Re: Tunings?
Well, I don't think we will ever know with certainty how tunings developed, but I'd hazard a guess that as music evolved toward a system of scales and chords, at least in Europe and surrounding areas, instrument tunings reflected that evolution. It would make sense to be able to play a scale, or a series of scales, with the "fretting" hand in a single position, which would suggest intervals like thirds, fourths and fifths. It would also assist in making chords, with the standard Western root/third/fifth profile, if strings were tuned and positioned to make this comfortable.
As to the overall tuning range -- how high or how low the strings are pitched, as opposed to their relative tunings -- instrument size and the desired "voice" of the instrument would be determinative. Treble, mid-range, bass instruments would need to be of different sizes and have different tuning ranges, pretty clearly.
There have been past instruments with extremely extended necks, or with a large number of strings tuned at close intervals, but they haven't survived except as ethnically specialized, or "retro" re-creations of earlier eras. And of course we are talking mainly about instruments with "necks" that allow string pitches to be varied through fretting or stopping the strings at different intervals. In contrast, most zither-family (un-necked) instruments, the ones that don't allow stopping of strings -- from the Autoharp to the piano -- are tuned in either chromatic or diatonic scales, in ranges that comport with their sizes and desired "voices."
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
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