citole as they are both necked chordophones, I think of the modern mandolin as the brainchild of Neapolitan makers (most notably the Vinaccias) of the first half of the 18th c. #They hybridized the mandolino (a soprano lute-like thing) with violin tuning while borrowing some construction aspects from wire-strung guitar, the chitarra battente. #This certainly is all still debatable. #(This is all the more debatable in that I am on the day job and citing things from memory. #Forgive me.)

[billkilpatrick]

dear eugene -

right. i like the rutgers citole page as well because it shows what i imagine is the truly original way to make a stringed instrument.

a guy and his incredibley fat, hairless, short legged, scab encrusted dog are sitting in a bar minding their own business when another guy walks in with a rotweiler.

"what kind of a dog do you call that?" the rotweiler owner jeers at him "that's the ugliest, fattest, poorest excuse for dog i've ever seen in my life."

the first guy puts down his beer, gives the rotweiler owner a pained expression and says "i wouldn't say that if i were you...he's very, very sensitive."

at this, the rotweiler owner starts to laugh, the rotweiler starts to growl and the guy with the fat dog picks up the fat dog's lead and starts for the door.

as they pass the rotweiler, however, the rotweiler lunges at the fat dog and before anyone can say or do anything, the fat dog parrys the rotweiler's attack, snaps open his jaws and bites the rotweiler in two.

"holy expletive!," yells the rotweiler owner "what kind of expletive! dog is that."

"well" the first guy says as he and the fat dog slowly resume their place at the bar "to tell you the truth, before we docked his tail, we used to call him an alligator."

that pertains to something but it took me so long to write it that i forgot what it was.

'night - bill