Portuguese guitar (cittern) as CBOM
I've been interested in mandos and CBOMs for about twenty years now, since I was in my mid-teens, and just recently came across a chance to acquire an odd CBOMish instrument I'd known of for years but never encountered: the Portuguese guitar, or guitarra portuguesa. The name is a bit misleading since it's not a guitar in our modern sense, but it's a "guitar" in the sense of the 1700s-1800s English guitar; for more confusing names, the instrument which tends to accompany the PG is very similar to a classical guitar, but in Portuguese called a viola de fado, though not at all resembling the English viola.Here's what one looks like, note that the Preston/peacock tuners are still the standard despite being obsolete most everywhere else for a century.
As to whether a Portuguese guitar is properly a CBOM, it's kind of neither fish-nor-fowl, but I think has a much better argument for CBOM-hood than any number of other Iberian double-steel-course instruments. The CBOM has a round body with a long neck, good so far. It has doubled courses of steel strings, the lower ones in octaves, so far so good. Six courses, a little more than the usual CBOM, a little iffy. The tuning is where it gets odd: Coimbra-style is CGAdga from the bottom. Huh. So it has a fifth, then a second, then a fourth, then another fourth, then a second. The fourth and fifth parts are CBOM-ish, and it's not in all fourths(ish) such as a guitar would be, but really I can't recall any other string instrument that's big on seconds other than sawmill tuning on banjo. So it's nowhere near a GDae, nor a DAda. Its overall range (in Coimbra tuning) is about identical to the (tenor) mandola, from the same C to the same A, so some parallel there of range.
The instrument's primary, arguably even sole, modern use is playing the fado genre, a style of music from the early 1800s that can be vaguely described as being a sung style somewhere between flamenco and the blues, mournful content preoccupied with fate and longing. It was originally a music for the dregs of society, played on streetcorners and in brothels by guys with switchblades and lots of tatoos. Over time it engaged in various struggles with the authorities, censorship and discouragement, but after enough decades had earned some popular acclaim, so the authorities instead bought it out, supporting the playing of fado as a very Portuguese thing to do... provided you got a performer's license, played approved songs, and literally wore the assigned "traditional" uniform for playing it. So moving into the 20th century, fado became mainstream, nonthreatening, and a national symbol heartily endorsed by the government and tourism boards. I've been to just a few performances in Portugal, and to the Fado Museum in Lisbon, and honestly a lot of modern-era fado is rather sappy and melodramatic, though still enjoyable, so I would simply love to see some performer doing reenacting of the old, dirty, edgy music. But I digress.
I'd seen the Portuguese guitar on websites and things for years, but for a long while they were hard to come by in the US, and/or pricey over here. But I've been bouncing around and find myself in Portugal for a month or so, up in Porto in the north, so my first few days here I waltzed into a really awesome music shop (Porto Guitarra), played a number of their cheapies, and walked out with a really solid nationally-made new instrument for €258, really quite a deal. Portuguese made strings in general are surprisingly inexpensive. Most everywhere has them for the mid-€200s, even like regular "electric guitars and keyboards" mainstream music shops, and even FNAC which is like the American Best Buy, an electronics and media big-box store. The absolute cheapest aren't terrible, maybe a bit muted, but for about the same price at a nicer store I found a much better make. Oddly enough, I would've expected that since cheap new ones are that price, that I could find these cheapies used for like €150 or something, but despite checking their Craigslist-equivalent (olx.pt) and a few pawnshops, I've yet to find a used one lower than a new cheapie.
So far as what I'm doing with one, with my background in mandolin, octave mando, DADGAD guitar, ukulele, and concertina: I'm leaving mine in the original tuning, and doing a vaguely DADGAD-influenced open playing on it, heavily based on using the bass C as a root, so the third fret of the A string as my keynote. Portuguese guitar is usually played with only thumb and forefinger on the right, using the nails, and generally with these odd strap-on fingerpicks, tensioned with cords and then wrapped with tape. I find the fingerpicks awkward, so I use the pads of my thumb and forefinger, but growing those two nails out a bit. Mainly playing some English trad melodies, like "The Week Before Easter/The False Bride", which fits nicely with the instrument's either parallel evolution with or descendance from the English guitar/cittern. And doing a number of Anglo-American ballads like "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still", and a few modern droney/slow pieces like "Brave Bombardier" by Boiled in Lead. I don't have a ton of desire to do fado, though I have an online manual for it so will probably try at least some basics for kicks.
So that's the Portuguese guitar, and what I as a CBOM player am doing with one. I expected at first it'd be something I messed around with a bit and then sold before moving on, but I'm thinking this one might be a keeper, or if work picks up, possibly even something I might buy a nicer one of. If you like odd CBOMs, these are really worth a try if you come across one, whether you consider it a proper CBOM, an odd cousin, or just an interesting axe.
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Originally Posted by MatthewVanitas
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